One hundred years ago
GREAT preparations are being made all over the Continent against the com- ing First of May. The intention of the workmen everywhere is to take holiday and make a demonstration in favour of a legal eight-hours' day. It is feared that, with such multitudes of men in the streets, riots will occur; in Austria, where almost every trade is striking everywhere, the Government is behav- ing as if it anticipated invasion and the whole Army is being distributed so as to watch the capital cities and manufactur- ing towns and villages. The Emperor himself presides over the special Coun- cil on the subject; every separate suburb of Vienna is to be garrisoned; and the Army will, it is said, be everywhere `dislocated'. Serious rioting has already occurred in one place, and the Jewish publicans and shopkeepers expect a general attack, the Socialists of the Dual Empire denouncing them as the origin of all economic evils.
The Spectator, 26 April 1890
Previous page
