Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-09-08

Square trying to Q1eu the violence of
the mobS.
In October of the same year the CITY
of Brotherly Love was shocked by ter.
rible riots. The mob destroyed thirty
buildings, among them two churches
An old negro was made to leap out
of an upper story of a high building.
The ringleaders were convicts and mis-
creants OF the worst kind.
But this riot was less diSsraceful |
than the attack on the UrSuIine con- |
vent, at Charlestown Heights, near Bos- |
ton, which occurred in the same year. |
Somehow a story spread that a young
girl who had taken the veil had been
so abused that she had escaped to save
her life, but had been recaptured and
now was Injured in Il dungeon under the
convent. The story was utterly absurd.
AS a matter of fact, a girl delirious
from fever had wandered away and
had returned Voluntarily, under the
care of her brother. A band of fana-
tics, dressed as for a masquerade, sur
rounded the convent one night and or
dered all the inmates to leave in half
an hour under penalty of death. Then
the building was burned. The work
of destruction was continued for hours
All the sacred yeStnents, the affairs.
the hymn books, the religious libraries
the personal effects of the inmates
were dragged to the lawn, heaped up
and destroyed by fire.
But the outrage did not end there
A year after the burning of the convent
the anniversary was celebrated by the
pOpulace of Bunker Hill, who gave
grand picnic with shooting match
an etigy of the lady superior of the
convent being used as a target
In the year 1887, owing to the COM
mercial distress, mobs fought for bread
in the streets Of New York. A year be-
fore, on Dec. 10, 1885, a terrible fire
occurred in the vicinity of Wall and
Pearl streets. Over 700 stores were
destroyed, valued at $20,000.000 Large
quantities of merchandise on the docks
ready for shipment We're licked up by
the flames. The season following was
one of great suffering That winter
| there were mass-meetings and denun-
Citations when it was limited that Ger
tain dealers had cornered the -four mar
ket, in the hope of squeezing the last
penny out of a people already on the
! verge of starvation. A huge mob form
ed near the city hall. 1t descended up
on the warehouse of a flour dealer.
| The doors We're broken in, the Win
| dOWS were smashed; the furnishing
| people broke through the walls. Then
| they knocked in the heads of the bar
; rcls and rolled thCJn into the gutter.
/ "Old crOnes darted forward likes birds
! OF prey" says IN historian of the hour
| and, filling baskets and aprons with
| the soft drift, which lay kuee deep on
the pavement, whittier than snowf1akes,
! make off to their homes.''
The methods of that earliest of abo-
lItiOn editors, William Lloyd Garrison.
| conduced to mob violence One of Gar
1lson's schemes was to print the picture
| OF a slave on a handkerchief, roll it i'll
a wrapper and send it, along with i'll
| fam1natCly tracts, to slave owners in
! the South. On one occasion a mob of
5000 tore open the United States mail
bags i'll Charleston, seeking Garrison $
tracts Not long after that he ilnpor-
ted a hot-hcadcd Englishman named
thompson to stir up matters by public
, addresses. Thompson spoke so well
that one night Garrison found set I'D
! before his door n galloWS in the streets
OF Boston, an OminOus warning of his
! fate. The next day a furious mob of
fully five thousand people chased the
| editor through the streets He was
caught and rope put around his neck.
There were loud cries that he should
be hanged. The mayer interceded and
| Garrison was arrested, as a feint to
get him out of the hands of the mob.
He passed the night in Jail The
streets were thirsting for his gore, but
he was spirited away and lived to see
many another mob.
A murder was committed by a mob
at Alton, I'LL, on Nov Z. 1887. Elijah
+. Iovejoy, q Presbyterian minister,
had been driven out of st. Louis for
| inviting free discussion in his paper
on the slavery matter He crossed to
illinois, but was again suppressed. Moth
ing daunted, LOvejoy made prepare
TONS for starting Il new paper. Presses
and type were on the way. Lovejoy
was visited by Il population and told
| to quit the town. Instead ne went to
the freight house and tried to defend
his property. He fell, pierced by five
| bullets. The rioters then set fire to
The freight shed. destroyed the press,
smashed it in little pieces ana bore
the fragments, along With the type, to
| the river
There have been other mobs within
The memory of persons who are now
only middle aged, including The draft
! riots.