[Lydia] Maria [Child] ALS to [Louisa Loring and Ellis Gray Loring], May 14, 1849

that there was no telling how long that security would last.
I pocketed the neat compliment, without saying so, and
perhaps she thinks the cut direct was lost on an obtuse victim.

I am sorry I cannot secure your safety, by invi-
-ting you and your barns to N. York; but in sober earnest,
our own position is a little unsteady just now. The beautiful
opera-house is half dismantled, and the paving-stones all
round it are torn up by the mob. That ruffianly Forest, how
much he has to answer for! His coarse, wicked appeals to bad,
petty, national prejudices have brought about this awful result.
Two years ago, I was in a state of indignation against an
article in The Democratic Review, concerning his visit to
England. It was in the style of the worst Fourth-of-July slang.

We went to bid Mrs. Silsbee good bye at the N. Y. Hotel,
and found both doors besieged by an infuriated mob,
yelling for Macready, who boarded there. Volleys of
musketry were being discharged in quick succession, in
the opera-house street near by. We found afterward
that a bullet had whizzed across the street we were
passing. Deeming it necessary to inquire concerning the
safety of Mrs. Silsbee, we pressed on, thro such yells!
When she exclaimed, "Oh what a frightful city N. York
is!" I replied, "I witnessed a very similar scene in Milk
St. Boston, when the mob were yelling for George Thompson;
and we slept rather insecurely in our beds, when the Convent
was burned, and the city under military protection."
When we had seen Mrs. Silsbee safely in a friend's carriage,
we returned home by a round-about route to avoid the
excited multitude; but we were obliged to take shelter on a
door step, to make room for the military, passing with