THE RIOTS IN LONDON

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 68, 17 November 1887, Page 2

THE RIOTS IN LONDON

DISGRACEFUL SCENES. THIRTY THOUSAND PERSONS ATTEND THE DEMONSTRATION. SOLDIEBS REINFORCE THE POLICE THE RIOT ACT READ. POLICE CHARGE THE RtOTEBS. A FOOLISH M.F. FOUR HUNDRED ARRESTS. PPLICHMEN [SEVERELY WOUNDED. London, Nov. 14. About 30.000 person attended the meeting that was held in Trafalgar Square on Sunday morning, but a great many of these were respectable spectators. Sir Charles Warren foreseeing the trouble that ensued had the Square encircled by several thousand police, and the police were supported by a strong force of cavalry, and a force of guafds with fixed bayonets reinforced the police as soon as affairs assumed a threatening aspect. A magistrate addressed the crowd and read the Riot Act.

The first collision between the mob and the police took place at Shapebury Avenue with 10,000 rioters headed by Mrs Beasant and Mr Morris. The mob made a fierce onslaught on the police, and a severe fight resulted. The rioters were armed with sticks, but the repeated charges of the police had the effect of dispersing them.

A second collision took place with another procession in the Strand. Sticks and stones were freely used, and it was only after a long conflict that the police prevailed and defeated and broke the mob up. Successive skirmishes in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square Were taking place all the time. The mounted police had to charge the mob again and again, and batons were freely used. The poliee acted with admirable moderation considering the surrounding circumstances.

Mr Graham, M.P. for Lanarkshire, and Burns, the socialist, were arrested for inciting the crowd.

Mrs Beasant invited the police to arrest her, but they refused to take her.

The worst conflict took place near the House of Parliament with the Lambeth procession. Four hundred arrests were made and two policemen were stabbed. The Press commend the action of the police. ’ Many of the mob were armed with iron bars, knives, pokers, and pieces of gas pipes. The wounds of the rioters were less severe than those of the constables. The soldiers were cheered by nonparticipants in the riots. One rioter was bayonetted. Fifty rioters were committed to gaol, and the rest released. Fully 5,000 police were engaged in repressing the disturbances. London, Nov. 15. The persons who were arrested for participating in the riots on Sunday, were brought before the Magistrates yesterday. A portion of the prisoners received a term of imprisonment, the rest were fined. The charge against Mr Graham, M.P., was remanded. Bail was accepted.

Mr Gladstone in a private telegram states that it is the duty of every citizen to abstain from resisting the action of the Executive, and that the legality of the prohibition of meetings in Trafalgar Square ought to be properly verified.

LATEB, GTIDSTONE ACCUSED OF INCITING THE POPULACE. HEAVY SENTENCES PASSED. London, November 16, Heavy sentences have been passed on the rioters. Burns, the socialist, has been remanded. The Conservative papers accuse Mr Gladstone of inciting the populace to resist the police. Some of the rioters who were arrested were unable to pay their fines, and in default received a sentence of imprisonment for six months,

The following is a specimen of the conduct of some of the Socialist meetings in Trafalgar Square :— I Mr Hyndman, who spoke at length and was repeatedly cheered, said some of the magistrates were the owners of the most disgraceful property in all London, and their sympathies were only with brothel-house keepers and noblemen who committed rape. These are treated very kindly, but a working man when he was brought before them, without having committed any offence, receives a heavy sentence without the possibility of being tried by jury. It was a fight of class against class, and appeal had to be made to a man who combined the qualities of an Old Bailey lawyer with the manners of a society fop. Every possible step was taken to crush working men, and the expenses of appeal were so high that hundreds of working men in London were unjustly treated because they could not raise the money to obtain a fresh trial. The Socialists generally were singled out because they told the working men of England that property was taken entirely from them, and to-day the property of this country belonged, not to those who produced it, but to those who plundered it, and that it was held by a handful of people

against hundreds of thousands who worked. They were asked to be moderate. What had ever been gained by moderation 1 What had the Irish gained by moderation? Mr Butt w#B moderate, and so was M«Bhaw. What did they gain ? Mr Parnell and Mr Michael Davitt had been a little immoderate, and English working men must learn from them that the upper and middle classes of this country yielded nothing to justice, but all to fear. Were they prepared to go on as they were? Was their condition satisfactorily? (Loud cries of “ No.”) Then, let them change it; let them combine as one man to push aside this miserable system. Lee them look at Parliament; what was it? What was the House of Lords; the greater part mere reactionary old woman or indecent young rips. Then let them look in other directions—at John Bright, the capitalist Quaker, who had rounded on himself, and had shown himself in his true colours as a hypocritical humbug. (Three groans were here given for John Bright.) These men were all alligators and sharks—Joseph Chamberlain, who had once called himself a Radical, the Duke of Wesminister, Lord Salisbury, Lord Hartington, John Bright, and all of them, Sir Charles Warren, too, '

was trying to put workingimenjdown H they showed any vigour, or any real independence -was ready, too, to put them down with trained military men, and of >o initiating a military police euoli as Paris, Berlin, and Xienna had, wh re men and women were dragged out at night and|thrown into custody without trial by the most desperate detpou ism. He called upon them to strengthen the hands of those who were fighting this battle for them in the cause of freedom of speech. At present they were only free to starve, to grumble—if they did not grumble too loud—to return members to Parliament who had got their wealth out Of work of lab* oaring men, or free to be shot for the benefit of the landlord and capitalist, There Wai a bettsr time ahead, however, and th® movement was progressing rapidly, and Wl not merely national but international. It was the cause of the Irish, of ihl English, of the Scotch, of the French, of the Americans —of the whole civilized population of tho world. When the stones rained against the olub windows of the well-fed aristoorate more was done than by all the previous agitations of the Socialistic leaders, and though he did not ask them to do so again, he en* treated them to organise, to combine, and io carry out the grekt work of the Socialists,