made was something terrible.  Meyers was howling for mercy before he reached the ground.  The mob dragged him from the wagon, the officer with him.  Then began a torrent of abuse for the unfortunate prisoner.

The station door was but thirty feet away, but it took Exnicios nearly five minutes to fight his way through the mob to the door.  There were no other officers present, and the station seemed to be deserted.  Neither the doorman nor the clerk paid any attention to the noise on the outside.  As the result, the maddened crowd wrought their vengeance on the Negro.  He was punched, kicked, bruised and torn.  The clothes were ripped from his back, while his face after that few minutes was unrecognizable.

This was the treatment accorded and permitted to a helpless prisoner because he was black.  All day Wednesday the man hunt continued.  The excitement caused by the deaths of Day and Lamb became intense.  The officers of the law knew they were trailing a man whose aim was deadly and whose courage they had never seen surpassed.  Commenting upon the marksmanship of the man which the paper styled a fiend, the Times-Democrat of Wednesday said: 

One of the extraordinary features of the tragedy was the marksmanship displayed by the Negro desperado.  His aim was deadly and his coolness must have been something phenomenal.  The two shots that killed Captain Day and Patrolman Lamb struck their victims in the head, a circumstance remarkable enough in itself, considering the suddenness and fury of the onslaught and the darkness that reigned in the alley way.

Later on Charles fired at Corporal Perrier, who was standing at least seventy-five yards away.  The murderer appeared at the gate, took lightning aim along the side of the house, and sent a bullet whizzing past the officer’s ear.  It was a close shave, and a few inches’ deflection would no doubt have added a fourth victim to the list.

At the time of the affray there is good reason to believe that Charles was seriously wounded, and at any event he had lost quantities of blood.  His situation was as critical as it is possible to imagine, yet he shot like an expert in a target range.  The circumstance shows the desperate character of the fiend, and his terrible dexterity with weapons makes him one of the most formidable monsters that has ever been loose upon the community.

Wednesday New Orleans was in the hands of a mob.  Charles, still sought for and still defending himself, had killed four policemen, and everybody knew that he intended to die fighting.  Unable to vent its vindictiveness and bloodthirsty vengeance upon Charles, the mob turned its attention to other colored men who happened to get in the path of its fury.  Even colored women, as has happened many times before, were assaulted and beaten and killed by the brutal hoodlums who thronged the streets.  The reign of absolute lawlessness began about 8 o’clock Wednesday night.  The mob gathered near the Lee statue and was soon making its way to the place where the officers had been shot by Charles.  Describing the mob, the Times-Democrat of Thursday morning says: