1S37.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



r4i 



staffs, breakirifj them over their persons, Tlie of- 

 ficers, notwithstandintr, succeeded in clearintr the 

 store of ihe rioters, anci appeared sufficiently strong 

 to prevent the entrance of any more through the 

 oniv door open. 



The mob were thus kept at bay for about twen- 

 ty minutes, duriuL'' which time the mayor arrived 

 and addressed them, remonstratintr with tiiem on 

 the Ibllv of tiieir conduct. He was struck several 

 times and pelle.d witli fiour and finally compelled 

 to desist and retire. The rioters having received 

 a larire addition to their numbers, now seized tlie 

 store door which had been torn off its hinfres and 

 with it battered down the remaining doors and 

 forced open the window shutters, the persons in- 

 side, beiniT only able to ijuard one door. A scene 

 of havoc and confusion ensued. The people scat- 

 tered themselves about the lower floor and count- 

 ing house, and continued f^)r one hour rolling out 

 barrels of flour and carryinir out bags of wheat — 

 the contents of which were all turned into the 

 street. The desks, papers, and every thing in 

 the counting liouse were thrown out of the win- 

 dow, and the f)rmer broken to pieces by jumping 

 on them. They then proceeded up stairs and be- 

 gan throwing barrels of flour out of liie windows 

 and down the hatchways. An half hour was con- 

 sumed in this way. It was now dark and about 7 

 o'clock, when a stronfj body of police officers ar- 

 rived, and m a few minutes dispersed the whole. 

 Havinff procured lights, the police then searched 

 the second story, but only found two rioters there, 

 wiVo jumped out of the window and were caught 

 by the otTicers below. 



The mob then crossed over to the East river, 

 and commenced an attack on tfie store of A. B. 

 JMeech & Co. where they destroyed about twen- 

 ty-five barrels of flour. They then marched off', 

 carrying one of the ringleaders on their shoulders 

 to the store of Messrs. Herricks, in Coenties slip ; 

 but here they were encountered by the police — to 

 whose aid the citizens were turning out from all 

 quarters — driven ofl', and dispersed. 



Between thirty and forty persons were arrested 

 and brought up in the course of the evening to the 

 police oflice, by the officers and marshals. Among 

 them were, James Chapman, who was fiilly iden- 

 tified as being one of the ringleaders, and a boy 

 named James Roach, who. had been seen on the 

 sill of the window of Mr. Hart's sfure crying out, 

 "Here goes flour at .§8 a barrel," throwing some 

 in the street at the same time. They will all be 

 broushl up for examination to-morrow. Soon af- 

 ter 8 o'clock, a large number of the military, por- 

 tions of the 27th regiment, were assembled in the 

 Hall, and were marched down to the scene of ac- 

 tion, and by nine o'clock, nothing of the mob re- 

 mained. 



The street in front of Mr. Hart's store was lite- 

 rally strewed with flour and wheat to the depth of 

 one toot, and his loss will probably exceed .'S 10,000. 

 Swiss beggar women were seen in numbers run- 

 ning away with their aprons filled with flour, and 

 the men in the neishborhood seemed almost all to 

 have their coats covered with it. 



Our remarks will be short on this disgraceful oc- 

 currence. It is not the actors in it — poor ignorant 

 deluded wretches — that are to blame, so much as 

 the instigators, who knowing better — knowing that 

 the meeting could not answer the purposes lor 



which it was ostensibly called — still devised it, 

 .solely to give themselves political consequence. 



We are astonished that th(! civil authorities, with 

 the call of this meetinir before them, had not a suf- 

 ficient police force, or the military, ready to prevent 

 the consequences whii'h it was probable would fol- 

 low it. Twenty-five armed men could at any mo- 

 ment have dispersed the whole mob. 



Though mobs of this kind may for a short time 

 commit olnrages, yet with the fi'elinjj we yester- 

 day saw evinced by our citizens we are satisfied 

 they will never be allowed to perpetrate ihem 

 long. It was gratilying to observe the larire 

 number who spontaneously h fstened to the scene 

 of action armed, determined to put down quickly 

 the disturbers of the public peace. 



[The foregoing statement furnishes evidence of an 

 alarming degree of ripeness of the spirit of insurrec- 

 tion and plunder in JVew^ York — and of tiie very near 

 approach of the wir which is there to be carried on 

 between the poor and the rich, for the possession of 

 the property which the one class has earned, and which 

 the other wants, and ivill have, by robbery, which is so 

 much more easy than labor. .We have anticipated such 

 a consummation of the progress of demagogueism and 

 agrarianisra — but had not supposed that the operation 

 of these causes had been so speedy and effectual, as 

 now appears. It has not been many months since, 

 when commenting on the acts of the abolition party, 

 and their hypocritical expression of fears of the insur- 

 rection of slaves in the southern states, that we used in 

 this journal these worsis : " From our slaves, of them- 

 selves, and from any pohtical eifects of slavery as it ex- 

 ists in the south, we have nothing to fear: the throats 

 and the purses of the property holders of New York are 

 in much more danger from their mobs of free men, and 

 the spj-eading of agrarianism." But though then con- 

 ceiving the latter danger as manifestly impending, and 

 approaching, we had no idea of its being so near, as 

 now appears. It then seemed less likely that these 

 excesses should so soon have been successl'ully excited 

 and perpetrated, than notv, that before ten years shall 

 have passed, the great and rich city of New York will 

 be given up to general pillage and conflagration, and 

 afterwards to mob government, under the tyranny of 

 Moses Jakes (a most appropriate name) then playing 

 the part of a successful Jack Cade, a Marat, or the tai- 

 lor-king of Munster. 



It is true that some thirty or forty of the rioters and 

 pillagers have since been arrested, and will be tiied, 

 and probably punished by the laws. But the woi-st 

 offenders, the leaders and instigators, will go free, and 

 wilf continue to pursue their course. Though (as is 

 said above) twenty-five armed men might at any time 

 have quelled this mob, it is not the less true that this 

 great and populous city was for hours at the mercy of 

 so weak a body of pillagers. This fact of the yielding 

 to the daring of so few, is more alarming than if some 

 temporary delusion had embodied and directed a mob 

 of thousands. The greatest and most horrible exces- 

 ses in Paris, during the French revolution — the mas- 

 sacres of thousands, continued unopposed for days to- 

 gether — were said to be the work of but a very few 

 compared to their victims, and that three or four hun- 



