Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[32] shows, that the police force was miserably inadequate for an emergency like a riot. On the other hand, the city was still small enough to make the Mayor a wellknown figure, his office possessed much greater dignity, and his presence inspired much greater awe, than it does to-day. This, while it makes his part in removing the anti-slavery sign (accepting his own version of it) an indefensible encouragement to the mob, would also, it must be said, justly qualify any present estimate of his personal bravery. Comparison has pertinently been made with Mayor Eliot's quelling of the ferocious Broad-Street riot of June 11, 1837, between two fire-engine¹ companies and the Irish, when missiles were flying, and personal intervention meant taking risks which Mayor Lyman had neither to encounter nor to fear.

As to calling out the military, the Mayor perhaps had no statute authority to do so;² and if he had, the militia was in the streets—a part of the mob—the thing to be put down.³ Possibly the marines from the Charlestown Navy-Yard could have been got to guard the City Hall in defence of Federal property—the Post-office—as later they were available for escorting fugitive slaves southward past the same building; but this was before the days of telegraphs, and the consent of a pro-slavery Administration might have been necessary. It must, however, be remembered, that Mayor Lyman had every reason to expect, and ample warning to prepare for, a disturbance,⁴ and that the handbill did not rouse him to