Page:The Siege of London - Posteritas - 1885.djvu/45

 the ground, and then uttering fierce oaths and blasphemous revilings, they beat the senseless marble to powder with iron bars and staves. Next they tore up the seats and trees that adorned the Embankment, and, making a huge bonfire, danced round it in savage glee, and scattered the powder in the flames.

Contemporary writers agree in describing this remarkable scene as resembling similar outbursts of popular fury that had so frequently disgraced Paris. It is spoken of as being terribly weird and grotesque, and horrible beyond the power of words to depict. It was a stupendous outburst of the worst of human passions. Women went mad, and absolutely in their excitement threw themselves into the fierce flames. Men, seized with the ferocious rage of disappointed wild beasts, committed the most unheard-of outrages, and children of tender years were tossed about like balls, and then trampled to death in the gutters. A strong body of troops and Volunteers were sent against the mob; but the people had ransacked the gun-shops, and had by some means procured a nine-pounder howitzer, and they succeeded in beating the troops back. At last two cannon were placed in position near the Houses of Parliament, and the wretched people were enfiladed with grape-shot. The slaughter was horrible. Thousands of the rioters of both sexes were slain. Blood poured down the channels like water after a storm of rain, and mangled limbs were everywhere strewn about. Night fell upon this scene of unspeakable horror; and during those terrible hours of darkness the work of clearing the Embankment went on. The wounded were carefully attended to, and the dead were piled into carts pressed into the service, and were taken away to a large piece of waste ground at Beckenham, where huge pits were hastily dug and the mangled corpses were shot in without any ceremony.

It is somewhat remarkable that this outbreak of public anger was confined to London. The measures taken to suppress the riot were admittedly sternly harsh; but the authorities had no alternative, and there is no doubt the example set, awful as it was, had a good effect.

Throughout the land the general feeling expressed at the startling news was that of stern determination, so