Mob

“ Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your 319 houses,—that man your navy, and recruit your army,—that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair! You may call the people a mob; but do not forget, that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. And here I must remark, with what alacrity you are accustomed to fly to the succour of your distressed allies, leaving the distressed of your own country to the care of Providence or—the parish. ”

“ The mob is the human race in misery. The mob is the mournful commencement of the people. The mob is the great victim of darkness. Sacrifice to it! Sacrifice thyself! Let thyself be hunted, let thyself be exiled as Voltaire to Ferney, as D'Aubigné to Geneva, as Dante to Verona, as Juvenal to Syene, as Tacitus to Methymna, as Æschylus to Gela, as John to Patmos, as Elias to Horeb, as Thucydides to Thrace, as Isaiah to Esiongeber! ”

“ A noisy mob is always rash—often cruel and cowardly. A good friendly shout from a multitude is well, and a passing hearty curse endurable. The silent and stern assemblage of orderly men, like the myriads of Tipperary, or like one of Napoleon's armies, is a noble sight and a mighty power; but a scolding, hooting mob, which meets to make a noise, and runs away from a stick, a horse, or a sabre, is a wretched affair. ”

“ We may say with perfect assurance that a mob becomes formed under the influence of some strange event, be it the dream of a lunatic, the fiery speech of insane man, the screams of a superstitious woman, or the mad dance of a crazy king. A strong sudden excitement makes men obedient and causes them to lose their will, their personality, and makes them ready to play a blind obedience to an external command. Can we find an analogous state in the life of the individual? ”

“ You can no more move against the stream of custom, than you can make head against a crowd of people; the mob of lords and gentlemen will not let you speak or think but as they do. You are hemmed in, stifled, pinioned, pressed to death,—and if you make one false step, are ‘trampled under the hoofs of a swinish multitude!’ Talk of mobs! ”

“ The mob, the political convention, the abysmal brutality and stupid ignorance, of all concourses of people, give the lie to this theory. In a mob the collective intelligence and mercy is that of the least intelligent and most brutal members that compose the mob. ”

“ A mob is like a spring tide in an eastern storm, that retires only to return with more overwhelming fury. The crowd was taken by surprise when such a strong and well-armed party issued from the house with so great fury, laying all prostrate that came in their way. ”

“ A rude mob, consisting of the very dregs of the populace, made brutal by harsh treatment, by sanguinary decrees which dogged them in every town, scared from place to place and driven almost to despair, were compelled to worship their God, and to hide like a work of darkness the universal, sacred privilege of humanity. ”

“ Nothing is so horrible as the anger of a mob when it rages for blood and strangles its defenceless prey. Then there rolled through the streets a dark flood of human beings, in which, here and there, workmen in their shirt-sleeves seemed like the white caps of a raging sea, and all were howling and roaring—all merciless, heathenish, devilish. ”

“ The mean and envious beast that lived in our midst,—as it lives in every other country,—unseen, but felt, and always ready to crush the acquirements of existing civilization,—the mob came out from the underground world; criminal hands let the mob on the streets. ”

“ The mob had collected and organized to the number of several hundred, and were marching through the lower part of the city, dealing destruction in their course; the houses of respectable and worthy colored citizens were broken in upon, the furniture scattered to the winds, all they possessed destroyed or plundered, and they themselves subjected to the most brutal and savage treatment. ”

“ They grappled with the mob like beasts at bay. They drove them back from the thickest cluster of their homes and piled the white dead on the street, but the cunning mob caught the black men between the factories and their homes, where they knew they were armed only with their dinner pails. Firemen, policemen, and militiamen stood with hanging hands or even joined eagerly with the mob. ”

“ Do they need so much force to quell the crowd? An old Grenadier of the line groans aloud, And each hammer tap points the sob of a woman. Russia, Prussia, Austria, and the faded-white-lily Bourbon king Think it well To guard against tumult, A mob is an undependable thing. ”

“ And then of a sudden they were all of them running back down the corridors, jostling, crowding, screaming, Price with Arrin beside him, with old Sweetbriar ahead, with Sawyer shouting in hoarse anger. A mob, not an army, a mob urged forward by its own horror. ”

“ It was a mob that screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled, and shouted, and perspired, and squirmed, and wriggled, and pushed, and threatened, and poured itself all seemingly upon some central object. It was a mob that had an aim, that was determined to accomplish that aim, even though the whole azure expanse of sky fell upon them. It was a mob with set muscles, straining like whip-cords, eyes on that central object and with heads inward and sturdy legs outward, like prairie horses reversed in a battle. The cheerers and hat throwers on the outside were mirthful, but the mob was not ”

“ Let it once become known that you tried to defile the innocent, to work harm to one of mine, and you may suffer the fate of the unclean things to which you belong by nature. The mob kills without delicacy. It will tear you as the dogs tore the painted Jezebel. ”

“ Hang him! and the gentlemen in fine broadcloth, in whose hands he was, seemed quite ready to do the bidding of the mob, and to be looking round as if for some lamp post or other convenience for that purpose. Making our way with great difficulty to an adjoining street, we found it completely choked up with a well-dressed crowd, through which, amid jeers and insults, a few women, holding each other's hands, slowly made their way, retreating apparently from a neighboring building, and for some reason or other, evidently objects of very great indignation. ”

“ The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness. ”

“ They want warmth and protection—they are afraid. A mob is the quintessence of cowardice—a dirty, mad, hydra-headed monster, that one good valiant Saint George can thrust to the heart. When a mob speaks I say, Vox populi, vox devil! ¶ At the time the Israelites tumbled pellmell upon the Philistines, Moses had long been dead. ”

“ The result of which is that a ferocious mob surrounds you, and with invectives, insults, and provocative gestures assail and outrage you, till it please your tormentor to drive on; which you do at length amidst hooting and uproar that even convicted felons would feel ashamed of. ”

“ Knowing the character of an American mob, and also knowing how little they value the life of a man of color, I expected, [Pg 107] as I saw the multitude surrounding the house, to die—in fact, prepared for death.
Having assembled about the premises, they began to cry out in the most uproarious manner, "Bring him out!" "Kill the Nigger!" "Hang him!" "Tear down the house!" Shouts, groans, maledictions of all sorts and degrees followed. No one who has not witnessed an American mob can have the slightest idea of the scene which presented itself at this point. ”

“ BRITISH OBSEQUIES IN SPAIN
If you wish to save your Succession Duty, reform your Undertaker's Bills. There is nothing to prevent you but the censure of the lowest vulgar—the mob that does not think for itself: a mob composed of quite as many well dressed persons as ragamuffins. ”

“ The lynching mob was given its glut of blood and egged on by purposely exaggerated and often wholly invented tales of crime on the part of perhaps the most peaceful and sweet-tempered race the world has ever known. ”

“ A small mob composed mainly of people who themselves did not look particularly clever and scrupulous, leavened by a slight sprinkling of genuine pickpockets amused itself by cheering in the most penetrating, abominable cold drizzle that I remember. ”

“ It is, by dint of elaborate stage management, possible to bring a mob upon the boards, but the largest mob ever known is nothing but a floating atom of the people; and the people of which the politician has to think does not consist of knots of rioters in the street, but of some million absolutely distinct individuals, each sitting in his own breakfast room reading his own morning paper. ”

“ The mob became quiet for some moments, but was not so long; indeed, a mob of people,—which is, in fact, always composed of the most disorderly characters to be found in a place, is not exactly the assembly that is most calculated for quietness; somebody gave a shout, and then somebody else shouted, and the one wide throat of the whole concourse was opened, and sent forth a mighty yell.
After this exhibition of power, they began to run about like mad,—traverse the grounds from one end to the other, and then the ruins were in progress of being explored. ”

“ In the intense, excited crowd gathered around the court-house on this Tuesday, the 16th of August, other influences were also at work, influences operating in a greater or less degree in every lynching mob. We are accustomed to look upon a mob as an entity, the expression of a single concrete feeling; it is not; it is itself torn with dissensions and compunctions, swayed by conflicting emotions. Similarly, we look upon a militia company as a sort of machine, which, set in operation, automatically performs a certain definite service. ”

“ The permitting of this ebbing and flowing of the multitude into the official quarters is something quite incomprehensible to me; the mob is swayed and controlled—as far as they are controlled at all—without any organized effort of those in authority; when the officials commence screaming angrily at them they begin moving out; when the shouting ceases they begin swarming back. ”

“ This was a mob's proceeding all over, and we regret very much to say, that it is very much the characteristic of English mobs. What an uncommonly strange thing it is that people in multitudes seem completely to get rid of all reason—all honour—all common ordinary honesty; while, if you were to take the same people singly, you would find that they were reasonable enough, and would shrink with a feeling quite approaching to horror from anything in the shape of very flagrant injustice. ”

“ The mob seems to be a mere lawless, floundering monster, bent chiefly on plunder; but the danger is that leaders are organizing its strength as a part of the rebellion. You can understand that, while I look upon the outbreak with the solicitude of a citizen whose dearest interests are at stake, I also, from habit of mind and duty, must study it as a part of the great campaign of the year. ”

“ Every pulpit North and South should speak out against mob rule and lynch law. The eloquent divine in Greenville, Miss., who recently denounced with righteous indignation the damnable outrages of mob violence in that state, was as a voice crying in the wilderness. ”

“ In the heat of blind fury one might conceive how a mad mob might beat and kill a man taken red-handed in a brutal murder. But it is almost past belief to read that civilized white people, men who boast of their chivalry and blue blood, actually had fun in beating, chasing and shooting men who had no possible connection with any crime. ”

“ One would think that men would be afraid to commit any crime in a community where the mob is in the ascendency, and yet, such are the contradictions and subtleties of human nature, that it is exactly the opposite. And there is another thing in this connection—the men who constitute the mob are, as a rule, among the worst, the lowest, and the most depraved. ”

“ Yet that mob was composed of the best society of the place, attending a concert; and gentlemen could be heard calling for a revolver with which to kill recklessly an unhappy man of whose nationality, name, and crime they knew nothing. ”

“ Above all, it is clear that they had the vices as well as the virtues of a mob. The shocking massacre in which they indulged in the sudden relaxation of success is quite obviously a massacre by a mob. It is all the more profoundly revolutionary because it must have been for the most part a French mob. ”

“ The arms of the mob were never taken away, and the majority of the militia, to my certain knowledge, were engaged the next day with the mob, (Colonel Pitcher and Boggs not excepted) , going from house to house in gangs from sixty to seventy in number, threatening the lives of women and children, if they did not leave forthwith. In this diabolical scene men were chased from their houses and homes without any preparation for themselves or families. ”

“ But old men and women, and poor families, were compelled to stay behind, and meet the fury of the mob, and to-day it became a regular hunt for them. A sight of one in the streets would call forth a halloo, as when, a fox breaks cover, and away would dash a half a dozen men in pursuit. ”

“ They send us every year some piece of aboriginal strength, some tough oak-stick of a man who is not to be silenced or insulted or intimidated by a mob, because he is more mob than they,—one who mobs the mob,—some sturdy countryman, on whom neither money, nor politeness, nor hard words, nor eggs, nor blows, nor brickbats, make any impression. ”

“ ALWAYS THE MOB
Jesus emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering four-footed in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.
Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob. ”