The dead are sleeping in their quiet graves. Day by day, time brings its consolations to the afflicted; but has society no lesson to learn from the horrors of which we have given as full a description as could be given, by looking at the mere surface of things? We have shown the causes which produced this dreadful sacrifice of human life—this massacre of innocent and unoffending citizens, for many of the killed were truly such. Let us endeavor to turn the terrible lesson to some useful account.

Those who were actively engaged in the scenes we have described, experience different feelings in regard to it. The mob was made up mainly of well-meaning, but ignorant, rash, and misguided men. The best feelings of our nature, when they are perverted, may produce the worst consequences. In this case, a feeling of patriotism, and a sense of justice, were the ruling motives of those who violated the laws, broke the peace of the community, defied the constituted authorities, and caused the death of twenty-three human beings. They acted in all good conscience, but an unenlightened or misguided conscience is no security against wrong. Some of the worst deeds that were ever committed, were done “in all good conscience.” Thus Christ was crucified by a Jewish mob, and said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Thus, in all ages, the worst acts have been committed from the best of motives.

The authorities are probably satisfied with having maintained law and order, though at a terrible sacrifice, and the press has almost unanimously sustained them. But it should be remembered that almost all men are liable to temporary excitements. Mobs are affected with a kind of insanity. The madness of a crowd seems to be infectious. These rioters may, in their calm moments, be good and quiet citizens. We have seen some of the most sober and moral communities excited into a fury of passion. At any rate, they are brethren, and should be dealt with in love and kindness.

But law and order must be maintained; very true—it must be done at all hazards, but it should be done prudently, and with the least possible sacrifice. Humanity has its claims as well as law; and it may not be necessary to the maintenance of public order, that ignorant and misguided men, laboring under a temporary madness should be shot down like dogs, if they can be controlled by means more gentle.

The military acted naturally, under the circumstances. They were placed in an ugly position by the authorities, suffered severely for it, and obeyed their orders. No doubt, they regretted the fatal necessity. Some idea of the probable feelings of those who fired the fatal volleys, may be judged of from the fact that a brother of Mr. Gedney, who was shot dead at the first fire, was a member of one of the companies that fired the volleys. All men are brethren—but here was brother against brother, in a sense that the most unfeeling can appreciate.

A distinguished clergyman of this city, preaching on the subject of the riot, says of Macready and his right to act—“Though he had been the meanest of his kind, he should have been protected here to the conclusion of his announced engagement, if an army of ten thousand men had been required to wait upon his movements, and a ship of war chartered to convey him to his native land. We have done something to vindicate order and law, and we ought to have done more.”

A zeal for the rights of Mr. Macready and his friends, and for the cause of law and order is commendable—but it must not be forgotten that other rights must have been violated, or this riot could never have taken place. Those ignorant men had a right to education, and to such conditions of cultivation, as would have made them intelligent men and good citizens. They would never have raised their hands against society, had society done its duty to them. Before they committed this wrong, they had been most deeply wronged themselves; and it would be better to provide ten thousand schoolmasters to instruct people, than ten thousand soldiers to prevent the result of their ignorance.

Men can be zealous and indignant about the rights of play actors, or their patrons—and we have no disposition to deny their rights, or to interfere with the lawful exercise of them—but they forget in how many ways the rights of our brethren are violated, and not a word is said in their behalf. Give every man the natural and social rights that belong to him and we should have few crimes and outrages to complain of, and law and order could be maintained without standing armies or ships of war.

When we go deep into the investigation of social wrongs, we shall find that society brings upon itself the very evils it attempts to subdue. Society, by an unjust distribution of the avails of industry, enables a few men to become rich, and consigns a great mass to hopeless poverty, with all its deprivations and degradations. This poverty produces ignorance, the sense of injustice, grovelling tastes, and a loss of all high ambition. The only wonder is that under such circumstances of wrong and outrage, men are so forbearing, so honest, and so orderly. The only wonder is that more crimes are not committed against both property and life. Thousands of poor people know that they are robbed and plundered every day of their lives—they feel bitterly the hardships and injustice of their lot; but how calmly do they wait God’s justice to set them right! How few of them comparatively attempt to right their own wrongs, and to seize upon a portion of what society withholds from them!

This terrible tragedy is a lesson to us all. None can escape its warning. We are all responsible, all guilty; for we make a part of a society that has permitted thousands of its members to grow up in poverty and ignorance, and exposed to the temptations of vice and crime. This mob is but a symptom of our social condition, and it points out a disease to which we should lose no time in applying a proper remedy.

THE END.