York City.--The best Plan to adopt for Protection against Mobs.

The history of the riots that have taken place in a great city from its
foundation, is a curious and unique one, and illustrates the peculiar
changes in tone and temper that have come over it in the course of its
development and growth. They exhibit also one phase of its moral
character--furnish a sort of moral history of that vast, ignorant,
turbulent class which is one of the distinguishing features of a great
city, and at the same time the chief cause of its solicitude and anxiety,
and often of dread.

The immediate cause, however, of my taking up the subject, was a request
from some of the chief actors in putting down the Draft Riots of 1863, to
write a history of them. It was argued that it had never been written,
except in a detached and fragmentary way in the daily press, which, from
the hurried manner in which it was done, was necessarily incomplete, and
more or less erroneous.

It was also said, and truly, that those who, by their courage and energy,
saved the city, and who now would aid me not only officially, but by their
personal recollections and private memoranda, would soon pass away, and
thus valuable material be lost.

Besides these valid reasons, it was asserted that the history of the
rebellion was not complete without it, and yet no historian of that most
important event in our national life had given the riots the prominence
they deserved, but simply referred to them as a side issue, instead of
having a vital bearing on the fate of the war and the nation. On no single
battle or campaign did the destiny of the country hinge as upon that
short, sharp campaign carried on by General Brown and the Police