Page:Melbourne Riots (Andrade, 1892).djvu/31

Rh been forgotten now that affairs had assumed such a militant aspect. But no one seemed very clear about the matter; and but for the their fears they might have tired of speculating about it at all. But when the day arrived for the dread ceremony to be performed, the pent up feelings of the populace could not be subdued any longer. Men began to say what they were thinking, and to say it rather noisily. Women vied with the men in threats of vengeance, and showed by their demeanor that they were in desperate earnest. Even the police seemed to feel as if they had been sitting on a slumbering volcano quite long enough, for they began to be unusually haughty and officious, and were not at all scrupulous about maltreating the citizens who had deputed them to carefully watch over the them. All along the walls of the jail, at every possible point, armed men were stationed. Thousands of police in uniform or plain clothes mixed up with the tens of thousands who waited outside its grim walls. Large bodies of soldiers were stationed in all directions, and others throughout the city, at the request of the Victorian Government many of them having come from the adjoining colonies. The latter were carefully posted in the most dangerous positions, the authorities rightly reasoning that as they were necessarily ill-informed on Melbourne affairs they would be less in sympathy with the people, and therefore more amenable to duty and more likely to fire upon their unfortunate fellow-men when ordered to do so by their commanding officers. All the available mounted troopers had been brought to the scene; and in their case, too, care had been taken to place those accustomed to country duty in the thickest part of the crowds. At last the hour for the execution drew near, and the favored few within the walls prepared to assist in, or witness, the revolting details with a zeal worthy of a cannibal feast. The attendants went about their accustomed work with almost as little unconcern as a cook would show in preparing her meals. And the spectators showed a zeal even more intense. There they waited, like human vultures, thirsting for the blood of the unfortunate victims, waiting to gloat over the sight of a species destroying its kind, waiting to hear the last despairing words of the tortured, or to note the quivering muscles of the unfortunate victims of human brutality. There they were, like so many tigers—no, not like tigers, for tigers and other quadrupeds do not devour their own species: it is only man, brutal man, the boasted “lord of creation” who stoops to such base deeds as that—there they were, waiting anxiously to feast their brutal eyes on their actions. And at last those victims came. Manfully and bodly [sic] did they eye their captors. Nobly did they hold their heads erect, as only men can hold them. Then there was a profound silence as the brave fellows prepared to say their parting words to their earthly tormentors. But, alas, this was denied them. Tyranny durst not let its victims speak. The devourer of his kind dare not hear the voice of him he would devour. The martyrs words might echo outside the walls, and perchance that echo might never die, but might herald in the victim's retribution. So the authorities had decided that the victims, like the martyrs of Chicago should be gagged before being murdered. A few stifled cries were all that was heard; and seventeen more human beings had suffered the utmost