It was impossible to say to what extreme of violence a multitude so infuriated would not go to get their prey.

It seemed to the now thoroughly alarmed mayor that the mob might in their frenzy attack the City Hall to effect their purpose.

There was one building in the city, which the guardians of the law evidently agreed could resist the rage of the populace, and that building was the jail.
To this last stronghold of Puritan civilization the authorities and the powers that were, fell back as a dernier resort to save Garrison's life.
But even in this utmost pitch and extremity, when law was trampled in the streets, when authority was a reed shaken in a storm, when anarchy had drowned order in the bosom of the town, the Anglo-Saxon passion for legal forms asserted itself.

The good man, hunted for his life, must forsooth be got into the only refuge which promised him security from his pursuers by a regular judicial commitment as a disturber of the peace.

Is there anything at once so pathetic and farcical in the Universal history of mobs?
Pathetic and farcical to be sure, but it was also well meant, and therefore we will not stop to quarrel with men who were equal to the perpetration of a legal fiction so full of the comedy and tragedy of civilized society.