In 1870, newspapers in Louisiana were fond of printing a certain saying.

It goes like this.

In New Orleans, it requires three persons to start a business, one to die of yellow fever,

one to get killed in a duel, and a third to wind up the business of the co-partnership.

While tongue in cheek, the joke was certainly appropriate.

New Orleans was still grappling with yellow fever, as it had for almost a hundred years.

The deadly virus thrived in the warm, humid city.

Moreover, New Orleans was still a rough port city, with rough people on the edge of swamps

and wilderness.

New Orleans were still a common way to settle scores among the city's elite.

Sure, there were honest traders and planters and sailors in their families.

Then there were vagabonds, thieves, pimps and prostitutes.

New Orleans was a haven for gamblers.

Crime and violence were endemic.

New Orleans was particularly on edge in 1870, because it was the height of radical reconstruction

in Louisiana and the rest of the south.

African-American men could now vote and serve on juries and hold public office.

Against this backdrop of simmering racial tension and blurred lines of morality, someone

kidnapped 17-month-old Molly Digby.

She was the daughter of Irish immigrants.

Soon the news came out that two by-racial women had taken her.

For whites, this symbolized their greatest fears.

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