ts."[899]

[Footnote 898: Couch's report, _Official Records_, Vol. 27, Part 2,
214.]

[Footnote 899: Horatio Seymour, _Public Record_, pp. 118-124.

Ten days later, in the midst of riot and bloodshed, the _World_ said:
"Will the insensate men at Washington now give ear to our warnings?
Will they now believe that defiance of law in the rulers breeds
defiance of law in the people? Does the doctrine that in war laws are
silent, please them when put in practice in the streets of New
York?"--New York _World_, July 14, 1863.]

One week later, on Saturday, July 11, the draft began in the Ninth
Congressional District of New York, a portion of the city settled by
labourers, largely of foreign birth. These people, repeating the
information gained in neighbourhood discussions, violently denounced
the Conscription Act as illegal, claiming that the privilege of buying
an exemption on payment of $300 put "the rich man's money against the
poor man's blood." City authorities apprehended trouble and State
officials were notified of the threatened danger, but only the police
held themselves in readiness. The Federal Government, in the absence
of a request from the Governor, very properly declined to make an
exception in the application of the law in New York on the mere
assumption that violence would occur. Besides, all available troops,
including most of the militia regiments, had been sent to
Pennsylvania, and to withdraw them would weaken the Federal lines
about Gettysburg.

The disturbance began at the corner of Forty-sixth Street and Third
Avenue, the rioters destroying the building in which the
provost-marshal was conducting the draft. By this time the mob, having
grown into an army, began to sack and murder. Prejudice against
negroes sent the rioters into hotels and restaurants after the
waiters, some of whom were beaten to death, while others, hanged on
trees and lamp-posts, were burned while dying. The coloured orphan
asylum, fortunately after its inmates had escaped, likewise became
fuel for the flames. The police were practically powerless. Street
cars and omnibuses ceased to run, shopkeepers barred their doors,
workmen dropped their tools, teamsters put up their horses, and for
three days all business was stopped. In the meantime Federal and State
authorities cooeperated to restore order. Governor Seymour, having
hastened from Long Branch, addressed a throng of men and boys from the
steps of the City Hall, calling them