One Sunday evening, as Father Ugo was returning from service in the country, where he officiated every two weeks, he came up with a large and enraged crowd of people on both sides of the road on which he travelled.  On one side of the way about one hundred carts were placed in a line, so as to form a rampart and protect some two hundred men, who, with loaded muskets, crouched behind the carts as if watching for an object to fire at.  An occasional shot was fired from this rampart, and the volley was returned slowly but deliberately from an old house in front, on which this large body of men were making an assault.  While the priest stood at a distance, looking on at this horrid contest, he was perceived by the people in the house, who at once despatched a messenger to inform his reverence of the danger they were in, assailed by so many men resolved on their extermination.  At no small risk, leaving the messenger in charge of his horse, he entered between the ranks of the combatants, and, with crucifix in hand uplifted, he implored the assailants, in the name of Christ, to desist from their cruel warfare, and take some other means and time than the Lord’s day for getting possession of that old house about which the contention arose.  By a great deal of difficulty, and after a speech of an hour, he succeeded in quelling this cruel and disgraceful riot, and before he left the ground he had all the arms secured in one pile, and conveyed to an adjacent farmer’s house for security.

After this the work went on peacefully.  Van Stingey & Co. made money, and were now rich; the poor priest had every thing but the thanks of the contractors for his pains, and he concluded, from his experience of this and other railroads and public works in America, that, of all the men living, the railroad and day laborer of this “free country” is the most ill treated and oppressed.  He has to work from dark to dark; he has to take store pay for his wages; and he has to obey the nod, look, and arbitrary commands of the lowest, cruellest, and most brutal class of men on earth.  I ask any man, Is not this slavery?  Van Stingey was now rich—­had horses, wagons, and a splendid mansion.  He took another, and a third contract, in which he was very successful.  One day, however, he was on his work, and a blast having failed to go off, Van ordered his men to return to the dump.  They refused.  He stamped and swore, and then and there discharged all the “darned paddies,” who were not fools enough to get killed.  So himself and his nephew, who bossed for him, returned to the “cut,” where they were no sooner arrived than the blast went off, and poor Van Stingey was blown into atoms.