Norwich bulletin., 1921-09-01
ODD INCIDENTS IN AMERICAS
 HISTORY
FLOUR RIOTS OF 1887,


 The panic of 1897 was one of the most severe this country has ever ex- perienced. Owing to the scarcity of money every sort of business received sudden and severe check. The price of money rose and none but those with the best security could get it at any terms.
 The financial suffering was still fur ther aggravated by the scarcity and high price of flour in the Eastern cit tes. The Hessian fly had made such ravages that the crops along the At lantic coast States were almost a com plete failure. In certain sections it was recommended that the, legislature establish public granaries for the sto- rage of wheat.
 Affairs in New York were brought to a crisis by the leaders of the Anti Monopoly, Equal Rights or Locofoco party, who plastered the walls and fences of the city with a handbiIl calling meeting of the people to be held in the City Park.
 On the appointed afternoon some five thousands persons-mostly forei- gners-gathered in front of the City Hall. Moses Jacques was chosen chair man, but the crowd was quickly parted into groups and addressed by several speakers. Conspicuous among the orators was Alexander Ming, Jr., many | times a candidate for city recorder. He closed his harangue by offering a set of resolutions to be presented to the i Legislature and praying for a law 1 prohibiting the circulation of bank | notes under one hundred dollars. They were adopted, and Ming was carried off on the shoulders of his admirers to Tammany Hill.
 Another speaker, meanwhile, was ad- | dressing another group of listeners and carried away by the denunciation | of the holders of flour, exclaimed : i Fellow Citizens: MT. Hart has now 1 fifty three thousand barrels of flour in in store. Let us go and offer him eight dollars barrel-and if he does not take it"-here somebody touched hin on the shoulder-"we shall depart iron him in peace"
 | The hint was enough and his hear. CTS set off in a body for the ware. | house of Eli Hart S Co.,, in Washington street. The clerks, on the approach O the mob, hastened to shut the iror doors, but one was burst in and bar. rels of flour were rolled into the stree and opened.
 Mir. Hart, with a few police, nov arrived on the scene, but they wer, attacked with slaves and stones anC l driven from the scene Barrels 0 flour and sacks of wheat meantim, had been thrown from the window b7 scores. and the flour eagerly gathered up by women and children. A thou sand bushels of wheat and i've hun dred barrels of flour are said to hay been destroyed.
 While the mob was thus engage the cry "Meech! Meechi" was raised and a party went off toward the Eas river to attack the warehouse of Meecl SS Co.,, but stopped on the way an sacked the warehouse of Herrick & G and destroyed thirty barrels,
 In card published in the newspa peFs Hart & Go. remarked that in impression prevailed that they ver !, monopolizing four. The truth wa. , all four in the city was the propert of the millers and was held unde the control of the owners It wa needless to say that the destruction r an article could not tend to reduc
 the price. Nor did it, for flour at ono went up fifty cents a barrel, and tb
 millefs petitioned the Legislature fo
 law to make the city responsible fc the destruction of private property b mobs.
 At a second meeting in the park,
 few weeks later, the crowd came bear
 ing flags inscribed, No rag money give us gold or silver" "Down wit P chartered monopolies!" "We 20 f. principle; no monopolies." we wi enjoy our liberties or die in the la. ditch"
 A carpenters bench was used for ? platform and, raSunted on this, Min urged his hearers not to use ra money, which was the foundation aristocracy and monopoly. Anotht