Charles C. Burleigh
accompanied him within this retreat. The door between the hall and the
office was securely locked, and Garrison with that marvelous serenity of
mind, which was a part of him, busied himself immediately with writing
to a friend an account of the scenes which were enacting in the next
room.
The tempest had begun in the streets also. The mob from its five
thousand throats were howling "Thompson! Thompson!" The mayor of the
city, Theodore Lyman, appeared upon the scene, and announced to the
gentlemen of property and standing, who were thus exercising their vocal
organs, that Mr. Thompson was not at the meeting, was not in the city.
But the mayor was a modern Canute before the sea of human passion, which
was rushing in over law and authority. He besought the rioters to
disperse, but he might as well have besought the waves breaking on
Nastasket Beach to disperse. Higher, higher rose the voices; fiercer,
fiercer waxed the multitude; more and more frightful became the uproar.
The long-pent-up excitement of the city and its hatred of Abolitionists
had broken loose at last and the deluge had come. The mayor tossed upon
the human inundation as a twig on a mountain stream, and with him for
the nonce struggled helplessly the police power of the town also.
Upstairs in the hall the society and its president are quite as
powerless as the mayor and the police below.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243