Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1885 — TAKING THE LAST LOOK. [ARTICLE]

TAKING THE LAST LOOK.

Tens of Thousands of People Pass the Casket Containing Gen. Grant’s Remains. The Mechanic, Working Girl, Clerk, and Business Man Side by Side. One hundred and seventy-five thousand people viewed the remains of Gen. Grant on Thursday, the 6th inst, as thqy lay in state at the City Hall in New York. During the entire day great throngs, representing every condition of society, surged through the building. Two lines of policemen, says an eye-witness describing the scenes, were placed across the plaza Trim the City Hall entrance to the fountain. These two lines formed a passageway through which four men might walk abreast, and alcug which all day the visitors to the remains should pass. Meanwhile the officers of the i wenty-second Regiment; who had been on duty through the early morning, were filing out of the City Hall. '1 hey were going home, and their places were being taken by the officers of the Twelfth Regiment. Sergt. Riley, with thirty men, picketed tne corridors through the building so as to torm tha channel through which the throng should move to the exit on the Court House side of the City Hall. The Grant Post had mounted a detail at 5 o’clock to serve from that hour until 8 o'clock.

These men were placed nearest the catafalque, and the two lines of visitors passed between them atid the casket on either side. All within the gloomy corridors was in readiness. Outside on the top step of the City Hall, and in the middle cf the channel of officers to the fountain, stood a big brawny police officer, who acted as a wedge to split the current of ] eople and semi them in lesser stre ms through the gates, where they should flow past the casket _as detailed, 'l he clocks pointed to 6:ot> o’clock, and at the Inspectors orders the iron gates were thrown open. Ten or twelve hundred peoi le hud jammed up against the officers who barred the channel at the edge of the fountain-circle, but when the gates swung ooen the officers ceased to hold the people in check, and the stream began to flow past the remains and through the building. The first person to review the remains was a spare but sweet-faced little woman, who led with each hand u little bov. She was anxious her children should see tlio General's face, and the children were permitted to halt an Instunt and gaze over the side cf the casket and peer Into it. It was yet ear.y. The police refrained from pushing the very first visitor, and she a woman. The police had not yet begun the annoying practice of bumping persons forward upon the heels and necks of their immediate predecessors. In the first minute only eighty-four persons passed the casket. Tills rate of passage would never answer when the dense crowd should bo waiting outside. People were hastened; they were hurried through at 101 a minute; then the pressure was increased to 101 a minute. The procession was almost a look-step, and the tramp was quick.

It was 6:25 a. m., and the pulao of curiosity had Hunk to 6(1 to the minute. At 6:28 the rate wan 52. A little bootblack with bls box on his shoulder came along to see the dead General. His face shone and his hair had been i reshly wet and smoothed out by the fountain. Many women came, too, and they caused delay. 'They must needs examine every detail, and would fain put their noses to the flowers. Men and boys and wan-faced women, with lunch-baskets and dinner-pails, filed along. At 6:40 the running average per minute was td, and the total then passed was between two thousand seven hundred and two thousand eight hundred persons. The channel was just full, with no clogging or crowding. The hour from six to seven o'clock wks employed by workingmen and women, boys and girls, in viewing the remains. They were on their way to work; the day was young, and their opportunity better than at any hour of the day. After seven o’clock the line changed as to its personnel. There were less women and girls. They had gone through, and wore at work. Then the lino began to lengthen. At 8 o’clock there was another change taking place in the complexion of the visitors. The laborers had gone and the clerks coming downtown were stepping from elevated and surface cars into the line that was moving then at the late of 110 and 120 per minute. The police were re-enforced at 8 o’clock. Details under sergeants and roundsmen had been arriving and reporting to the Inspector from 7 o'clock. At 8 o'clock there were 487 men on duty. The channel, with walls of police, was extended tn Ysliape around the sides of the fountain-circle, which, like a ho; per, received the people and from whiclfthey were straightened out in lines of twos and threes up to the City Hall steps. The guards at t'.e casket were hastening the people: 150 per minute were being hurried through. The hands on the dock dials marked 9 o’clock. The fountain circle was no longer the point or formation of the line. Every car and train coming down town added its quota to those anxious to look upon the face of Gen. Grant. By the remains the U. S. Grant post had mounted another detail of thirteen men. and the men of Wheeler post, of Saratoga—which first mounted a guard about the Mount MacGregor cottage after the General’s death—were standing at the foot of the casket, while members of the military order of the Loyal Legion were likewise represented. Rapidly the people were augmenting. The crowd was fast becoming a throng; the line was being hurried through the hall at the rate of 140 per minute, and for a little while the pace was 170 per minute, which rate, if maintained for an hour, would have parsed 10,200. This could not be done, however. To accomplish it the visitors must be hurried through and pass the remains almost upon a trot. Thia rate of speed comported illy with the dignity of the occasion, and more time was given. But the accretions were too rapid to be cared for, and the line of waiting people stretched out finailv at 10 o’clo k around the bend, at the Register’s office and down Center street. At 11 o'clock a. m. between 30,000 and 31,000 persons bad passed the casket and looked toward the remains, though many coming rapidly in from the bright sundght were scarcely able to distinguish them in the somber shadows of the black-draped corridor. It is difficult to form an idea of bow entirely cosmopolitan this procession of citizens was. Within a block there was every shade of wealth and poverty, of lowliness and highness, of cu ture and ignorance, of tottering age and curious childhood. They passed on in the line together with all possible quiet and respect. Throughout the entire day no unseemly conduct marred the solemnity of that extraordinary occasion. Further than to keep the line straight and to make way for wagons at crossings and for foot passengers on the sidewalks, the police were without occupation. All seemed to realize that this was no ordinary concourse of citizens, and that their presence in a continually re-enforced procession of thousands was the spectacle of a lifetime. They moved along quietly, quickly, and with a gentle decorum that savored not of an unpleasant curiosity, but of concern, devotion, and respect for an illustrious memory. At different hours the point where the line began varied. It got as far up tdwn in the early and late portions of the day as Canal street, and fell off several times down to Duane street, but in the main it kept about the vicinity of Franklin street. Near the City Hall it was no uncommon thing to see from $1 to $2.50 offered for a coveted place. The crowd a'l day was orderly. After 5 o'clock p. m. the rush became greater than ever. The line was then forming at Worth street, and it was an' hour and fventy minutes before a person could reach the City Hall steps. At 6 o'clock the line had reached Canal street and Broadway, half a mile away, and showed no signs of diminution. It was then composed of young clerks and shop-girls, who chattered nvrrily along the route, but seldom addressed themselves to other than their immediate companion, and all sound died away long before they reached the stone steps of the building. Officers of the guard of honor of the Loyal Legion who were making frequent counts of the pr ople passing found that they varied from 7,000 to 9,0(0 an hour. These reports were corroborated by the police reports at the same time. At 1 o’clock, when the doors were closed for the night, it was calculated that 175,000 persons had passed, through the building.