Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1877 — THE PITTSBURGH RIOT. [ARTICLE]

THE PITTSBURGH RIOT.

Terrible Scenes ot Gunago anil Kaplne— An Eye-Witness’ Graphic Picture ot the Aflhir. [From the Cincinnati Coniuiercial.] A gentleman who happened in Pittsburgh at the time of the riot sends us the following description of the scene he witnessed : A stranger sight than that at the Union depot and vicinity at 8 p. m. on Sunday night cannot be imagined—not stranger than the terrible scenes of carnage and rapine than from the general demeanor of the thousands and thousands of spectators crowding around the scenes. The Union depot smolders, a mass of ruins. A long line of blazing timbers and iron columns at white heat marked the site of the Adams Express Company's Transfer depot and the PanHandle shops ; the elevator and its thousands of bushels of grain still blazing fiercely ; riotous crowds of drunken men and women reeled here and there, under loads of stolen merchandise of all sorts ; kegs of beer and whisky were rolled or carried in every direction, the heads knocked out and the contents swilled down the throats of the mob, carelessly kicked over, or else set under some car or truck and a torch thrown iuto them. Hero, some drunken brute, tired of his load, would dash a keg of liquor down into the crowd he was passing through ; there, a half-crazed woman, with hair tangled and matted, and clothing half gone, would push through the masses of people, carrying in her arms or trailing after her hundreds of yards of dry goods, torn indiscriminately from a plundered freight car. Boys, aye, and girls, too, of 12 and 15 years of age, would dodge into a car and out again to the crowd of spectators offering a silk umbrella, a set of silverplated harness, a bundle of whips, a box of cutlery—anything their hands had happened to clutch in the wild scramble—for 25 cents. I noticed a boy of probably 13 years dash into a passenger car on the siding, near east end of the tunnel, rip open the cushion of a seat, strike a-match, and touch off the padding. A gentleman beside me cried out, “Hold! there,you young scoundrel,” and the boy leered up into his face and yelled out, “Go toil—l, you — ; is our day,” and a policeman behind us muttered, “It’s better to let ’em alone ; they’ll go any lengths now.” All of this time, through every phase of desperate, reckless crime, the vast concourse of people looked calmly on, with an apathetic indifference that was simply astounding. Hundreds of young and middle-aged men, with ladies on their arms, some of them leading little children, grouped around, standing on anything that would enable them to look over the heads of the crowd in front, gazing calmly but curiously on the scenes, and laughing as heartily at any funny or ludicrous incident in the terrible scene as if the whole thing was a gigantic farce or pantomime, provided for their special amusement. A fine-looking, middle-aged man, with iron-gray beard, and a. martial look generally, mounted a goods box, calmly looked over the scene, got down, lighted his cigar, and coolly remarked, “Well, as the parrot said to the monkey, we’re having a hell of a time !” Dr. Slattery showed me an ounce minio ball, remarking, “I cut that from the shattered thigh-bones of Charles White, and came near having to cut one from myself. See,” holding up the lappel of his Prince Albert, through which a musket ball had torn an ugly rent. A dead man was carried through the crowd on Liberty street, and a blear-eyed woman brutally remarked, “ lie's got enough of it, anyhow.” All sensibility and human feeling seemed dead, and not till the mob had carried tlicir atrocities to their extreme length, and burned everything from Thirty-third street to the east end of the Pan-Handle tunnel, and threatened to go on and destroy the railroad bridge, did the alarm of the people take shape in any definite action toward opposing the sway of the mob. With cooler thought came a general revulsion of feeling, and men who yesterday rather sided with the rioters to-day bitterly denounce their work. But the feeling comes too late, and not to the disapprobation or opposition of the people generally can be accredited the final cessation or plunder and arson. The mob only ceased when their atrocities palled upon them, and their utter abandon had tired them out. A dirty, ragged ruffian, that last week begged or stole his way through the country, yesterday would raise the sensational yell, ‘ ‘ Bread or blood; we cannot starve!” and at the same instant apply the torch to a thousand pounds of flour or meat. The people generally place credence in the statement of the strikers that not they, but the roughs aud tramps of the two cities, are responsible for the fearful havoc.