Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-08-01

Ehe SACK ell house.
On the Sunday following the great riots in
New York, Rev. o. b. rockingham preached
sermon in which he mado the following ref
ference to the sacking of the home of Mr. J.
5. Gibbons -
The dwelling was one the like of which is
rare in any city-a dwelling of happiness and
peace-a home of the tenderest donestic af-
fectations-a house of large friendlness and
hospitallty-a refuge and abiding place for
the unfortunate and the outcast. There was
no display of wealth there-there was no
wealth to display; yet the house was full of
things which no wealth could buy. 1t was
crowded with mementOes. The pieces of fur
niture in the rooms had family histories con-
nected with them; chairs and tables were
precious from associations with noble aud
rare people who had gone. Pictures ON the
walls, busts in the parlors, engravings, pho
tographs, books, spoke of the gratitude or love
of some dear giver. One room was sacred to
the memory Of a noble boy, an only son, who
died some years ago. There was his bust in
marble, there were his books, there were the
prints he liked, the little bits of art he was
fond Of, and all the dear things that seemed
to bring him back. The whole house was a
shrine and sanctuary.
!'And who were the inmates? The master,
a man whose sympathes were always and
completely with the working people, man of
steady and boundlesS humanity. The mis-
tress, a woman whose name is familiar to all
doors of good deeds in the city of New York.
and dear 10 hundreds of the objects of good
deeds. TO the orphan, and fricndlcss, and
poor, IL mother; to the unfortunate, a sister;
to the wretched, the depraved, the sinful,
more than a friend. In the city prison her
presence was the presence OF an angel of pity
ing love; al Blackwclls Island she was wei
come as spirit OF peace and hope. The boys
at Randalfs Island looked into her face as the
face of a mother. Again and again had she
rescued from the life of shame the country
woman, and possibly the kindred of the very
people who plundered her house. For the
better part of Il year and more she has been in
camp, and city hospitals, nursing their BROTH
erS and sons, performing every mental Office
At this moment she is at Point Lookout do
ing that work. amid discomforts and diScour-
agemcnts that would daunt Il loss resolute hui
manity than hers, giving all she has and is to
the people, to the wounded crippled, bleeding
and broken people; giving it for the sake of
the people--glving it that the people may be
raised to a higher social level! And she, for
So0th must be selected to have her house pill
laged! She must be stabbed to her heart of
hearts, stabbed through and through in every
one of her affections, by these people for
whom her life had been perpetual process of
dying! Why, if they Mad known this that |
have been telling you, or but tenth part of
it, those men would have defended with their
bodies every thread of the carpets she trod
on But So it is, and so it must be Only
the best names are ever taken i'll vain on hui
man lips. and they are so taken because they
are the best; and best is worst to those who
can not understand it,
Mr.. Gibbons himself gives the following ac-
count of the ruin the mob left behind them:
No person was in the house at the time of
the assault. Seeing no appearance of the
mob in the immediate vicinity, | had walked
over to Broadway to get an evening paper.
On my return h0meward, in about forty min
utes, [ found that the house had been broken
open, and fired in several places, and was al
ready halt sacked. 1t was in the hands of
thousand thieves. | passed in and up stairs
to see whether anything could be done to clear
them out, but found it impossible, and retired.
The lower doors and windows were all broken
in, and all the interior rooms and closet doors,
with two or three exceptions.
Everything portable was carried off-beds,
bedding, all the bureau drawers ana the Hgnter
bureaus, tables, and even the CRATE pans and
last kitchen pot. Of twenty-hv hundred
volumes, the accumulation of thirty years,
not a single book was left IN the house. OF
the furniture that was too heavy to carry off,
one small piece only was left unmutiated by
axes. Nearly all the glass and much of the
sash work was destroyed. The stair bannis-
tiers and marble mantels were chopped down.
All the gas fixtures were twisted off, and most
of the water faucets. The .Croton pipe was
pounded up in the cellar. to cut off the water,
that the fire might not be extinguished, and
but for the neighbors, who, at the peril Of life,
brought in buckets from their own houses, the
place would have been burned. A piano was
broken into fragments, and even sliding doors
pulled out and their panels split. The lower
parts Of several heavy bureaus, and portions
of several bedsteads and tables were left in
the house, and nothing more.