Commissioner Acton appeared on the ground and took command of the men, who were under the immediate orders of four captains and twelve sergeants. Upon the reappearance of the crowd the city inspector had a large flag thrust from one of the windows of his office and his example was followed by Frank Leslie's Illustrated News. The publishers of the News, however, refused to display their flag, and declared that they would not be coerced by the move. One of the crowd had by some means entered the building but he was set upon and badly beaten. Mr. 

Acton now ordered the police to disperse the crowd and four detachments under the command of Captains Palmer, Dawling and Hutchins, and Sergeant Williams, made several charges which proved for some minutes to be of doubtful success, as the crowd each time returned to their former position. At length, however, they were forced to give way after several arrests had been made. A portion moved uptown with the intention of forcing the proprietor of the New York hotel to raise his flag, while a few passed down Chatham street and obliged the Staats-Zeitung and New York Democrat to show their bunting. The stars and stripes now float over the News office, the editors making a sort of compromise by contending that it waves freely, as it may always and floats over no American citizen by compulsion.