The Government, after delays explained by Mr. Childers, resolved to
prosecute the Socialist agitators ; and on Wednesday, Messrs. H. M. Hyndman, H. H. Champion, J. Burns, and J. E. Williams appeared before Sir James Ingram, at Bow Street Police. Office, to answer to the charge of "disquieting and dis- turbing" the Queen's peace, inciting to hatred of the Govern- ment established by law, and calling a mob and addressing to it "inflammatory words and matter." Evidence was offered from the regular reporters of the papers, but principally against John Burns, who was alleged to have said, "Unless we get bread, they must have lead," and sentences of a like kind. All four men, however, were shown to have acted together, and evidence was produced that they had, at a meeting in Holborn on the 3rd inst., advised that on Monday, the 8th, "practical measures" should be taken. It was also shown that after the rioting, when the crowd had gathered in Hyde Park, the accused blamed the people for outrages, saying this was not the time, and that they should not attack timid women in carriages. Burns, how- ever, advised the audience to approach the soldiers and explain affairs to them, so that "when the day came for taking sides in the great class struggle, they would not be with the people who drove up and down the Park, but would join the side of suffer- ing and privation." The drift of the testimony in general was that the accused used at first most violent language, but after- wards grew ashamed or alarmed. The case was adjourned for farther evidence.
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