A NIGHT OF FURY—THE MURDEROUS MOB AT HIRAM—JOSEPH DRAGGED FROM HIS BED, AND IS STRIPPED, BRUISED AND ALMOST SLAIN BY A PROFANE AND DRUNKEN CROWD LED BY APOSTATES AND SECTARIAN MINISTERS.  
When the Prophet went to Hiram he carried with him twin children, the offspring of John Murdock, which Emma adopted when they were nine days old, intending to rear them in place of twin children of her own which had died. These babes were now eleven months old. On the 25th of March they were very ill, and the Prophet and his wife were anxiously nursing them and getting only a little broken rest. At a late hour of the night Joseph was lying down and slumbering heavily from weariness, when Emma heard a gentle tapping on the window. Her senses were dulled by sleepiness, and she paid little attention to the noise and made no inquiry nor investigation. A few moments later an infuriated mob burst the door open and surrounded the bed whereon Joseph lay in deep slumber. Ten or twelve of them had seized him and were dragging him from the house when Emma screamed. The cry awakened the Prophet, and in an instant he realized his position. As they were taking him through the door he made a desperate struggle to release himself. Getting a limb clear for a moment, he kicked one of the mob with such force as to fell the wretch to the ground. But before Joseph could bring his superior physical powers to bear, he was confined again within the grasp of numerous hands; and with a torrent of oaths, in which the mobbers profaned the name of Deity, they declared that they would kill him if he did not cease his struggles. As they started around the house with him, the mobocrat whom he had kicked came thrusting his bloody hands into the Prophet's face and shrieked at him with frightful execrations. Then they seized his throat and choked him until he ceased to breathe. When he recovered his senses from this inhuman attack he was nearly a furlong from the house, and there he saw Sidney Rigdon stretched upon the ground where the mob had dragged him by the heels. The Prophet thought that his companion was dead.
 
These fiendish men continued to curse him and to blaspheme the name of Deity. They told him to ask his God for help, for they would give him none. They then dragged him nearly another furlong into a meadow and began calling to each other, continuing, however, to utter threats and oaths at him. By this time many additions had been made to their number. One cried out asking if Joseph was not to be killed. A group gathered at a little distance to hold a council and fix upon the Prophet's fate; while several of their number held him suspended in the air lest his person should touch the ground and thereby give him an opportunity to get a spring and wrench himself loose. After the council was concluded, the leading mobocrats declared that they would not kill him but would strip him naked and whip and tear his flesh. One cried out for a tar bucket, and when it was brought another exclaimed with a wicked oath, "Let us tar up his mouth!" They thrust a reeking tar paddle into his face and attempted to force it down his throat, but he kept his teeth tightly clenched. Then they tried to force a phial containing aquafortis into his mouth, but it broke between his lips. Not content with inflicting all this violence upon the Prophet's helpless form, one of the ............