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374. About nine o'clock, in the whole of the south-eastern part of the borough, including Garratt Road, Brook Street, Oxford Road, and Green Heys, the shops were closed, and bands of from twenty to fifty youths were parading the streets, and knocking at doors to ask for food, and seldom went away empty-handed, changing their place of operation when any of the police appeared. It is due to the authorities to state that they were not idle. A body of 200 pensioners and ninety other persons were sworn in to act as special constables; making, with those sworn in on the previous day, and a number of respectable workmen who had also been sworn in at the different mills, all anxious to preserve the property of their employers, a force of 1,000 men; and strong bodies of these assistants were despatched, in company with parties of the regular police, to different parts of the town, where it was thought there was the most pressing necessity for their presence.

Things remained in much the same state during the Friday and the Saturday, violences being rather the exception than the rule, for the masters had generally closed their mills, with the determination to keep them closed until their workpeople voluntarily offered themselves, and the workpeople, generally convinced that no good could be effected by the turn-out, waiting the period when they could resume their employment without the risk of obstruction from the fiercer portion of their number. At the close of the week, 3,000 special constables had been enrolled, and the hope was entertained, that although in all the surrounding towns the process of turning out had been successful, with more of violence than had occurred in Manchester, there would be no very serious disturbance of the public peace.

In the commencement of the following week there were indications that the turn-out would not be of long continuation. Fears were entertained that Tuesday, the 16th, being the anniversary of the attack, in 1819, of the