The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-30

while some broke into the churches and rang an alarm of fire. others seized upon the two guns of the artillery com pany. which were stored In barn, loaded them to the muzzle with pow der, chains. broken stones and brick bats. and dragged them to the college yard, Both were aimed al South eoi' lege. one from Chapel street on the south. the other from College street on the east, The mob with the cannons had been met at the Church street cor. ner by the police captain and justice Of peace. who. mounting on the pieces, had in vain warned them to desist. on the way up. however. unknown to the rioters, the police managed to spike the guns. and at about the same time the ringing of the bells was stopped. IL was half past one In the morning when the entire crowd had assembled. unlim- bered the cannons and leyeied them at South college. On discovering that the guns were spiked they partly dispersed and the doors and windows of South college were smashed In with stones and bricks. and amid yells Of Bring out the murderer.' and so on. Al
 this juncture arrived the mayor, who'
 mounting on one of the guns, made
 proclamation to the rioters. warning
 them to desist and promising that the offenders should be brought to justice
 By half past two the crowd had mostly
 dispersed. though some even then we're
 trying to draw the spikes from the cannons and were hootlng and swear
 ing about the building; and by three
 the police were able to take possession
 of the guns and drag them off to the
 jail yard. though cursed and stoned by
 the rioters while doing it. It was
 about four o'clock in the morning when quiet was again restored.
 Inside of South college all this time dead silence had reigned and no lights had been visible. The denizens of the building, after barricading the doors with fagstones torn from the college
 walks, had collected therein all the weapons and missiles known to the col lege and retired to the upper stories to await results-determined, as from the
 first to shed no blood save in self-de- fense, but if once attacked to fight 1t out to the last. For several nights af- ter that they ''slept on their arms, and there was general apprehension | throughout the city that the attack might be renewed. The mayor called upon the firemen to assemble at their | engine houses on Saturday night and | hold themselves in readiness to put | down any uprising; and this gave rise | to the report that the real object of the | action was, by thus keeping them shut up, to prevent the firemen themselves l from fomenting another disturbance; which report was so generally circula- | ted as to call forth an official contra | diction.
 The coroner's investigation brought | forth nothing to implicate any one as | the slayer of the fallen man, and, | though he was of course believed to be ! a student, all the evidence went to 1 show that the college men never once
 left the sidewalk. and that therioter,
 when he fell, was in the middle of the
 street and surrounded by his friends. l It was notable also that none of the | watohmen or other citizens who were witnesses could remember" the names l of any persons whom they saw en-
 gagged in the riot. Hence no townies | were arrested or tried for their share in the disturbance. The man who was killed was the ringleader of the rioters
 both on the night of his death and or the night previous when he was re-
 leased from arrest on promising tc
 keep the peace. His nam was Patrick O'Neil, his occupation that of bar-keep- CT, his age about twenty-three, and he was unmarried. It was said that neith- CT he nor many of the mob were Irish
 men, though the riot happened upon the, night of St. Patrick's day, Of l course the affair created great excite
 ment, and a pamphlet of forty-eight l pages was issued concerning 1t, con
 taining the testimony before the jury l the newspaper accounts and comments, etc. The general opinion seemed to be that the students were entirely in the right, that the dead man deserved his
 fate, and that his slayer (who, accord ing to college tradition. was a non-
 graduate senator from Mississippi had
 he been discovered, would have been freely acquitted. For some time both
 before and after the outbreak no stu dent could walk the streets even in the daytitne, without being -wantonly abused by the townies.