Wendell Phillips was a spectator in the streets that day, and the father of Charles Sumner, the sheriff at the time, fought bravely to save Garrison from falling into the hands of the mob.

The great riot gave those young men their first summons to enter the service of freedom.

It was not long afterward probably that they both began to read the _Liberator_.

From that event many intelligent and conservative people associated slavery with lynch law and outrage upon the rights of free speech and popular assembly.
This anti-slavery reaction of the community received practical demonstration in the immediate increase of subscribers to the _Liberator_.

Twelve new names were added to the subscription list in one day.