When the Massachusetts Sixth was there in Baltimore and being
mobbed, and stood for a long time perfectly patient till their
officers commanded them to fire, a long Yankee--who had stood
watching this crowd and saw that the poor ruffians round
about were merely the tools of the respectable scoundrels
standing away across the square on boxes and barrels--stept
out from the ranks and drew his bead and sent a bullet through
one scoundrel’s heart, and knocked him like a pigeon off a
branch. In Baltimore I heard the other side of that story,
when a clergyman of that city told me, “We lost a good deal
out of our church that day.” “Ah?” said I, “how was that?”
“Well, one of the class-leaders of our church was down there
looking-on. He stood on a box on the other side of the square;
he was not among the crowd at all, but a stray bullet came
across the end of the square and shot him!” He was one of those
broadclothed scoundrels, with a gold-headed cane, surrounding
those poor fellows, and ought to have been shot.--HENRY WARD
BEECHER.
(2739)
=Responsibility for Others=--See MUTUALISM.