Glass F\H-g_ 
 Book .5^L 
 
''street talk 
 
 OUDmANCE OF COUNCILS, 
 
 PASSED THE lltli JULY, 1844, 
 
 ORGANIZIISG 
 
 A MILITARY FORCE 
 
 '1 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 GOVERN.MENT OF PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 PIIILADELl'lilA 
 
 1844. 
 
lOa 
 
 These pages were written immediately after the 11th July last, without any 
 fixed purpose of publishing them, and had been thrown aside, when we chanced, 
 a day or two since, to hear an out-doors suggestion that the City, or the City 
 and Districts, might need the services of their military force on the coming 
 election day 1 1 1 We have slightly altered what had been written, and submit it 
 in this form, as it is too long for the columns of a newspaper. 
 September 4th, 1844. 
 
STREET TALK, &c. 
 
 The authorities of the City of Philadelphia have favored us 
 with an Ordinance, which they passed the 11th July last, by 
 which, in case of disturbance, we are to be turned into a gar- 
 rison town ; and we understand people are looking to the ap- 
 proaching election day, as an occasion when our new military 
 organization may possibly be called into play. Now, though 
 we have heard of such things as sending troops to a dis- 
 tance, to be quite out of the way of all possible interference in 
 election riots, the idea of that day, of all the days in the year, 
 being the epoch for witnessing the civil put into strict subor- 
 dination to the military authorities, we are disposed to think 
 never was so much as dreamed of before, within the latitudes 
 of freedom ; and if it should so be, that a single sword is drawn, 
 or fire-lock pointed that day, at the merest vagabond that pas- 
 tures in the City and Liberties, there needs no ghost to tell us 
 that mischief, indeed— mischief such as we have not seen yet, 
 or even imagined, is not far oif. 
 
 We do not believe it was the design of the gentlemen en- 
 trusted with governing us, to violate the letter or spirit of our 
 rights and institutions, when they ptissed their extraordinary 
 law of the 11th July, 1814. They meant to protect us against 
 violence, but they were in a false position, or, at least, they had 
 but just emerged from one marvellously false and embarrassing, 
 and hence their error. They stood the conservators of the peace 
 — it was their place and business, during the riots, as at all other 
 times, to guard and protect us, and owing to the curious tact 
 which the late events so glaringly developed, that they have 
 no 'police, and could not protect us against even the most 
 impudent breaches of order, they had become the butt of 
 every sort of unkind and complaining criticism. We cried out 
 to them to look to us, to take care of us, that they were the men 
 
[4] 
 
 whose business it was. They admitted that, but assured us 
 they really had not the means of doing any thing in the world 
 to helj) us. This was too bad. It beat the delicate situa- 
 tion of the man in the farce. We do not wonder at their get- 
 ing a little wild under circumstances so distressing", and resortins: 
 to the use of fire-arms, unlawful and quite unnecessary, as we 
 consider that extreme measure to have been. There they were — 
 they had no police, and ready to their hand was a body of high 
 spirited, resolute young men, our fellow-citizens of the volunteer 
 corps, to whom they had only to say the word and order was re- 
 stored, the thing was done ; done we mean, for all the purposes of 
 extricating the public authorities from their dilemma, and sav- 
 ing people from present peril ; done for the hour, the week, the 
 month, or even for longer time. That the military cure was 
 one certain to aggravate the disease, and make it worse at last, 
 was a consideration which we can understand, and sympathize 
 with the motives which prompted our city doctors to pay less 
 than the proper attention to : but how it came to pass that when 
 the first violence of the disease was al)ated, instead of setting 
 themselves to work to raise an efficient civil police, they fell 
 upon so extravagant a prescription, such a precious pill, as that 
 of the Ordinance of the 11th July, we are at a loss to conceive, 
 consistently with the respect in which we hold the legislators 
 who did the act. Only read their law. 
 
 " Whereas, It is expedient that the funds of the community be 
 appropriated to such measures as may tend to preserve the 
 public peace, in times of intestine commotion, like the present ; 
 And whereas, it is believed that the members of our citizen 
 soldiery, who have lately proved themselves to be our secure 
 reliance in times of danger, would be more adequate to the 
 present exigency, if they were relieved from the expenses of 
 their equipment and necessary outfit, and if ammunition and 
 stores were provided for their use in any emergency in which 
 their services may liereafter be required for the preservation of 
 the public peace. 
 
 " Re it ordained and enacted by the citizens of Philadelphia, in 
 iSelect and Common Councils assembled. That the IJrigadier 
 General of the city Brigade of the Pennsylvania militia, be re- 
 ([uested to report to the councils when a full regiment of In- 
 fantry, a full battalion of Artillery, and one or more full troops 
 of Cavalry, shall have been formed from the present or any fu- 
 ture Volunteer Corps of his Brigade, ready and willing to act 
 within the limits of the city and county of Philadelphia, on any 
 
cmercrcncy in wliich tlicir services may bo required by the 
 Mayor or Sheriff, to assist iti inaintaininij^ the public peace of 
 the city or comity, and to report them witii tlie muster rolls of 
 the said corps respectively. 
 
 "2. That upon sucii report being- made, the city Treasurer 
 shall pay to the proper odiccr of the Briirade, the sum of twenty 
 dollars lor each Volunteer of their respective Corps, to be ap- 
 plied to the purcliase of accoutrements, and to the necessary 
 arminir, outfit and equipment of such Volunteers respectively, 
 for any service that may be required. 
 
 " 3. That suitable ammunition and stores be provided at the 
 expense of the city, to be at the disposal of the Iiri<j:adier Gene- 
 ral or officer for the time being in the command of the said 
 Brigade, at such time or times as the said several corps, or any 
 one or more of them, shall be called into service upon the re- 
 quisition of the Mayor or Sherifi;' as aforesaid, and shall con- 
 tinue in service under such requisition. 
 
 "4. That the further sum of §10,000 beajipropriated, and re- 
 main in special deposit or investment until wanted to be applied 
 by the I\layor or Sherifi', to the supply of provisions and of 
 such other further ammunition and stores as may be necessary 
 to etiectuate the purposes for which the services of any such 
 corps shall, or may hereafter, at any time or times, be required 
 as aforesaid. 
 
 "5. No military force sliall receive any ammunition, stores or 
 supplies under this Ordinance, except when acting under the 
 requisition of the Mayor or Sheriff as aforesaid. 
 
 " Enacted into an Ordinance at the City of Pliiladelphia, 
 this llth day of July, A. D., 1844."" 
 
 • By the scheme of this law, a bolder as we truly believe than 
 any scheme city conceived, since cities have been absorbed in 
 States, we are to be put under direct military rule, wliencver 
 the civil police shall prove insufficient to preserve ])ublic order; 
 and as it is a fact now flagrant andpai)ifnlly notorious, that we 
 do not possess any civil police at all, which deserves the name, 
 and as we do not understand that any steps have been taken, 
 or are to be taken to raise one, it is plain that by this Ordinance 
 a military force is to be put upon us where a civil force alone is 
 tolerable. We have already seen the almost incredible sight of a 
 body of troops, sent to interfere in a disturbance between two 
 hose companies, and here arc thequidmmcs (for of course it is 
 impossible to believe that any, clothed with the responsibilities 
 of power, should harbor so mod an idea,) now debating upon the 
 curb-sloncs, the question of the use of troops on the day of tiie 
 
[6] 
 
 election — at the polls, for aught we know — at any rate, upon 
 the very holiday of freedom. The Councils have not, in their 
 wisdom, thought proper to give us what all other large towns 
 possess, namely — a civil police, to prevent disorder, and capa- 
 ble, under all but extraordinary circumstances, of putting it 
 down. They leave us as civilly helpless, as late events have 
 proved we were, before the Ordinance was passed. But they 
 have enacted a town law, by which, all the engines of battle as 
 used by regular armies in the field, against a public enemy, 
 after a declaration of war, being placed in the hands of a force 
 equipped and paid by the city, are to be turned upon its citizens, 
 whenever the Mayor or Sheriff shall give the signal. 
 
 This force, it will be observed, is not to be a mere body of 
 men, armed with deadly weapons — some troops of horse, or a 
 squadron of foot, it is to be a small army — what military men 
 recognize as technically an army. There is the infantry, there 
 is the artillery, and there is the cavalry ; add a corps of sap- 
 pers and miners, and the army of Philadelphia, raised by the 
 town council, would be more complete in all its members, than 
 was the army of the United States, raised by Congress, wfiich 
 invaded Canada, in 1813. The city government, except for 
 such soft purposes as picking up fractious ladies, and collaring 
 candidates for the House of Refuge, and perchance of dealing 
 with a few pickpockets and burglars, has turned over to a " full 
 regiment of infantry, a full battalion of artillery, and one or more 
 full troops of cavalry, with suitable ammunition and stores," th* 
 whole care of what they call the " public peace, in times of 
 intestine commotion." What co?jimolioji is intestinal, accord- 
 ino- to the Ordinance, the authorities are to decide, and due re- 
 gard being had to the opinion of their patient's condition, which 
 they seem to entertain, we may believe tliat they will be full 
 apt to conclude that any commotion will be intestinal enough 
 to make a fire-arms case. 
 
 Now such a go-by to all police proper as this is, never was, 
 as we believe, heard of in our part of the world before. Men 
 called ])cace officers, whose "suitable ammunition and stores," 
 is a short stick, or a long pole, painted red, ever have been, and 
 now are, the only keepers of the peace in all parts of the conti- 
 nent this side of Mexico, excepting, perhaps, certain towns 
 where they have a large slave population, and where a night 
 
guard may be seen pacing up and down with a nuiskct to liis 
 shoulder. But times change, and we cliange with tiic times ; the 
 red pole has given way to the musket, the law we live under puts 
 the military power in the lead, and says, let the constable yield to 
 the captain. Our governors have been led into temptation. 
 They have not reflected that these volunteer corps which they 
 propose to make into a military police, are a body of men high 
 in public esteem, at present useful, and in the always possible 
 contingency of war, indispensable ; and that they are about to 
 abuse these friends and brothers of ours, the flower of our youth, 
 now so popular, and who soon may be so valuable, to purposes 
 which will be sure to bring them into odium and to preclude 
 their future career. They have said here is the short cut, here 
 is the police of the bayonet. It is only to pass an Ordinance, 
 and our system without further trouble is perfect. It is true 
 our government will be changed occasionally into a military 
 one, and that is a little new hereabouts, but then it will be so 
 convenient. And sure enough, they pass this military Ordi- 
 nance, and we people of the city of Penn, wake up one summer 
 morning and find ourselves saddled and bridled, and all ready 
 to be ridden, after the fashion of St. Petersburg. 
 
 Such is now the law, and so long as the law stands we must 
 grin and submit to it, though it has been made not for our faults, 
 who are to suffer by it, but for the egregious error of the very 
 persons who have made it, in letting disorder overtake us, un- 
 provided with the mere, usual and absolutely necessary civil 
 police ; a disorder, too, let us add, which they have quite over- 
 rated, which panic ridiculously magnified, and which depriving 
 us of the necessary judgment to estimate danger, threw every 
 body into fits, and brought upon the corporation itself, it seems, a 
 species of municipal hysterics, under the influence of which 
 they have made this convulsionary enactment. But the Ordi- 
 nance being to be respected as long as it lasts, (for we will not 
 urge that being unconstitutional, it is therefore null,) is no rea- 
 son why we should not discuss it. 
 
 During the progress of the riots, and when the public 
 safety, which had become everybody's business, was under- 
 going on all hands eloquent debate, of the various sugges- 
 tions of good people for our benefit, that which proposed to 
 quell the disorder by bloodshed seemed the most tremendous 
 
[8] 
 
 and appalling ; and so all seemed to be agreed, until, in the midst 
 of their doubts and argumentations, they relieved, or thought 
 or pretended to relieve themselves under the cover of a saga- 
 cious idea, which came from we know not what quarter, but 
 which passed rapidly about and was speedily adopted. The 
 idea was this — We may tisc, to jnit a stop to these riots, just 
 siicJl a degree of force as is necessary to the object. This 
 hint, full of both law and logic, and wliich ought to have been 
 the clue to very different conclusions, seemed to lead the con- 
 sulting crowds out of all their difficulties. The reasoning upon 
 it ought to have been thus — When we shall have exerted in 
 vain all civil force, we may hetalce ourselves then to the mili- 
 tary ; atid if a civil force be not at hand, we must raise one 
 before ice can say that a military force is necessary. But, 
 confounding, just as tiic Councils did when they passed their 
 Ordinance, the questions of necessity and of convenience, the 
 rensoners made short work of the question, thus — It is necessary, 
 iiM<l xXicy, to put a stoj> to this rioting, and the troops can 
 put a stop to it — therefore let tJie troops be used. Their 
 notion, put into the form of a syllogism, would run in this 
 manner : — 
 
 i. It is necessary we should have churches and houses. 
 
 2. Artillery and small -arms will save our churches and 
 houses from the rioters. 
 
 3. Therefore wq may fire artillery and small-arms upon the 
 rioters. 
 
 But rcj)lace upon its legs again the sound and logical judg- 
 ment we have quoted, and not applying it wrong side up, let 
 us see if there be facts to be syllogized thus: — 
 
 1. The riots may be put down by whatever force is neces- 
 sary to that object. 
 
 2. All lesser force than artillery and small-arms has been 
 tried, and has failed. 
 
 3. Therefore artillery and small-arms is the force necessary. 
 Now, as we luuiibly apprehend, the right of the Councils to 
 
 pass the Ordinance of the lltii July depends simply and en- 
 tirely u])on thcp/ert of necessity. If, not only, they have no 
 police, but there is some physical or moral insuperable obstacle 
 to their ever establishing one, then tiicy have a perfect right to 
 rely upon troops ; and if not,- then they have no such right, 
 
[9] 
 
 and they must adopt the plan of police suggested by the Grand 
 Jury, or take one of those showered upon them by individual 
 projectors, or they must form one for themselves. In sliort, 
 they must not tell us that the last degree of force is necessary, 
 when they have not tried the lesser. They must not order the 
 patient into a straight waistcoat, before they have felt his pulse. 
 The Corporation of Philadelphia, a body of very limited 
 powers, may pass Ordinances to preserve the peace, according 
 to law, but it may not enact that things shall be done, 
 not even things the most useful, in a manner not recog- 
 nized as lawful by the power which gave to them the little 
 authority they possess. In self-defence, they may kill men in 
 the streets ; and so may A., B. or C. But the act of the cor- 
 poration, like that of the individual, neither of them being in- 
 vested by law with the power of life and death, must be abso- 
 lutely and strictly one of self-defence ; as capable of justification, 
 for it is open, though not in the same manner and form, yet in 
 truth to the same essential character of investigation, as the 
 act of A. when he slays B. If the Legislature of Pennsylvania 
 should be pleased to change from imprisonment for a term of 
 years, to death by shooting, the punishment of riot and arson, 
 they may do so, and it is no matter whether this alteration 
 of the criminal code be the work of necessity or of caprice. 
 But not so with the City Councils. 
 
 The question then comes up — had the public authorities 
 done all that ought to have been done, and all that was in their 
 power to do, to protect the lives and property of the citizens of 
 Philadelphia by the lawful and usual means, before impower- 
 ing the Sheriff and Mayor, whenever they shall please, to call 
 upon the cavalry, artillery, and infantry? Was their staff 
 broken, that they drew the sword 1 and if it were, what sort of 
 a staff was it? Was it a baton, made for a town of 20,000 
 people, and attempted to be used to govern 300,000 ? Might 
 they have replaced it with a newer and a better ? Must they 
 not exhaust mild means first ? May they strike too hard, or 
 stab unnecessarily? If the law hav^e ordered a man to be hung 
 by the neck, they may order him to be shot through the body 
 only upon the same plea of necessity under which any indi- 
 vidual citizen may justify himself in taking into his own hands 
 the execution of that public justice which has been committed 
 2 
 
[ 10 ] 
 
 "to a power in the State, which is neither an individual, nor the 
 corporation. What is the law for individuals? Does a man 
 hold property, he has a right to its enjoyment, just as the pub- 
 lic authorities enjoy the privilege of keeping the public peace ; 
 and accordingly he may use whatever force is necessary to 
 vindicate the possession of his lands and goods, his house, his 
 ox, his ass. But on the other hand, at his proper peril he must 
 see that he use not more force than is exactly necessary to this 
 object ; and he must resort to no force at all, if it can be avoid- 
 ed — that is, when the law can right us, we may not right our- 
 selves. If a ruffian lay his hands upon you in the street, use 
 the necessary force to knock him down. You are free to walk 
 about town — no process of law is swift enough to vindicate that 
 privilege in all cases, and it is here necessary that you should 
 vindicate it yourself. It would be absurd to require you to stalk 
 to the nearest magistrate with the fellow's fingers round your 
 throat, or to stand still and wait till a peace officer came along 
 (which in Philadelphia might be a good while,) so the law says 
 use the necessary force, and knock your man down. But your 
 right ends there — that being all that is necessary. It is not ne- 
 cessary that you should whip out a pistol, and shoot him dead, 
 or even that you should proceed to pummel him, for though he 
 may ever so richly deserve death or a beating, it is not for you 
 to inflict them. The same rule applies to your house, which, 
 whether devoted to the worship of God or to the residence of 
 your wife and children, you may forcibly defend. But again 
 the law measures your conduct by the necessity of the case — 
 it must be strictly a necessary violence. The Councils of 
 Philadelphia have just the same right to order rioters shot 
 down in the street, with great guns and small, when it is 
 possible, or may be made possible, by organizing a proper po- 
 lice to arrest and bring them to trial, that Farmer X. has to lie 
 behind his hedge and shoot buck-shot at his neighbors, for 
 robbing the melon patch, or firing his barn, when he might 
 have them caught and put into the County Jail to answer 
 regularly for their ofllnrce. Both acts are equally uncalled for, 
 only that the one is done under an Ordinance, the other not. 
 The authorities of Philadelphia in their sphere, like the in- 
 habitants in theirs, may jn-olect life and property: and to com- 
 pass this lawful purpose they may, in the last resort, destroy 
 
[ 11 ] 
 
 lile. The field pieces and muskets of the City Brigade are to 
 the Corporation just what their knives and pocket pistols are 
 to individuals. They are what they may defend themselves 
 with when the law cannot — they are military law — no law— tlie 
 revolutionary right. They are the ultima ratio. When two 
 nations refuse to be governed by law, they resort to war, and. 
 the laws are silent till peace is declared again. Artificial rules 
 are suspended, and they resolve themselves into the natural, 
 not to say the savage state. So, when the Legislature of Penn- 
 sylvania having enacted that after due arrest, indictment, ar- 
 raignment, hearing by counsel, conviction, judgment and sen- 
 tence, the punishment of rioters shall be fine and imprison- 
 ment, and the Councils of Philadelphia step in, and erecting 
 their horrid crests, ordain that in certain cases of riot, (to be dis- 
 tinguished by lamplight by the Mayor or Sherill',) there shall be 
 no hearing, bail, trial, chaplain, prayers, psalms, or ceremony 
 of any kind, but that this crime shall be summarily punished 
 by shooting to death on the pavement — what is this but a resort 
 to a state of nature J It is all nonsense to call this law. It is the 
 absence of all law. When this Ordinance is passed, all other law 
 is kicked down stairs. We once made a lawdeclaring war against 
 Great Britain, and when we did so we declared there was to be 
 no more law between us but the law of nature, and such a law is 
 this Ordinance. It is a law against law — a law declarino; the ab- 
 sence or suspension of law, namely, war. Now this we agree 
 is all right, if necessary — if not necessary, it is frightfully 
 wrong. It may be it is, as they say in South Carolina that 
 nullilication is, and as some persons there are disposed to de- 
 clare disunion is, the rightful remedy — but, like nullitication 
 and disunion, it is beyond all question a revolutionary remedy. 
 The people of Pennsylvania, with whom resides the power 
 which is exercised through the two Houses and Governor at 
 Harrisburg, have not thought proper to giv(3 to any man, or 
 body of men, (and long may they withhold it.) the right of sus- 
 pending the laws in times of what our Councils, God help 
 them, call '• intestine com77iotionP Cities, counties, all de- 
 positaries of power, are left, just as individuals are, to their 
 own responsibility. This is republican jealousy of extreme 
 measures. In England, wlicre the few, and not the many, 
 make the rules, it is otherwise. There they have a statute of 
 
[ 12] 
 
 the realm to suspend the law. An officer reads to the crowd 
 an act of Parliament, called the Riot Act, when they are bound 
 to disperse on pain of being fired upon ; but we have no such 
 statute, and the Councils fall back, if they fall back upon any 
 thing, upon the law of nature ; the same law exactly which 
 prevailed lately in the long-boat of the passenger ship Wm. 
 Brown, when the strong and able bodied seamen threw the 
 women and weaker persons into the sea. This was the revo- 
 lutionary right — the Ordinance of the 11th July. If peaceful 
 habits and order enough had been left among them by the 
 tempest, even for a call of the ayes and noes upon their horrid 
 resolution, the passengers, who were in a majority, might have 
 voted the sailors into the roaring ocean, and themselves to re- 
 main in the boat, but the sailors were the Corporation, and had 
 it all their own way. Now the question simply is — Is all this 
 necessary — are we ripe for long-boat law ? We will not stop to 
 insist upon the obvious propriety of admitting ourselves to be 
 in the midst of a revolution as seldom as possible, and of avoid- 
 ing to scare business and decency together from among ns by 
 occasional proclamations of Lynch law by authority. The ob- 
 ject of government is not to rule merely, but to rule according 
 to law. The Indian cuts down the tree that he may gather 
 the fruit — the crowd which disapproves the religion burns the 
 church — but shall law-givers thus by violence attain their 
 ends ? Their place is to protect us from the mere law of na- 
 ture ; we can recur to that without their assistance. The law 
 is in greater danger when it is suspended by its administrators, 
 than when it is invaded by the crowd. When government is so 
 weak as to resort to revolutionary measures, it ought to be mend- 
 ed. Here is not merely martial law — but, by way of a novelty in 
 legislation, a provision for it in advance — not a resolution sus- 
 pending the habeas corpus act, but a provision, as it were, for 
 making easy the suspension of that act in all time to come. 
 Are our affairs really so desperate as this ? Try us again — 
 give us a reprieve — give us a police* -give us what all large 
 
 * The less conscientious ministers of party, which seems an evil inseparable 
 from the flesh of politics, bid against each other to make people ungovernable, 
 and party meddles in all the details of ])ublic affairs, down to the appointment 
 of bailiffs. But still, after drawbacks are allowed for, nobody takes policing so 
 kindly as your American The love of law and order is an instinct with him. 
 
[ 13 ] 
 
 towns are entitled to, what they have and must hav-e, a body 
 of men wlio will be afoot and ready to crash riot in the e<^or, 
 and who will not wait till it 1)3 hatched and fed up, and 
 trimmgd and iT'iffed to cut us to pieees, or to fire cannon loaded 
 roith hardware shops in our faces, as the testimony ran of one 
 of the witnesses in the investigation before Judge Jones. Give 
 us a little prevention, and we will ask less cure. A civil po- 
 lice will anticipate disturbance — your military one can only 
 hew it down by the head. We want peace, to be sure — we 
 want to be quiet, but not upon these hideous terms. It is no 
 gratification to us to see people killed by Ordinance of Coun- 
 cils. We do not want to see even bad citizens punished be- 
 yond the law. We desire to see their mischief forestalled — we 
 desire to see the Councils perform their duty according to law, 
 and in the usual manner. What manner of performance is 
 that— how do they perform their duty — what sort of charioteers 
 are they who, being trusted to drive the public coach, throw 
 away whip and reins, or neglect altogether to provide themselves 
 with such old-fashioned appendages of preventive service, and 
 turning to the astonished passengers, fiercely assure them that 
 they need not be afraid, snaffle bits have gone out of fashion, and 
 fire-arms have come in, and if the horses dare to be restive, or 
 the least unruly, they will blow their rebellious brains out ! 
 This would be a strong measure indeed, but is there any oc- 
 casion for it? Hanging, they say, is the worst use to which 
 a man can be put — is shooting him any better 7 No doubt we 
 have our disorders. The town was founded under tlie aus- 
 pices of the Society of Friends, who were sober citizens, and re- 
 quired but little restraint. Their virtue was their police. And, 
 as if we needs must be always as good boys as wo once wore, 
 we have been allowed by our rulers to go on and on, so utterly 
 unpnliced, that our quaker cliaracter is fast subsiding, and the 
 rowdy taking its place. But then, who is to blame for our dis- 
 orders? Th.e idle men and raw boys, who kick up riots, and 
 proceed at last to church burning, or the public authorities 
 
 The reason is obvious — oach individual is intorested in thoir preservation. An 
 amusing illustration of this might he drawn from the public conveyances which 
 are inhabited every day by no small portion of our restless population. It is 
 hard to tell there which is the more ridiculous — the often tyrannical rigor of the 
 police, or the sheep-like submission with which travellers undergo it. 
 
[ u ] 
 
 who do not sec that a town cannot keep itself quiet any more 
 t'nan it can keep itself clean ? Tlie rule is try to educate the boy, 
 however bad, before you enlist him, or send him to sea — try 
 to correct him, before you declare him incorrisrible. Shall 
 fathers of families, (or shall our conscript fathers, of the city,) 
 let their children go un whipped, till they become mutinous, 
 and then strike one of them dead, by way of example to the 
 rest ? Wlio is to blame in all cases of bad education ? Is- it we 
 unlucky people, who have been indulged for years and years, 
 and spoilt with our own way, and with firemen's fights, and 
 other such sports of the street, who albeit born to virtuous in- 
 clinings, have been nursed and nurtured to riot; is it ?re, who, 
 when the consequences of an evil bringing up begin to devel- 
 ope themselves, shall be reproached with our clownishness and 
 mischief, with our want of learning and breeding, or shall the 
 blame fall upon the heads of those men, our guardians, our ap- 
 pointed guides, philosophers and friends, to whose keeping, in 
 sacred trust, Vv^e, and our ample fimds moreover, were commit- 
 ted ? When, after long culture, our vices bud, shall these tutors, 
 forsooth, wheel short upon us, and bellow at their hitherto un- 
 bittcd charge, boys, ruffians, mob, reform, or be shot — what 
 scandal and rioting, what sacrilegious fury is this — it is true 
 you have had no training, you Jiave had no chance ; it is true 
 your education has been shockingly neglected, and it is (rue 
 that we had the care of it ; but it is too late to think of all 
 that, here is the ordinance against intestine commotion — read 
 it if you can — lor the next fault of prosody, or good manners, 
 you are to be put to an ignominious death — this is the 11th of 
 July — now, young gentlemen, you liave got your warning, and 
 you cannot com])lain we arc cither harsh or prccij)itate with you ! 
 Is this justice, or arc we a mob more sinned against than sin- 
 nin": ? But mobs, or no mobs, the law gives us a title to be tried 
 witii a constable, and a stick first, and the infantry, supported 
 by cavalry and artillery, can charge afterwards. If the j)roper 
 system, well tried, is found to fail, then, by all means, have a 
 law made, under which w^c shall be brought to order quand 
 mc7ne ; but the idea of putting brute force first, is out of the 
 question, is absurd — it is worse than unlawful, it is antediluvian, 
 it has had its day and gone by. The mild practice every 
 where prevails— torture, tight lacing, hard drinking, flogging 
 
[ 15] 
 
 soldiers, swaddling children, blue laws, gao; laws, alien and 
 sedition laws, have huns: up their tuneless fiddles. Tiie doctors 
 have diminished their doses a full third — even the horses are 
 relieved of the misery of one half their harness. The very 
 tenants of the jails and mad-houses, are dealt with upon the 
 gentle system. Why then, should alone that enlig-Jitened 
 Senate, whose curule chairs are over the Mayor's office — 
 honest and patriotic men, too, let us say for them— persist to 
 go back to military darkness and the middle ages ! That be- 
 nighted journal, the London ^lorning Post, according to the 
 proposal attributed to it for quelling disorder, made, what our 
 city legislators deny to us, some slight discrimination among 
 offenders. " Gentlemen who cough, to be slightly wounded." 
 " Spectators who happen to sneeze or spit, to be transported for 
 life." But, according to our July Ordinance, to be in the crowd 
 at all, after the High-Sheriff gives the signal, and the State- 
 house bell taps eight for any object, or no object, to cough, 
 sneeze, spit, burn a church, or do nothing, is to be involved in 
 one common offence and ruin — is to be guilty of felony, and 
 suffer death. No distinction is made of sex or age — all unfor- 
 tunate souls, found within cannon range, are criminal alike. 
 There is but one lawful act, and that is to run away. To be 
 out of long shot, is your only available inQocence, 
 
 The law which appeals to necessity, and which reasons the 
 need, lies at the very root of justice. If you over-punish a 
 crime, you increase it. If you threaten blood-shed and death, 
 wlien in justice you should set up a police, what effect must 
 you produce upon the minds of the men you arc to rule \ 
 How can you expect the mob to respect you if you are not just 'I 
 If rules be inhuman they will not be submitted to. Men will 
 not consent to less than lair play, or to what is cruel and un- 
 usual. A crowd surrounding the gallows of a traitor, would 
 hoot Jack Ivclcli for putting his man to death not according to 
 law. Your very dog understands the difl\n'cnce betwei^n fair 
 and foul, and though you may whip him to death if you please, 
 you must not pull his tail. AVho docs not believe that the 
 crowds in Kensington and Southwark, were made more angry 
 and fierce, by seeing armed soldiers, instead of ofiicers of the 
 peace, sent against them, and tliat a much smaller body of 
 active policemen, than we had of troops, could have effectually 
 
[ 16] 
 
 put down the mob without the terrible resort to deadly weapons ? 
 It is vain to tell us that the dress makes no difference, that these 
 soldiers are not soldiers, but citizens, only our neighbors and 
 friends, with side-arms, fire-arms, and ordnance. Every body's 
 blood rises against such a fallacy. The dress does make a differ- 
 ence ; it changes our cronies, Jack and Jill, into Captain A., or 
 Private 13., who must run us through the body, if he gets the 
 word of command ; it is eyes right or eyes left, and your ac- 
 quaintance who nods and shakes hands with you in his round 
 hat, must not even look at you from under his cap and feather — 
 he does not so much as walk as he did two hours ago — he 
 is a changed man, or he is no soldier. There is a marked dis- 
 tinction between the alderman or constable of a Ward, at the 
 head of his posse, and the same man commanding his compa- 
 ny. But if there were no real distinction whatever, and all 
 lay in name and dress, it would be enough for the mob, who are 
 no philosophers, but a pack of silly people, and to be treated 
 accordingly. Send to quell them a sufficient number of persons 
 to do their work, dressed as other people are dressed, and then 
 send the same number dressed in stage clothes, or without any 
 clothes at all, or in any dress, or undress that is peculiar, no 
 matter how handsome, or appropriate, and we should soon 
 come to the acknowledgment that there is something in a name, 
 and still more in a coat. Indeed, we actually have seen that 
 the main topic of the obloquy heaped by the late mob upon the 
 volunteers, was wiiat they called their pretty coats. 
 
 Necessity ! How can it be necessary to attempt the use of 
 impracticable means? What can our friends of the volunteer 
 corps do for us ? An active police would prevent the assem- 
 bling of the crowd. But suppose this not done, and the mob to 
 be under weigh, the same police will still, in ninety-nine cases 
 in a hundred, grapple successfully with the leaders, and hav- 
 ing mastered and carried them olf, leave the rest of the multi- 
 tude as helpless as a snake without its sting. A good police 
 will encounter the fiercest mob, lor they despise them, know 
 them to be fools and cowards, and have subdued them a thou- 
 sand times. A police keeps all London in order — what on 
 earth is the reason a police will not serve for this provincial 
 town of ours ? How many well balanced difficulties and nice 
 cases will arise for the decision of tlie appointed casuists, the 
 
[ in 
 
 Mayor and Sheriff, upon this question of calling out the troops ! 
 Here is a vast crowd, loud, threatening, and furious — but then, 
 Mr. Sheriff, they are a political meeting — they are debating the 
 tariff, and whether foreign cottons should pay a tax for protec- 
 tion, or only for revenue. That is true, Mr. Citizen — but so 
 the meeting held in the Kensington market house was a politi- 
 cal meeting, and what they debated was whether foreign men 
 should pay a lax of twenty-one years' good behavior, or only 
 four. Here is an obstreperous crowd listening to a man preaching 
 treason — but he is drunk. Here is a play-house row — here is 
 a horse-race — here is election day — here is George Munday ! 
 Will you shoot them all ? Give the magistrates a police, and 
 they will act without half the crowds' knowing they are there. 
 But bring up the soldiers, and you bring a camel load of ques- 
 tions along with them, and the gravest of all will be the ques- 
 tion to fire or not to fire, for to fire is all they can do. Your : 
 soldier cannot throw away his arms to engage a crowd with 
 his fists, or a stick. If Captain Hill, and the two or three 
 men who left their ranks to assist him at the corner of Second 
 and Queen streets, the 6th July, had been disencvmibered of 
 their weapons, and had had the free use of their fists, backed iis 
 they were by a couple of hundred stout-hearted comrades, they 
 might have licked the fellows they encountered, and then cap- 
 tured them, and so all bloodshed have been avoided. Soldiers 
 can shoot — but may they shoot ? What a question, and what 
 a responsibility are there ! It so happened that the firing on 
 the 6th July was brought on by actual collision with the crowd 
 — the men fired without orders, and in what they regarded 
 as self-defence. But leave out such cases, and what will justify 
 firing upon a crowd ? We will not stop to discuss so large a 
 question, but we may safely say that no pelting of the troops 
 with eggs, or brickbats — no insults, however abominable — no 
 threats, however diabolical — no mob obstinacy or stupidity, 
 and mulish o})position to orders and entreaties, and even no ac- 
 tual attack upon the troops that does not endanger their own 
 safety, or that of the public, can, according to any law known 
 to this part of the world, justify tlie firing a single shot. 
 
 Are w^e to be told that the City authorities may send to deal 
 with a crowd, thouglitless, impulsive, and rough, and more or 
 less violent, as all crowds are, though they should be crowds of 
 3 
 
[18] 
 
 fine ladies, instead of a police who can give and take, and be 
 insulted without being dishonored, a body of troops, gentlemen 
 of the sword, of the epaulette and chevron, who " hold their 
 honor in a wary distance," and cannot endure what po- 
 licemen will without being accused of failure of duty, 
 and unsoldierly conduct? Honor is the soldier's badge, 
 and he cannot allow it to be smirched. Shall the Coun- 
 cils select to send against an uproarious assemblage such ma- 
 terials as these, and then tell us they fire because they arc sol- 
 diers, and not constables, or stocks, or stones ?* Whose fault is 
 it that they are not constables? So we might send against the 
 suburbs policemen tricked out in silk stockings and ruffled 
 shirts, and then, according to the Ordinance, the crowd 
 would be to be knocked over the head for treading on 
 their toes, or rumpling their linen. If the Sheriff", in the exe- 
 cution of a writ, be vilified or assailed, may he take the of- 
 fender's life ? Shall he say — " Here is sealed process. I am 
 bound to execute it — so come along, or take the consequences." 
 That is, to be killed on the spot] He could not be so absurd. 
 Bring it to the old case of self-defence, of the first law of na- 
 ture, and then you have the plea of necessity, and you are 
 safe. But short of that, never ! 
 
 How is it practicable to avail ourselves of a force which is 
 always unready? How many hours will be required to as- 
 semble a brigade or a regiment, or company, whose members 
 are scattered all over town I 'V\\q captain is trying a cause, 
 
 * The position of thi; trooj)-^ sent to act against the rioters was truly painful, 
 both to themselves and to their frien(l^. In Kensington they did not fire, and 
 the town was full of stories in illustration of what was called their too great 
 forbearance; and when at last, in Southwark, tiiey drew their trigigers, our 
 treatment of them reminded one of the manner in which the public deal with 
 duels — the man who refuses to lifjht they stigmatize as a poltroon, and the man 
 who fights they point at. We believe that when Councils revise, as surely 
 they must, their proceedings of July, they will do it not for the sake of law and 
 justice alone, but for that of the volunteer corps themselves, now so deservedly 
 favorites, and whoso popularity is at stake upon this ridiculous and impractica- 
 ble measure. Popularity is a mark recognized in camps, as well as in courts, 
 groves, and election districts. When the Ministers of Louis XVIII. com 
 municated to Macdonald that they had pitched upon him as the officer who, 
 from his steadiness and skill, was thought fittest to command the royal troops 
 destined to cope with Napoleon, then advancing upon Paris, the Marshal an- 
 swered — " No 1 do not lake me — //on wicnt a more popul.^ii i/uin.''' 
 
[ 10] 
 
 with the first lieutenant emj)ancled as a juror — tlie second 
 Heutenant is taking a ride — tlic rest of the officers, commis- 
 sioned and non-commissioned, with their men, are dotted about 
 among the thousand vocations and avocations of the place, 
 buying, selling, baking, brewing, absorbed in public business, 
 or in their own, in the hands perchance of their dentist, doctor, 
 confessor or lawyer, or sick a-bed, or fast asleep, or tired to 
 death, or what not. As the City Brigade cannot be shut up in 
 barracks all the year round on soldier's allowance, waiting for 
 a Catholic church to be fired, or under arms in Independence 
 Square, expecting the clock to strike eight, the Sheriif must 
 either be supplied with some other force, or be at his wits' end 
 while his military police are getting notices for heav'en's sake 
 to come to his assistance. 
 
 If Philadelphia possessed a citadel which commanded the 
 town, and could batter it, and which communicated with forti- 
 fied places hard by, and were provisioned for a seige, and all 
 our militia were trained soldiers, hardened in the field, and led 
 by officers experienced in war, the want of numbers alone 
 would totally unfit them for the task we have assigned them. 
 We wish our friends and acquaintances, members of volunteer 
 corps, and we have among them many old and valued friends, 
 no such bad luck as much service under the July Ordinance, 
 for while we know they are good soldiers, we are sure they 
 are good citizens too. Charles X. made an Ordinance one 
 July, and the end of it was, he was beaten by the mob of Paris, 
 at the head of we forget how many guards and troops of the 
 line, led by a Marshal of France. It is in vain, now-a days, to 
 fight with the people, and a fight with the people it would be 
 at last, to attempt to carry out the council's idea of a military 
 police. The mob learn. They have already learned the mon- 
 strous lesson of firing cannon at us, in the streets, A montli ago. 
 such audacity was inconceivable ; but we sent cannon against 
 them, and they brought cannon against us ; and if we had armed 
 ourselves with Congreve rockets, or the Greek fire, so would 
 they. Do Ave suppose we are to fire upon them, and they not to 
 fire back? In France, they have fired upon the mob, till they 
 have so accustomed them to the whistling of bullets, that in 
 Paris, they are as bold and sometimes as good soldiers as the 
 king's troops. Let us not cultivate, in this way, the warlike pro- 
 
' [ 20 ] 
 
 pensities of our people. Why, when it would be so easy, so per- 
 fectly easy, to regulate the town with a civil police, and while 
 at least it is so well worth trying, should we make this military 
 experiment ? Why should we thus abuse our gallant fellow- 
 citizens ? Why should we send these men back again to such 
 work as they have come from, to another night of the 6th of July ? 
 is it just, is it fair to put upon them such a service — a service of 
 more than the danger of the field — and without its laurels — to 
 be killed in the kennel — to be targets in a narrow street, for 
 cannon loaded with rusty nails, harness chains, and pump 
 handles, and shot by nobody knows whom ; to be fired at with 
 no circumstance to cheer them of glorious war — but in creep- 
 ing, sneaking silence and darkness, from blind alleys, chamber 
 windows, and cellar doors — not to die as they would for us like 
 men of mettle and honor, in fair fight, but to be assassinated — 
 and all for what ? Why, because the city gentlemen will not give 
 us a police ! A police ! One would suppose it were some costly 
 and undeserved favor, some daily distribution of food and alms, 
 some prodigious advantage over all other towns great and small, 
 when it is only, in fact, a mere cheap necessary of city life. Or, 
 perhaps, that even this common want were one which, from 
 some peculiar misconduct of our own, wc had forfeited our right 
 to see gratified. You have forfeited, they cry — you are the out- 
 lawed population of Philadelphia — here is the mob, the odious, 
 filthy, fierce and formidable mob— a police is too good for them 
 — let them be shot. This is a cockney night-mare — there is 
 no mob. After all that has happened, we venture to assert 
 there can be no mob proper, in any part of this roomy land of 
 ours — not even in Philadelphia. Mob is the offspring of a 
 starved, ignorant, over-numerous, and ill used population. 
 They have a mob in Europe, and we hear them talk there of 
 their potent and dangerous crowds, so called, until we in 
 America really begin to adopt the European test of good citi- 
 zenship, which is clothes^ and to read the text as they do— by 
 their coats ye shall know them — and to think we also have a 
 mob. A test and a text, which may be well enough in the Old 
 World, where the unhappy people, or the mob, for they are con- 
 vertible terms, are, by the very structure of communities, a 
 complaining and perilous party of the body politic — an ache, 
 a sore, a disease. But to tell us of mobs in the New World, 
 
[21 ] 
 
 among a free, educated, self-troverned people, with hundreds 
 of millions of unopened acres, where there is not only elbow 
 room for every body, but verge enough for all the inhabitants 
 of the whole continent, to live and sulk, and eat if they like, 
 their white bread and four meals a day, out of cock-crow of 
 each other — lo tell us here of mobs, is to tell us not necessarily 
 of bad laws, or even of laws badly administered, but of a system 
 of laws in which that little member called police has been quite 
 forgotten. Let us add this member to our otherwise fair pro- 
 portions, and save ourselves the constantly recurring and most 
 disgraceful disorders, which, either as remedy or disease, must 
 be the consequence of an attempt to dispense with it. In Phi- 
 ladelphia we hang a man, and then for some outrageous mur- 
 der, about once in five or six years; yet so sensitive do we boast 
 ourselves to the enormity of taking hun^an life at all — which it 
 must be confessed is, in its best shape, one of those fantastic 
 tricks with which we make angels weep — that this community 
 is even now in active movement, to put an end to bloodshed 
 by law, altogether ; and forsooth, this is the season — this is the 
 juncture at which, wilfully shutting our eyes to the simplest 
 and most usual of expedients to avoid such horrors, we 
 pass laws — so they are called — for wholesale, indiscriminate 
 slaughter, in the public streets. We used to kill dogs in public, 
 till the sight of curs' blood was found to be too much for our 
 nerves, and the result was a better police for the dogs. Give 
 us one for the men. 
 
 Insist upon your present extraordinary enterprise, and can 
 any one fail to perceive, if it come to any thing, it must 
 be to mischief ! We will not indulge in the fanciful, or tiie 
 lugubrious, or look too far ahead, but is it possible not to see, 
 that if this Ordinance be really to be brought into play, mis- 
 chiefs which are to work deep, and to become State mis- 
 chiefs at last, must follow in its wake / It was bad enough 
 last month, when the town was, for a succession of days, in mi- 
 litary occupation, and the march of troops, and a score of proc- 
 lamations, announced blood, pestilence and confusion to the 
 wondering citizens, who knew all the time, that their ailment was 
 nothing in the world but injudicious treatment, and that while a 
 couple of dozen constables would have prevented the rebdlio7i{!) 
 depicted to them in print, the same number multiplied by six, 
 
[22] 
 
 would have swallowed it whole, after it had grown to its big- 
 o-est. Half tlie number of such men, {out of uniform,) as we 
 sent into Southwark, would give a good account of four times 
 the disturbance that ever existed tliere. But what will our 
 condition be, when the measures which did not get further than 
 men's lips, last July, the disarming of districts, the punishing 
 of districts, and the making examples of districts, and other 
 such blessed schemes of dog star projection, then only eloquently 
 discussed, come to be actually attempted ! If we are mistaken in 
 supposing as we do that they would give us a real rebellion and a 
 successful one, and if they should produce only their smallest 
 consequence, deep discontent, and revolt without success, why, 
 is it possible there is one man among us, who desires to see 
 any part of this fair city made Ireland of, or Poland — quiet only 
 when plenty of troops are there ■? Bnt there is no end to the 
 aro-ument from inconvenience. What we proposed to ourselves 
 when we began, was briefly to suggest to public notice, that 
 which, while all must be aware of it, yet many of us are not du- 
 ly attending to, namely, that the introduction of a military 
 ^ force instead of a police — a force which must take life to cure 
 V disorder, where a police would prevent or quietly suppress it, 
 is a proceeding which is directly against the laws of the land, 
 and only justifiable not as an act of law, 'owi o'i necessity : a jus- 
 tification, at best but the tyrant's justification, which never can 
 be applied to it, imtil the milder and usual remedies — remedies 
 which, among us, have not been even touched or experimented 
 with, have been fully, wisely, fairly, energetically aud pertina- 
 ciously tried, and iiave utterly failed. 
 
LB..". '05