Diary kept by a young physician in St. Louis, Mo. describing social conditions, illnesses, and mob violence. The first pages of the diary contain a graphic account of the mob-burning of an African-American man named McIntosh, who stabbed the deputy sheriff (Hammond) as he was being led to jail. The author writes about this event after reading about a similar incident in Louisiana, and laments, "awful awful is the condition of the country indeed." Later, he writes about the mob-driven destruction of the Saint Louis Observer office in response to an article criticizing the grand jury charge in the case of McIntosh's murder. The Observer, he notes, advocated the cause of abolition. He also describes incidents in other towns and accounts in newspapers that confirm his belief that the country is in a terrible state.
