A REMINISCENCE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1584, 8 April 1887, Page 3

A REMINISCENCE.

During the day the streets presented the appearance of a holiday. The police were withdrawn from their beats,

and concentrated on special points, the town being patrolled by special cocstablea—among wbom, by the way, Prince Charles Louis Bonaparte, afterwards Napoleon 111., was enrolled — who wore white bands on their arms, and carried truncheons aa emblems cf authority. These patriotic citizens were mercilessly ridiculed by their ungrateful fellow-citizens, who passed rude remarka on their awkward appearance and their incongruities of stature and costume. People were extremely unfeeling in their comments on the appearance of certain specials who wore spectacles or eyeglasses, and who carried umbrellas in addition to their stavea. All the public buildings were garriioned with troops; the clerka in the public offices formed npeeial corps of defence, and many gentlemen of rank brought up their gamekeepers from the country, armed them, and prepared their mansions for a regular siege. Trafalgar Square was occupied by 200 police. The parks were doeed; a corporal's guard of the Household troops bold each entrance to them, and patrols of the Guards marched up and down the Mall. Apeley House was barricaded, and the Bank waa fortified by a company of Sappers and Miners, who built on the roof platforms for cannon, and guarded than with loop-holed breastworks of sandbaga, Ac., so that a mob could be ■wept away with grape-shot at a moment's notice. Special constables, organised by Aldermen of the wards, guarded the city. Hardly a single red-eoat, however, waa to be seen anywhere, but at various strategic points, were in readiness to be let loose if the

mob showed signs of fighting. There vu ft fight between the police and the mob at Blackfriars Bridge. Bat the f police who guarded Waterloo Bridge were able to amuse themselves as they pleated. No Chartists came near it—the bridge being guarded by someone much more formidable to them than troops—the man who kept the tollbar. —From The Life and Timet of Queen Victoria.