of his clothing was stripped from his body, he was without his customary glasses, and was therefore practically blind.  He could hear the awful clamor, the mighty uproar of the mob, but he could not distinguish them one from another, friend from foe.  Nevertheless he “walked with head erect, calm countenance flashing eyes like a martyr going to the stake, full of faith and manly hope” according to the testimony of an eye-witness.  Garrison himself has thrown light on the state of his mind during the ordeal.  “The promises of God,” he afterward remembered, sustained his soul, “so that it was not only divested of fear, but ready to sing aloud for joy.”

The news now reached the ears of the mayor that Garrison was in the hands of the mob.  Thereupon the feeble but kindly magistrate began to act afresh the role of the twig in the mountain stream.  He and his constables struggled helplessly in the human current rushing and raging around City Hall, the head and seat of municipal law and authority.  Without the aid of private citizens Garrison must inevitably have perished in the commotions which presently reached their climax in violence and terror.  He was in the rear of City Hall when the mayor caught up to him and his would-be rescuers.  The mayor perceived the extremity of the situation, and said to the Faneuil Hall giants who had hold of Garrison, “Take him into my office,” which was altogether more easily said than done.  For the rioters have raised the cry “to the Frog Pond with him!” Which order will be carried out, that of the magistrate or that of the mob?

These were horrible moments while the two hung trembling in the balance.  But other private citizens coming to the assistance of the mayor struck the scales for the moment in his favor, and Garrison was finally hustled, and thrust by main force into the south door of the City Hall and carried up to the mayor’s room.  But the mob had immediately effected an entrance into the building through the north door and filled the lower hall.  The mayor now addressed the pack, strove manfully in his feeble way to prevail upon the human wolves to observe order, to sustain the law and the honor of the city, he even intimated to them that he was ready to lay down his life on the spot to maintain the law and preserve order.  Then he got out on the ledge over the south door and spoke in a similar strain to the mob on the street.  But alas! he knew not the secret for reversing the Circean spell by which gentlemen of property and standing in the community had been suddenly transformed into a wolfish rabble.

The increasing tumult without soon warned the authorities that what advantage the mayor may have obtained in the contest with the mob was only temporary and that their position was momentarily becoming more perilous and less tenable.  It was impossible to say to what extreme of violence a multitude so infuriated would not go to get their prey.  It seemed to the now thoroughly alarmed mayor that the mob might