Finding the jurymen who had returned the verdict in McKenna’s case already separated, the mob divided. A portion hurried in search of McKenna; others set out for the residences or places of business of the obnoxious jurymen; others remained to dismantle the court-room and hustle the officers who were unlucky enough to fall into their hands. McKenna heard of the mob and fled the city. Four of the seven jurymen who had voted “not guilty” also received warning, and escaped. Three were caught by the mob. Two were hanged to lamp-posts without a minute’s delay or the opportunity being given them to say a word. The third, who was reported to have said, before going on the jury, that “hanging was played out in Chicago as well as New York,” was compelled to watch the execution of the other two, and taunted with his remark. His terror and abject pleas for mercy finally prevailed with his captors, who spared his life and set him free, with a few sharp cuts from a heavy whip which a dealer in saddlery had seized as he ran out of his store to join the crowd. But a second party coming up, enraged because so many of the unjust jurors had escaped, seized him and hung him beside the bodies of the others. A young man, afterwards found to be the brother of the widow Quillinan, sprang on a dry-goods box and made an impassioned harangue to the mob, telling of the misery of the bereaved family, then huddling together at the poor-house, while McKenna and his family were rolling in luxury. Instantly the cry arose, “Burn their houses!” With incredible speed the mob, already beginning to gather reinforcements from the vilest human scum of the vile city, rushed to the McKenna mansion. Its inmates fled from the rear as the mob poured in at the front. Petroleum was brought, and the house fired in twenty places. The verdict of the jury had been announced at five minutes after ten o’clock in the morning. Before three o’clock the judge, the defendant, and nine of the jurors were fleeing from the city; three jurors had been hanged by the mob; a round dozen of the most palatial residences along Michigan Avenue, taking fire from the McKenna mansion, had burned to the ground. The police had made a feeble effort at the beginning of the riot to restore order; but the force was a partisan one, it was largely made up of the party to which Quillinan had belonged, and its sympathies were really with the mob. When the officers in command saw leading the rioters the very men to whose influence they largely owed their positions, they made but a show of resistance. The vengeance of the mob was allowed to burn itself out. Suddenly, near the close of the afternoon, as if by magic, every dead wall and hoarding of the city took on a sinister aspect. From top to bottom, and from end to end, they glowed with huge red posters, bearing in white letters in the centre these words:-- NOW! _By Command of the Council of Seven._