Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1857-06-12
The Late Riot at Washington.

We published last week the facts and
comments appearing in the Washington
papers relative to the serious disturbance
that occurred in that city on the day of
the late municipal election. Without
exception those papers laid the guilt of
the disorder and bloodshed at the doors
of the "Plug Ugly rowdies from Balti-
more City and their instigators in Wash
ington who had engaged their services
for the occasion.
Since then, we have seen extracts up
on the subject from leading papers in all
parts of the country, American as we'll
as Democratic, visiting the sin of this
outrage upon its proper authors, exposing
its enormity, and commencing the ma
tional and municipal authorities for the
vigorous measures adopted to suppress it.
BY the light of just sentiment and
patriotic feeling which these extracts
emit, how contemplate appears the wan
ton effort of certain petty Know-nothing
sheets to cover up the misdeeds of their
Plug Ugly" confederates by fabulous
suggestions and downright falsehood -
Some of the latter, under pretence of
having received information from relia-
BILE persons resident at Washington, have
attempted to justify the Baltimore des-
perados and their Washington employers
upon the ground that their action was
called for by the visit of certain mem
bers of Baltimore Democratic Club to
take part in the Washington election,
while others assert that Mayor MAeRu-
DER was drunk and utterly unconscious
Of what he was doing As to the for
mer, it was purely an afterthought, and
a very ridiculous one at that; for had
the Empire Club" Of Baltimore, rep
resented to be such desperate set of
cut-throats, been present on the occasion,
it is not very probable they could have
kept so completely in the dark that the.
keen olfactories Of the veteran "Intelli-
gencer" would not have scented them
out We have no idea of the source
whence our neighbors derived their in
formation, but we can assure them that,
being in Washington on Monday last,
we met with no man Of any party who
had the most distant idea that any citi-
zen of Baltimore, save the graceless
gang CT "Plug Uglies," was directly or
indirectly responsible for the scene then
and there enacted.
Respecting the charge Of drunkenness
laid to Mayor MAdRUDER, it is falsiied
by MS course &C conduct throughout the
sad affair. especially by the prudent mo-
nitions again and again addressed by him
to the mob before they were fred upon
by the soldiery. If he had been drunk,
it is not very likely that he would have
waited as long as he did and exhortcd
and entreated the rioters to disperse, be-
fore he ordered the marines to fire, which
he did not do until the plugs we're
discharging their revolvers in every d.
rection.
We may be doing injustice to DR.. Ma
oRuDER, by noticing this silly scandal
of him, but our object is to counterfeit
any erroneous impression that may have
been made upon the minds of any Of our
people in relation to the circumstances
attendant upon the disgraceful outbreak
at Washington. So far from the Mayor
being prejudiced by the part he took in
the restoration of order, we are satisfied
from the expression of sentiment we met
with on Monday last in Washington,
that, were the election for Mayor to take
place tomorrow, he would be reelected
to that office by a majority far outnum-
bering that of the Democratic candidates
on the first instant