It was well attended. Enormous crowds gathered, not only in and around
the Square itself, but in balconies and windows and on housetops. It was
a very disrespectful crowd, evidently out for a good time. On the
platform within the Square stood or sat the owners of many of the city's
proud names. Among them were well-known speakers, men who had never
failed to hold and influence a crowd. But only a short distance away
little could be heard. It early became evident that, though there would
be no interference, the sentiment of the crowd was adverse. And what
must have been particularly maddening was that the sentiment was
good-humored. Colonel Edward Baker came forward to speak. The Colonel
was a man of great eloquence, so that in spite of his considerable lack
of scruples he had won his way to a picturesque popularity and fame. But
the crowd would have little of him this day, and an almost continuous
uproar drowned out his efforts. The usual catch phrases, such as
"liberty." "Constitution," "habeas corpus," "trial by jury," and
"freedom," occasionally became audible, but the people were not
interested. "See Cora's defender!" cried someone, voicing the general
suspicion that Baker had been one of the little gambler's hidden
counsel. "Cora!" "Ed. Baker!" "$10,000!" "Out of that, you old
reprobate!" He spoke ten minutes against the storm and then yielded,
red-faced and angry. Others tried but in vain. A Southerner, Benham,
inveighing passionately against the conditions of the city, in throwing
back his coat happened inadvertently to reveal the butt of a Colt
revolver. The bystanders immediately caught the point. "There's a pretty
Law and Order man!" they shouted. "Say, Benham, don't you know it's
against the law to go armed?"

"I carry this weapon," he cried, shaking his fist, "not as an instrument
to overthrow the law, but to uphold it."