13 FEBRUARY 1886, Page 1

The police, it is clear, failed on Monday. It is

folly to attack an excellent body of men who usually do their duty admir- ably, but it seems evident that there was a serious want either of purpose or judgment in Scotland Yard. The meeting in Trafalgar Square was watched, but the crowds which separated from it and broke into pillage were not. The truth ought to have been known to the chiefs of police in five minutes after real rioting began ; but though plenty of men were on hand, nobody of them was sent to follow or resist the crowd, and that the outrages were not worse was not due to the police. Next day, Mr. Childers having arrived from Edinburgh at the Home Office, the Department was most energetic, and a renewal of the riots, which was hoped for by a criminal crowd in Trafalgar Square, was pre- vented by main force. The police, however, on Wednesday were taken in by what appears to have been an organised attempt to excite alarm, and on messages that mobs were marching from Deptford and Greenwich, cautioned the shopkeepers in several quarters to take precautions. These cautions being considered official, created wild alarm, and parts of London for a few hours re- sembled a besieged city. The citizens had lost all confidence in the police, the Bank of England retained its guard of soldiers, usually dismissed in the day-time, and many suburbs were given up to panic. The shops in entire streets were barricaded as if an enemy were approaching. Nothing happened, except some stone-throwing in the Hampstead Road and one or two other thoroughfares ; but business was practically suspended for hours, and the loss to many classes was very large. On Tuesday and Wednesday there was no defect of energy, but there was defect of judgment, the first business of the police being to allay panic, and to show that the public force is ample.