NOT SO SERIOOS

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 103, 28 October 1932, Page 7

NOT SO SERIOOS

A FEW BROKEN HEADS

PANIC OF WOMEN SHOPPERS

. (Received 28th October, 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, 27th October. ' About fifteen thousand unemployed, including the hunger-marchers, gathered^ at Hyde Park, causing disorganisation of traffic in the West End streets for several hours. The meetings were concentrated at six platforms, widely separated. Messrs. Saklatvala and Tom Mann were among the speakers. The most serious trouble was at the Marble Arch, where the Commissioner of Police, Lord Trenchard, had stationed parties of special constables. The marchers, angry at their presence, began a threatening rush toward the specials. There were a number of ugly episodes, resulting in twenty-three being injured in clashes between the police and the unemployed, including a policeman seriously injured by an iron bar. In other 'cases the. rioters broke the windows of Oxford street shops, using building bricks and lumps from an overturned coal cart.

Apart from a few broken heads, the worst result was the panic of frightened women shoppers, who unexpectedly found themselves involved in a riot in which the mounted police cleared the streets by. walking their horses on the pavements. A number of innocents were knocked down, necessitating the use of ambulances.

Inside the Park further trouble developed in/Rotten Eow, where a party of angry Communists seized handfufs of mud and gravel and flung it at the mounted police. The latter drew their batons and dispersed them. By 5.15 p.m. all the columns of the hunger-marchers had left the Park and marched to the suburbs, where they were billeted in the houses of sympathisers. Many were obviously suffering from extreme fatigue, and their, leaders tried to cheer them by starting songs.