Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/55

 responsibility and all understanding of law, order and civilisation, and that its road now lay in the direction of treason and civil war.

The course the strike took showed what the Red Guard was worth. For several days cartloads of Russian weapons had been rolling out towards the "People's House" at Helsingfors. Now the "Working-men's Guard Corps for the Maintenance of Order" were fully equipped. They went round the streets and forcibly closed the shops. They took possession of the headquarters of the police, went over the photographic collection of criminals, and destroyed photographs of thirty-one individuals who were now trusted men in the Guard. Eight of them were murderers. A lot of houses were searched, and in Helsingfors alone close upon 200 persons were arrested. Among these was the district magistrate, who sat imprisoned until the month of January. The district magistrate at Åbo suffered the same fate. In the streets patrols sauntered about with guns, now and then firing a few volleys "for the maintenance of order."

But worse was still to come. At the order of the "Revolutionary Central Council" the eighteen above-mentioned ruffians from Helsinge were let out of the district prison at Helsingfors. This was soon felt in their native parish. For thither they went, cheered by the crowd, after having been armed in the "People's House,"and there they began their ravages again. First they looked up a board-school teacher, rummaged through his house, found nothing, took him with them into the yard, set him against a wall and shot him. Laughing, the band went on. The parish constable was visited by them, and when he met them on his stairs he was fired at and fell down badly wounded. The band went on and shot the owner of an estate, who came driving along the high road. In his company was a young