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52  their services to defend Jerry, while one lawyer sold his services to the slave catchers. The Commissioners’ office was on the second floor of a large brick building, one side of which fronted on the canal. The outside door was fastened with heavy bars, and the inner door securely locked to keep out the crowd, and it was with difficulty that Jerry’s friends and counsel got into the room where the trial was to be held.

The trial was protracted and delayed until the court and counsel were tired out and hungry, and adjourned for supper, leaving the prisoner in charge of the marshal and his deputies. The officer took pains to make the crowd understand that he was armed, and would shoot down any man who should attempt to rescue the prisoner. Meanwhile, Jo had organized a party, and had everything ready to storm the stronghold of the slave power in Syracuse. Although it was time to light the lamps in the streets, the crowd had not diminished nor the excitement abated. The court and counsel had but just reached the hotel when Jo gave the signal to his men, and in an instant a stick of timber twenty feet long was mounted on the shoulders of as many stout negroes as could stand under it; at the word “Jo,” with a shout and run, the battering ram was thrown upon the door, and carried all before it. Then Jo, at the head of his men, with a crow-bar in his hands, ran up stairs and attacked the inner door. The marshal was a brave man for so great a rascal,—none but rascals of a high grade would accept Fillmore’s commission under the fugitive slave law—and when the door gave way under the furious blows of Jo’s crow-bar, he fired at him, but Jo was too quick for him. The ball went into the floor, and the marshal’s arm hung limp at his side, shattered by the crow-bar. The men rushed in and seized the deputies but the marshal jumped through an open window, and