It was so with New Orleans on that Thursday.  The better element of the white citizens began to realize that New Orleans in the hands of a mob would not prove a promising investment for Eastern capital, so the better element began to stir itself, not for the purpose of punishing the brutality against the Negroes who had been beaten, or bringing to justice the murderers of those who had been killed, but for the purpose of saving the city’s credit.  The Times-Democrat, upon this phase of the situation on Friday morning says: 

When it became known later in the day that State bonds had depreciated from a point to a point and a half on the New York market a new phase of seriousness was manifest to the business community.  Thinking men realized that a continuance of unchecked disorder would strike a body blow to the credit of the city and in all probability would complicate the negotiation of the forthcoming improvement bonds.  The bare thought that such a disaster might be brought about by a few irresponsible boys, tramps and ruffians, inflamed popular indignation to fever pitch.  It was all that was needed to bring to the aid of the authorities the active personal cooperation of the entire better element.

With the financial credit of the city at stake, the good citizens rushed to the rescue, and soon the Mayor was able to mobilize a posse of 1,000 willing men to assist the police in maintaining order, but rioting still continued in different sections of the city.  Colored men and women were beaten, chased and shot whenever they made their appearance upon the street.  Late in the night a most despicable piece of villainy occurred on Rousseau Street, where an aged colored woman was killed by the mob.  The Times-Democrat thus describes, the murder: 

Hannah Mabry, an old Negress, was shot and desperately wounded shortly after midnight this morning while sleeping in her home at No. 1929 Rousseau Street.  It was the work of a mob, and was evidently well planned so far as escape was concerned, for the place was reached by police officers, and a squad of the volunteer police within a very short time after the reports of the shots, but not a prisoner was secured.  The square was surrounded, but the mob had scattered in several directions, and, the darkness of the neighborhood aiding them, not one was taken.

At the time the mob made the attack on the little house there were also in it David Mabry, the sixty-two-year-old husband of the wounded woman; her son, Harry Mabry; his wife, Fannie, and an infant child.  The young couple with their babe could not be found after the whole affair was over, and they either escaped or were hustled off by the mob.  A careful search of the whole neighborhood was made, but no trace of them could be found.

The little place occupied by the Mabry family is an old cottage on the swamp side of Rousseau Street.  It is furnished with slat shutters to