On the morning of the 19th of April, 1887, the jury which had been sitting in the case of Alfred McKenna, a young man charged with the murder of John P. Quillinan, returned a verdict finding McKenna guilty of assault and recommending him to mercy. The murder had been a peculiarly atrocious one. Quillinan and McKenna had been rivals for some minor local office, and had quarrelled. McKenna had followed Quillinan to his home and shot him in the presence of his wife and daughter, seriously wounding the little girl, who endeavored to protect her father’s life. There was no denial of these facts by the defence. But McKenna was a man of some social position, of considerable wealth, of handsome person and winning address. Moreover, he and his friends wielded a powerful political influence. The case had required three trials. Twice the jury had disagreed. The third trial lasted nearly a month, and the jury took five days to agree upon their scandalous verdict. It was handed to the clerk of the court in writing during a temporary adjournment, and the jury separated, first allowing it to be known that they had originally stood seven for acquittal to five for murder in the first degree, and that the seven had refused to accept any compromise more severe upon the prisoner than the one finally adopted. In less than an hour after the verdict had been announced, its character was known over the entire city. McKenna’s political friends rejoiced; but the vast majority of better citizens felt outraged beyond endurance. Angry knots of men gathered at every street corner. A fierce wave of indignation swept over the city. Into the midst of this public excitement came the news that McKenna had paid the fine of fifty dollars and costs which the court had imposed, and had left the court-house a free man, while Quillinan’s widow had been removed in a fainting-fit, her wounded daughter clinging to her dress, to the county poor-house. This news was like a shaft of lightning falling upon an oil-tank. In an instant the city blazed up with inextinguishable fury. A crowd of maddened men, including in their number many of the best and most respected citizens of Chicago, hurried with frenzied yells to the court-house. They filled its lobbies and surged into the room in which the judge who had fined McKenna was presiding over another case. He saw mischief in the faces of the very first who burst unceremoniously upon the speech of the drawling advocate before him. He heard something worse than mere mischief in the roar of passion and vengeance which swelled in the courtyard and the street. Hastily adjourning the court, he fled, barely in time to save his own life.