Page:Chesterton - Alarms and Discursions (Methuen, 1910).djvu/171

 The Field of Blood

In my daily paper this morning I read the following interesting paragraphs, which take my mind back to an England which I do not remember and which, therefore perhaps, I admire.

"Nearly sixty years ago - on 4 September, 1850 - the Austrian General Haynau, who had gained an unenviable fame throughout the world by his ferocious methods in suppressing the Hungarian revolution in 1849, while on a visit to this country, was belaboured in the streets of London by the draymen of Messrs. Barclay, Perkins and Co., whose brewery he had just inspected in company of an adjutant. Popular delight was so great that the Government of the time did not dare to prosecute the assailants, and the General - the ' women-flogger,' as he was called by the people - had to leave these shores without remedy.

"He returned to his own country and settled upon his estate at Szekeres, which is close to the commune