NEW YORK'S TEN THOUSAND 475 



the revolver of burglar or anarchist is always imminent, the stiletto 

 of some murderous swarthy ruffian or the bludgeon of one of the gas- 

 house or car-barn gang. 



What a splendid record is theirs ! One needs only to read the story 

 of those dreadful days of the mid-summer of 1863 to feel the blood 

 tingle and thrill. The names of Kennedy and Acton, McCredie and 

 Walling and Carpenter stand high on honor's roll. Then in July, 

 1871, under Superintendent Kelso, how gallantly those police detach- 

 ments guarded the stout-hearted Orangemen down Eighth Avenue 

 amid a howling mob. And when the throng, grown truculent, hurled 

 missiles — though Irish Eoman Catholics almost to a man — those brave 

 fellows never stopped to reflect upon their sympathies, but fell upon 

 the rabble, clubbing right and left. Happily the forty years have shorn 

 the " seditious cries " of " Orange and Eibbonmen " of their venom. 

 We "have done with a worn-out tale, the tale of an ancient wrong"; 

 but I know of nothing in history's annals more heroic, more significant 

 of devotion to duty; the incident deserves to be recorded with the ex- 

 ploits of Goliad and the Alamo. 



From these and like constant and common perils has arisen in the 

 police force a certain well-defined esprit de corps of bravery and devo- 

 tion that goes far — very far indeed — to redeem the "graft," so long 

 a menace and a shame, and the rank perjury that (largely from a mis- 

 taken sense of comradeship) has so often covered up offenses. 



If, then, one common right impulse may so prevail that there is not 

 a shirk or coward on the force, is it not highly probable that other 

 high impulses may be made also to prevail — that to lie and to steal 

 may become as impossible as to fear? 



There will be those who will say that this is impracticable, too 

 tenuous, too idealistic. Fortunately there is at hand an example of 

 a similar result of early education, of influence and environment hav- 

 ing stamped upon human nature in process of development an endur- 

 ing effigy of honor's highest standard. At the outbreak of the war 

 between the states, while with rarest exceptions every southern civilian, 

 and virtually every student at a northern university, "went with his 

 state" most of them to join the insurgent army, one hundred and 

 sixty-two West Pointers, being graduates from the seceded states — full 

 half of those in the regular army appointed from the south — with- 

 standing the claim of home ties and the call of the blood, stood by the 

 union and the flag. On this long roll of honor the most illustrious 

 was George H. Thomas of Virginia — the "Eock of Chickamauga." 

 It is not necessary to impugn the motives of those other gallant gentle- 

 men whose ideas of "state rights" differed from ours that we salute 

 and dip the colors to loyalty like this. 



