THE CONSTITUTION STATUTE OF 1842 281 



polling 295 votes to Curr's 261. Had the contest been based on 

 political grounds, and the interest been limited to the 556 people 

 who exercised the franchise, no doubt the result would have been 

 loyally accepted, though it was widely recognised that in point of 

 intelligence and business capacity the victor was infinitely inferior 

 to the vanquished. But the bitterest sectarian rancour had been 

 evolved during the contest, and of the mob of fully 2,000 people that 

 surged round the polling booth all day, the larger proportion be- 

 longed to the labouring class, in which Irish Eoman Catholics 

 preponderated. They compensated themselves for the want of 

 voting power by violent partisanship, and it required both courage 

 and physical strength for the electors to record their votes in de- 

 fiance of the threats, jostling and insults to which they were sub- 

 jected as they struggled through the crowd. As each voter handed 

 in his ticket the poll clerk announced who he voted for, and as he 

 also made progressive announcements of the state of the poll, the 

 excitement towards the close was worked up to a fever heat 

 unknown under election by ballot. 



When Curr's defeat was finally assured the mob got quite out 

 of hand, despite an appeal for order from Curr, the efforts of a dozen 

 mounted police, and the formal denunciations of the Eiot Act, which 

 the magistrate proceeded to read. They broke up into detachments 

 and proceeded to smash the windows and bombard the houses of 

 the prominent supporters of Condell. A great deal of damage was 

 done, and the riot culminated in the storming of a house in Elizabeth 

 Street, where the proprietor, Thomas Greene, retaliated by firing 

 a pistol out of an upper window and bringing down a bystander, 

 who, of course, claimed to be a non-combatant. The furious mob 

 demolished the shutters and wrecked the contents of the shop, 

 loudly proclaiming their intention of lynching any one found on the 

 premises. At this juncture a detachment of military arrived on 

 the scene, and the officer in command secured an armistice by pro- 

 mising to arrest all the inmates of the house, which he did. They 

 were securely lodged in the gaol, but when brought before the bench 

 on the following Monday morning were all discharged for want of 

 evidence. 



This regrettable installation of the wars of " Orange and Green," 



