About seven o'clock, Superintendent Jourdan arrived in the precinct, accompanied by Inspectors Dilks and Walling, and Detectives Farley and Avery. In the basement of the Thirty-first Precinct station, on a low trestle bed, three bloody corpses were stretched, while the neighboring precincts were filled with the wounded. Two more died before morning. The street near each station was crowded with Orangemen inquiring after friends. Although no more outbreaks occurred, the most intense excitement prevailed among the Irish population of the city, and it was evident that it needed only a suitable occasion to bring on another conflict. THE RIOT OF 1871. When the next anniversary of the Orangemen came round, it was discovered that a conspiracy had been formed by a large body of the Catholic population to prevent its public celebration. The air was full of rumors, while the city authorities were in possession of the fullest evidence that if the Orangemen paraded, they would be attacked, and probably many lives be lost. They were in great dilemma as to what course to pursue. If they allowed the procession to take place, they would be compelled to protect it, and shoot down the men whose votes helped largely to place them in power. If they forbade it, they feared the public indignation that would be aroused against such a truckling, unjust course. As the day drew near, however, and the extensive preparations of the Irish Catholics became more apparent, they finally determined to risk the latter course, and it was decided that Superintendent Kelso should issue an order forbidding the Orangemen to parade. This ludicrous attempt on the part of the Mayor to shift the responsibility from his own shoulders, awakened only scorn, and the appearance of the order was followed by a storm of indignation that was appalling. The leading papers, without regard to politics, opened on him and his advisers, with such a torrent of denunciations that they quailed before it. Processions of all kinds and nationalities were allowed on the streets, and to forbid only one, and that because it was _Protestant_, was an insult to every American citizen. Even Wall Street forgot its usual excitement, and leading men were heard violently denouncing this cowardly surrender of Mayor Hall to the threats of a mob. An impromptu meeting was called in the Produce Exchange, and a petition drawn up, asking the president to call a formal meeting, and excited men stood in line two hours, waiting their turn to sign it. The building was thronged, and the vice-president called the meeting to order, and informed it that the rules required twenty-four hours' notice for such a meeting. The members, however, would listen to no delay, and with an unanimous and thundering vote, declared the rules suspended. The action of the city authorities was denounced in withering terms, and a committee of leading men appointed to wait on them, and remonstrate with the Mayor.