outh
closed enough to exclaim, "Oi always thought he could swear if he tried
hard. Begobs, b'ys, it's proud av him we should be this day. Didn't he
swear strong an' fine like? Howly hivens! it's a delight to hear damn
said like that."

For some reason that "swear-word" pleased New York and the country
generally, showing that even an oath has its purpose in this world, so
long as it is properly used. Dean Swift said a lie "was too good to be
lavished about." So it is of profanity. The crowd understood Peter's
remark as they would have understood nothing else. They understood that
besides those rifles and bayonets there was something else not to be
trifled with. So in this case, it was not wasted.

And Mr. Bohlmann, Christian though he was, as he read his paper that
evening cried, "Och! Dod Beder Stirling he always does say chust der
righd ding!"

CHAPTER LVI.

CUI BONO?

Of the further doings of that day it seems hardly necessary to write,
for the papers recorded it with a fulness impossible here. The gathering
crowds. The reinforcement of the militia. The clearing and holding of
Forty-second Street to the river. The arrival of the three barge-loads
of "scabs." Their march through that street to the station safely,
though at every cross street greeted with a storm of stones and other
missiles. The struggle of the mob at the station to force back the
troops so as to get at the "rats." The impact of the "thin line" and
that dense seething mass of enraged, crazed men. The yielding of the
troops from mere pressure. The order to the second rank to fix bayonets.
The pushing back of the crowd once more. The crack of a revolver. Then
the dozen shots fired almost simultaneously. The great surge of the mob
forward. The quick order, and the rattle of guns, as they rose to the
shoulder. Another order, and the sheet of flame. The great surge of the
mob backwards. Then silence. Silence in the ranks. Silence in the mob.
Silence in those who lay on the ground between the two.

Capital and Labor were disagreed as to a ten per cent reduction of
wages, and were trying to settle it. At first blush capital had the best
of it. "Only a few strikers and militia-men killed," was the apparent
result of that struggle. The scabs were in safety inside the station,
and trains were already making up, preparatory to a resumption of
traffic. But capital did not go scot-free. "Firing in the streets of New
York," was the word sent out all