Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-14
THO Ornnge Rio1.

In our comments yesterday upon the New
York riot we gave too much praise to the con-
duct of the militia. The police did their work
well, but the soldiers fired without orders, and
much of the slaughter was unnecessary, al
though, but for the terror with which their
deadly fire inspired the mob, equally severe
measures might have been demanded later.
Some of those killed appear to have been inno-
cent spectators, if anybody can be wholly inno-
cent whose reckless curiosity leads him to in
crease, by his presence, the numbers and excite
ment of dangerous mob on such an occasion.
1t is not strange that men imperfectly disci-
plined should have been exasperated beyond
endurance by the insolent defiance of the
rioters, and the teasing vollies of bricks and
paving stones, with an occasional pistol shot, or
that, in the intense excitement of the moment
single discharge from the ranks should have
been the signal for fire along the whole line.
The troops at least displayed spirit and courage,
if not selfpossession, and taught the rioters
lesson which they will not soon forget.
Our opinion of the culpability of Governor
Hoffman, based on what seemed the unavoida-
BILE belief that he knew what was going on in
the city, and sanctioned by his silence, if he did
not counsel, the issue of the order forbiding the
Orange parade, proves to be well warranted by
the facts now known. The governor, it is ascer-
tanned, was in New York city on Monday, and
was in consultation with the mayor, either per-
soually or through one of his official staff, on
the subject of the threatened demonstration.
On that day the order forbidding the Orange
men to parade was prepared, and the influence
is irresistible that the governor, knowing that
it was contemplated, assented to it, or that the
city authorities wilfully concealed their
purpose from him, which is not
improbable. Whatever may be the
ultimate conclusion on this point it is GER
tain that the respectable people of New York
have never been so profoundly impressed with
the unfitness of their present rulers to be en-
trusted with the task of guarding the peace and
honor Of great city, as well as with the fact
that the supremacy of ruf1ans and thieves, UNI
der which the city has so long groaned, has ex-
listed only by sufferance, and that there is
strength enough in public opinion, when
thoroughly aroused and properly directed, to
compel even the present corrupt civic function
aries to do some portion of their duty, and pow
er enough in the hands of the friends of order
to crush out lawlessness and rapine when they
will
It appears that, as in the communist rebellion
in Paris, so in the Hibernian rebellion in New
York, some of the most frantic and irrepreSsi-
bic rioters were women Infatuated women,
with threatening gestures and brandished
weapons, pressed upon the police and militia
who guarded the Orange procession, yelling
and cursing in their not altogether harmless
rage. A woman, it is said, fired the pistol shot
near the Grand Opera house, and woman was
among the victims of the charge of
the police in Twenty-eighth street. All
the accounts speak of many women in
the streets where the mob was densest and
most angry, and no woman surely would be
abroad in such circumstances from simple Curl
osity or on au GRAND of ordinary business. I'm
natural and almost incredible as it seems that
women should willingly engage in such out
breaks of fierce disorder, experience has shown
that our common human nature does not mani
fest itself so differently in the two sexes as TO
prevent that which we are accustomed to call
the geutler, from becoming, through association
with violence and cruelty, quite as liable as the
other to paroxysms of lerocious hatred.