A. Those crews were not suspended, but that many men, and a great many more, because the business had gone down, were suspended, and we were choosing the married men and the old men. The old men and the married men were chosen, in preference to the single men.
Q. But by suspension do you mean discharge, or do you mean suspension temporarily?
A. They were given to understand that there was no more work.
Q. This was one of the causes, this doubling up, as I understood you to say, that created the dissatisfaction here at this point?
Q. Did you not only reduce your crews, so far as the conductors and brakemen and flagmen were concerned, one half of a train, if it was sent out as a double-header?
A. One half of the trains we were running single between Pittsburgh and Derry.
Q. Were any of the discharged men among the crowd at Twenty-eighth street or at Torren's station that morning?
A. Yes; I saw quite a number of men who had been discharged for cause as well as suspended on account of the reduction.
Q. You deemed it unsafe from that time on to start your trains, from the time you visited Twenty-eighth street and Torren's station that morning?
A. The sheriff and General Pearson--the sheriff ordered the crowd to disperse and General Pearson, in fact, made a calm and warning speech, and told them what his orders were, that the military had been ordered out and what the consequences would be, and coaxed and pleaded with them to disperse before the military came up that had been ordered out.
A. In regard to the time of any of those occurrences, from Thursday until it was all over I was not in bed, and it is kind of cloudy in my mind as to the different hours; but as to the hour, I should say that this was about twelve or one o'clock, Friday.
Q. How many companies came on the ground at that time?
A. First one company--they were very straggling.
Q. Who commanded the first company that came?
Q. It was under the general direction of General Pearson?
A. That I cannot tell. On Friday--I cannot tell. I do not remember if there were any soldiers at Twenty-eighth street. I cannot tell. Friday night the Pittsburgh troops were brought out.
Q. What time did the first burning or destruction of property by fire commence?