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overturned streetcar. “I have performed the most painful duty of my life today.… If you have confidence in me and in the gentlemen associated with me, I ask you to disperse and go quietly to your homes. You have acted like men. Now, go home like men.”
    But some in the crowd were not ready to disperse. In triumph, they marched back to the Clay statue on Canal Street, carrying Parkerson on their shoulders. There the lawyer made another speech—“You have today wiped the stain from your city’s name!”—and then asked them again to disperse, promising that more would be done to address those accused of bribing the jury. For that day, at least, their mission was complete.
    Back at the parish prison, some of Parkerson’s associates had arrangeda gruesome tableau, so that all New Orleanians could bear witness to what had been done for their welfare. The two hanged men were left swinging outside for all to see, while several other bodies were lined up in a large room inside the prison for more convenient viewing. For five hours, thousands of men, women, and children filed past to see them. Some of the women allegedly dipped lace handkerchiefs into pools of blood to keep as mementos of the day, while others took away bits of the victims’ clothing and shoelaces. One enterprising man even began peeling strips of bark from the tree on which Bagnetto had been strung up, to bring home as a souvenir.

    E LEVEN men in all were killed at the Orleans Parish Prison that day. Three of the slain had been tried and acquitted; a jury had failed to agree on three others; five more belonged to the second group of defendants that had not even been tried yet. Asked later whether he regretted what had happened in the prison, Parkerson was adamant. “Of course, it is not a courageous thing to attack a man who is not armed,” he admitted. “But we looked upon these [men] as so many reptiles.… This was a great emergency, greater than has ever happened in New York, Cincinnati, or Chicago … Hennessy’s killing struck at the very root of American institutions. The intimidation of the Mafia and the corruption of our juries are to be met only with strong measures. I recognize no power above the people.”
    Parkerson was not alone in this judgment. Many in New Orleans were soon hailing the lawyer and his followers as heroes. The city’s business community wasvirtually unanimous in its approval; the Board of Trade and the Cotton, Sugar, Produce, Lumberman’s, and Stock Exchanges all passed resolutions praising the vigilante action. The local newspapers also came to the mob’s defense: “Government powers are delegated by the people,” the Daily Picayune opined, “and [the people] can reclaim them if they feel that the power is not being executed properly.” The Item agreed: “When the ordinary means of justice fail, extraordinary means are resorted to. This is a characteristic of the American people, and has today been illustrated once more in a most impressive fashion.”
    Emboldened by this definitive blow for order and self-defense, Parkerson and his Vigilance Committeepromised further extralegal means to ensure the submission of the so-called Mafia threat. Vowing to burn down the Italian quarter if revenge were taken on the lynchers, Parkerson proceeded to investigate claims of jury bribery (even as an official grand jury was doing likewise). Evidence was eventually found that certain members of the jury pool had indeed been promised money, but apparently no actual jurors were bribed. That didn’t help the twelve men who had delivered the unpopular verdict.Many were forced to leave town, including jury foreman Jacob M. Seligman, who was summarily expelled from the Stock Exchange and the Young Men’s Gymnastics Club. Eventually, finding life in New Orleans untenable, he moved to Cincinnati.
    As for the lynchers themselves, the grand jury, citing its inability to fix guilt on “the entire people of the parish and city of New