The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

Gen.] GENEALOGY. 35
and had been mobbed, and driven out of many places. When opposing
the mob at the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, he was struck upon
the head by one of them. After he began the practice of law he was
employed as counsel in many fugitive slave cases, and always for the
alleged slave. In the well-known case of Dangerfield, he was asso-
ciated with Edward Hopper and William S. Pierce, as counsel for
the defence. The trial lasted through the night, in a continuous
session of fifteen hours, and resulted in the liberation of Dangerfield,
who was then carried in triumph through the streets of the city. In
1856, Mr. Earle was a delegate to the national convention which
nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency of the United States.
He has supported every anti-slavery candidate for that office and he
" took the stump" for Van Buren and Adams, Fremont, Abraham
Lincoln and General Grant.
Among the many adverse consequences, either direct or indirect,
of the late civil war, was the gradual demoralization of some of the
larger municipal governments in the country, whereby taxation was
fearfully increased, and indebtedness incurred to an extent which
seriously threatened the bankruptcy of those municipalities. Phila-
delphia, as is well known, is one of the cities which suffered most
severely in this respect. The maladministration of its government
led to an increase of indebtedness at an annual average rate of three
millions of dollars, until, at the expiration of a few years after the
war, its total debt was about seventy millions. This alarming condi-
tion led to the appointment of a Reform Committee, composed, in
about equal numbers, of members of the two leading political parties,
and with the Hon. Henry C. Lea as its chairman, the object of which
was, to secure a better government of the city, and, by this means,
check expenditure and diminish the municipal debt. This commit-
tee was prompt, vigorous and effective in its action ; but not long
afterward, it was followed by a more powerful organization, com-
posed wholly of republicans, and subsequently very widely known as
the " Committee of One Hundred."
Mr. Earle was a member of each of these committees, and in the
latter he was chairman of the Committee on Public Meetings. His
duties in that position were constant and arduous. The Reform
Committee had organized, as far as it could, a reform association in
each of the numerous wards of the city, and a series of public meetings
were held by each of those associations. Sometimes as many
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