One hundred years ago
THE week has been marked by serious rioting in London, usually the quietest of all capitals, accompanied by frequent and cruel assaults on the police. On Monday and Tuesday, crowds of unem- ployed workmen, reinforced by roughs, hobbledehoys, and members of the criminal class, assembled to demons- trate in Trafalgar Square, that place being selected avowedly because dis- turbance there is inconvenient to the `ruling classes'. The wealthy being, however, absent from London, the real inconvenience is suffered by the neigh- bouring shopkeepers, and people of business passing through the Square. On Tuesday, Sir Charles Warren, hear- ing that the unemployed intended to hold a meeting at night, which might have endangered London, cleared the Square by force; and on Wednesday the meeting was held in Hyde Park, and ended in a rush through important streets to the Victoria Embankment. Accusations are made against the police of brutality, but there is little evidence of it beyond the hard blows struck in collisions which rapidly become free fights. A few workmen in uniform have to contend with many `workmen' out of it, and naturally hit hard. The police, an eye-witness informs us, have generally used their fists, and not their truncheons; and scattered mobs frequently appeared to enjoy the fighting.
The Spectator, 22 October 1887
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