A little after midnight the sheriff, together with General Pearson, Mr. Watt, and some fifteen or twenty railroad employés, walked out to Twenty-eighth street, and there getting up on a gondola or flat car so as to be above the crowd, addressed them, advising them to disperse and go to their homes, stating to them his duty in case they refused. The crowd refused to disperse, and hooted and yelled at the sheriff, and fired pistol shots in the air while he was addressing them. They told the sheriff to go home, that they were not going to allow any freight trains to leave until the difficulty between them and the railroad company was settled, that the mayor and policemen were on their side, and that prominent citizens had offered to assist them in provisions and money to carry on the strike. It should be here stated that there is no proof that any such offers of assistance were actually made, except that tradesmen with whom the strikers were dealing offered to trust them until they got work again, and one prominent citizen, whose name was used by the mob, came forward testified that he had never made any such offer. Some of the mob also read messages purporting to come from other places, urging them to hold their ground, and assistance in men and means would be sent them. There is no means of ascertaining whether these messages were really sent as they purported to be, or were only bogus ones, used for the purpose of firing up the mob, and inducing them to hold out in their purpose. They were probably bogus, and they, without doubt, produced the effect intended by their authors. At this time the crowd numbered some two hundred men and boys, and was composed of some railroad men, some discharged men, quite a number of mill men, (that is men from the iron mills, glass factories, &c.,) and some strangers as they were called by the witnesses, repulsive, hard looking men, probably tramps and criminals, who always flock to a scene of disturbance like vultures to the carrion. The sheriff, as he testifies, becoming satisfied that he could not raise force sufficient to control the crowd, made a call on the Governor, by telegraph, for military to suppress the riot. The sheriff at this time had made no effort whatever to raise a posse to disperse the mob, and in view of subsequent developments it is probable that such an effort would have been futile. The copy of the telegram of the sheriff to the Governor is given in the report of the Adjutant General for 1877, as are also copies of all other telegrams sent and received by him during the troubles, and most of them in the evidence taken by your committee, and therefore they need not be copied here.