This state of things excited the attention of the people generally, and in
the fore-part of this month, a public meeting was called at the Tabernacle
to consider what could be done. It amounted to nothing. Some speeches were
made, resolutions offered, but nothing practical was proposed. The
temperance people attempted to make a little capital out of it, by
asserting that the high price of grain was owing to the amount used by the
distilleries--rye being sold as high as one dollar and seventy cents per
bushel.

But a different class of people were now discussing the subject, and in a
different spirit. Their attention was directed to _men_, not
_theories_--the individual oppressors, not the general causes.

Chief among those against whom the popular feeling was now directed, was
Hart & Co., large commission merchants in Washington Street, between Dey
and Cortlandt Streets. Their store was packed with flour and wheat, and
every day men passed it with sinister looks. Sometimes a little knot of
men would stop opposite it, and talk of the loads of grain stored up
there, while their own families were pinched for bread. They would gaze
savagely on its heavy iron doors, that seemed to defy the weak and
helpless, and then walk on, muttering threats and curses. These signs of a
gathering storm were, however, unheeded by the proprietors. Others, better
informed, were not so tranquil; and by anonymous letters tried to arouse
Mr. Hart to take precautionary measures. An anonymous letter addressed to
Mr. W. Lenox was picked up in the Park, in which the writer stated that a
conspiracy was formed for breaking open and plundering Mr. Hart's store,
and gave the following plan of action. On some dark night, two alarms of
fire were to be given, one near the Battery, and the other up town, in
order to draw off the watchmen and police, when a large crowd already