The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-09-27
Who's to Blame7


Last Tuesday night witnessed most
disgraceful tumult on Canal street. A
prominent place of refreshment for citizens
passing along that thoroughfare was forced
to close its doors to prevent the ingress of
turbulent mob of negroes, and with
barely time enough to succeed in doing SO
before it would have been too late.
Before the windows can be secured with
shutters, the plate-glass is shattered to
atoms, and everything within reach-wines,
liqueurs, etc.-is seized upon by the assail-
ants. At the same time, according to the
testimony of the proprietor of the estab-
lishment, q pistol shot-the first one-is
fred through the window at one of his
clerks. Immediately, several more shots
are fred by the mob at his house, especially
at q party of several ladies and gentlemen
on an upper gallery. One of these shots
passes within an inch or two of the face of
one of the ladies, daughter of an eminent
citizen of this city, causing her to faint
away SO alarmingly rs to require medical
aid before restoration of sensibility.
The firing of pistols is continued for some
minutes, at the termination of which one
man is found killed, and several men and
women wounded In the meantime, the
excitement becomes general, people gather
in crowds on Canal street, and general
riot becomes imminent.
There is a bold assertion, made by the
Republican journal, that the first shot was
fred from the upper gallery, where the
ladies aud gentlemen were seated, and that
good deal of the subsequent firing was
done by white men.
That gentlemen, so situated, would COM
mence melee, or that SO considerable
number of shots could be fred at dense
mass of men without producing great de-
struction of life, could hardly be believed,
even though there were no positive contra
dictory testimony.
But with those who saw how very few
white people were in the immediate vicinity
of the negro procession at the moment !;
white men near the scene, they being
totally unarmed; who knew that two or
three white clubs were, at the moment,
listening to an Grafton from the porch of
the ST. Charles Hotel, on st. Charles street,
about two squares from the assaulted
house; that some of the youths belonging
to one of these clubs proceeded to Cana!
street and approached the scene of tumult
unarmed, and were forced to beat hasty
retreat when they ascertained the real
state of the case, the Republicans account
of the first shot and subsequent firing does
not obtain q moments credence.
But, however this may be, the affray
was begun before the firing of single shot.
Every journal and all parties agree that it
commenced in an onslaught made by some
negroes belonging to the procession upon a
white man who was hurrahing for Seymour
and Blair. The Republican journal insists
that the young man was arrested by a
police officer, and that the negroes left the
procession to assist the officer.
This makes no difference. The hurrah-
ing for Seymour and Blair afforded no good
reason for an assault upon the young man,
much less for the destruction of Mr.. Du-
monteiPs windows and the appropriation
of his wines and CONNECTIONS.
1t has always been customary for political
professions in the United States to he sal
uted with an occasional cheer for their OPP
poncnts from some enthusiastic partisan of
the other side. The result generally has
been that the minority hurrah is drowned
by the vociferation which it occasions on
the part of the majority. In fact, this out
rage perpetrated by the negroes, was gross,
wanton, and exceedingly insolent. Their
morbid sensibility to affront has grown too
rapidly, in having already gotten so much
more delicate than that of their late mas
tiers, while, at the same time, they have
made no progress whatever in rising above