AN EVENING IN AN ANARCHISTS CLUB.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 87, 25 March 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN EVENING IN AN ANARCHISTS CLUB.

(Philip Gibbs in the “Graphic.”)

It was on the first floor of a corner public-houj-e, and I stumbled through the swing-door of the taproom, and, .to keep mv courage to the sticking point, ordered a—lemonade from a buxotn foreign-looking lady who had both her elbows on the counter and fixed me with a stolid gaze. “Raining, ain’t it?” she asked, ana thinking that it might be the password, I said “Yes, it s raining, though, to tell the honest truth, it was n fine, cold night. I drank my lemonade in small sips so that it lasted a long time. Then I ierked my'head _to nn inner door, .and said in a voice which trembled a little, “Is the, meeting upstairs?” <T'ir.-it floor.” said the buxom lady. Pulling my cloth cap a little further over mv nose I went through the main c.oor, and up a flight of wooden stairs in semi-darkness. I wondered, emotionally. whether I should ever come down them again. On the landing I paused and heard the sound of voices speaking in low tones. I could also hear the sledge-hammer in my heart. I went through a door at the end of the passage ;ind found myself in a lartro, bare room, furnished with a few wooden benches, a deal table covered with pamphlets, and a number of wallposters in Yiddish. Hero was the anarchists’ chib. They were .all foreigners, and mostly German .Jews, I should think, though among them were the broad faces, the wkle-apart eves, and the sallow companion of Slavs r.nd Letts. Many of them were rather sickly looking, rather shabby fellows. I guessed them to be Jewish tailors, who think a lot as they sit in thedr sunlc.ss (workrooms .and dream of revolution. But quit? a number of these men were well-set-up fellows, with broad shoulders, and were smartly dressed. They were by no .means the outcasts of civilisation, or the children of poverty. I was a, little reassured, .and a good deal astonished, when a number of wonen entered the room. They came in separately, and took their seats on one of the long benches by the wall apart from the men. They were all young von on. and most of 'them neatly and even charmingiv dressed.

Here was I sitting in the chief anntchist club of Whitechapel among eightv of tlie leading anarchists of London, listening to one of the chiefs of this dangerous creed, who was expound ■ ing the principles of their faith. It was as strange an adventure as one in the Arabian Nights. So the orator spoke, with sledge-ham-mer eloquence, and with absolute dogmatism. And as he spok? I locked round and saw that the’ membeis of the anarchist rffcbs were drinking in his words, greedily, eagerly. Their dark eyes glittered. Some of them were breathing heavily. Some of them were smiling, with curious, baffling smiles, as though amused bv the ironies of life.

I rose from my seat a.id made my way out of the room. My departure had an effect which startled me for a moment. The orator stopoesl speaking. Several,mon stood up, talking hurriedly in Yiddish. Others whispered togethc.-. end looked at me, as though they had a mind to stop me. But I got out into the dark passage and stumbled down (the dimly lift stairs ipto the fresh air. Nothing had happened to me! Not a hair of my head was hurt. I could laugh now at all my fears. These alien anarchists were as tame as rabbits. lam convinced that they had not a revolver among them. And yet. looking back upon this adventure and remembering the .words 1 heard, this philosophy of revolution, is more dangoroun to the State of Europe than pis - tols and nitro-glycelrine. ’For out of that. anarchist eftib’ in the East End ~ome ideas more powerful in destruction than dynamite.