“I will tell you how long,” replied a third, who looked like a Tammany alderman, but as respectably dressed as either of the others, and buttoning up his coat to his chin defiantly: “Just as long as you enact unjust laws.” The rioting, Nordhoff believed, might have been ended the first day by determined military forces. While ruffians at the Orphan Asylum were crying, “Kill the little devils!” a steady attack by a small armed force would have routed them. “The rioters evidently expected such an attack, and at one time, frightened by a squabble on their outskirts between a few firemen and a gang abusing a bystander, actually took to their heels, but returned to their work with cries of derision.” The first charge was made by the police just after 4 p. m. at the La Farge Hotel, and the rioters ran like sheep, leaving about thirty dead or wounded. Nordhoff’s observation that the pillaging was done mainly by women and boys, who took two hours to carry 300 iron bedsteads from the Orphan Asylum, was borne out by a news item printed by the _Post_ during the riots: HOW A HOUSE IS SACKED Having witnessed the proceedings of the rioters on several occasions ... we describe them for the benefit of our readers. On yesterday afternoon about six o’clock they visited the residence of a gentleman in Twenty-ninth Street. A few stragglers appeared on the scene, consisting mainly of women and children. Two or three men then demanded and gained admittance, while their number was largely increased on the outside. One elderly gentleman was found who had liberty to leave. Then commenced indiscriminate plunder. This was carried on mostly by old men, women and children, while the “men of muscle” stood guard. Every article was appropriated, the carriers often bending under their burden. Women and children, hatless and shoeless, marched off having in their possession the most costly of fabrics, some of them broken and unfit for use. To this wanton destruction of private property the neighbors and the many visitors drawn to the spot were silent spectators. A word of remonstrance cost a life. Two gentlemen, we are informed, paid the penalty yesterday for expressing their righteous indignation.... An hour later, in another visit, we saw the crowd engaged in breaking the sashes and carrying off the fragments of woodwork. Nordhoff gave high praise to the city police and the United States troops, but thought the State militia miserably ineffective, and the firemen often allies of the mob. He ascertained that the rioters’ casualties were much higher than the public believed, and estimated that 400 to 500 lives were lost. “A continuous stream of funerals flows across the East River, and graves are dug privately within the knowledge of the police here and there.”