Mob rule continued Thursday, its violence increasing every hour, until 2
p.m., when the climax seemed to be reached. The fact that colored men and
women had been made the victims of brutal mobs, chased through the
streets, killed upon the highways and butchered in their homes, did not
call the best element in New Orleans to active exertion in behalf of law
and order. The killing of a few Negroes more or less by irresponsible mobs
does not cut much figure in Louisiana. But when the reign of mob law
exerts a depressing influence upon the stock market and city securities
begin to show unsteady standing in money centers, then the strong arm of
the good white people of the South asserts itself and order is quickly
brought out of chaos.

It was so with New Orleans on that Thursday. The better element of the
white citizens began to realize that New Orleans in the hands of a mob
would not prove a promising investment for Eastern capital, so the better
element began to stir itself, not for the purpose of punishing the
brutality against the Negroes who had been beaten, or bringing to justice
the murderers of those who had been killed, but for the purpose of saving
the city's credit. The _Times-Democrat_, upon this phase of the situation
on Friday morning says:

When it became known later in the day that State bonds had depreciated
from a point to a point and a half on the New York market a new phase of
seriousness was manifest to the business community. Thinking men
realized that a continuance of unchecked disorder would strike a body
blow to the credit of the city and in all probability would complicate
the negotiation of the forthcoming improvement bonds. The bare thought
that such a disaster might be brought about by a few irresponsible boys,
tramps and ruffians, inflamed popular indignation to fever pitch. It was