The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-03-06 00:00:00

THE LONDON RIOTS:

he bill to provide for payment for compensation
for damage done during the rioting on the Bth of last
month was issued on Monday. Clause I. sets forth
that the Act may be cited for all purposes as the
Metropolitan Police (Compensation) Act, 18SO.
Clause 11. provides that " where a person shows, in
manner provided by this Act, that a house or shop
occupied by him in the metropolitan police district
was injured, or the property therein was injur,a,
stolen, or destroyed by any persons who took part in
such riot as aforesaid, such compensation shall be
paid out of the Metropolitan Police Fund for ellen
injury, stealing, or destruction." Clause 111. ex pl,llus
how claims are to be made.

The Assistant-Judge, addressing the grand jury at
the Middlesex Sessions, on Monday, said: There are
several indictments to be laid before you for 1, I,y
of goods pillaged from shops at the West-e.au, and
for assaults committed during the disgraceful riots
which took place on the Bth of last month. It appears
to me that you will find sufficient evidence to warrant
yoilr returning true bills in all these cases. You will
notl fail to observe, however, that they differ from
each other in respect of various circumstances affect-
ing the 'persons committed for trial, either for actual
thefts, or for having received portions of the plunder
with a guilty knowledge; but you had better leave
those points to be dealt with upon the trial before
the petty jury. It is much to be regretted that
honest working men cannot meet together under
the pressure of adverse circumstances at a
time of severe industrial depression, without being
hustled and molested by thieves and ruffians.
The possible danger to the public peace, and
the safety of property arising from these meetings, is,
of course, a far graver matter, and it would indeed be
a scandal and a reproach to this great community if,
with the resources at its command for repressing the
tendency to riot and disorder, the organisation and
direction of the civil force maintained for this purpose
were shown upon the recurrence of any sudden emer-
gency to be inadequate and insufficient. We have
received a rude shock; we are ashatned and vexed at
what has lately occurred, but we have much to be
grateful for in the past. It is to be hoped that the
last has now been heard of that supreme piece of
wisdom so often in the mouths of some persons a
short time ago with reference to an organised resistance
to the law: "Fore is no remedy." We know that in
the dense and overflowing population of London there
is at all times a vast number of idle loafers and rogues
and vagabonds, prompt and eager to take advantage of
any opportunity for outrage and plunder. Men of this
stamp co-one rate instinctively, and, unfortunately, they
are -not without the means of organisation. They are
known to one another from association in common
lodging-houses and other places of low resort, and
generally also from acquaintance made in one or
other of her Majesty's prisons. They are the natural
enemies of the skilled artisan and the steady labours
in.. man. There can be no doubt there was a large
admixture of this dangerous class in Trafaigar-square
on Black Monday, the Bth of last month, nor any
doubt that they formed the leading and the brutal
element in that surging mob which moved westward
after the speech-making was over. It would be most
cruel and unjust to connect industrious working men
with the abominable outrages which then ensued.
Still, it may be that there were borne along in that
riotous crowd many working men hitherto unas-
sociated with crime and disorder, and who know
full well the value of character for peaceableness
and honesty. As for the speeches to which these
men had been listening, it would be wrong for me
to venture an opinion. Some of them are under
consideration before another tribunal; and for aught
I know they all may have been legally unobjection-
able; but this much I may say with regard to the
charges referred to—and I think you will agree with
me—that great allowances should be made for igno-
rant and unreflecting men who may have lost their
self-control in the excitement produced by vehement
harangues speciously calculated to stimulate class
hatred, and to engender a belief that a panacea for
social inequalities and slackness of work is to be found
in demonstrations of physical force and acts of law-
less violence. However, it will be for this Court, and
not for you, in the discharge of your comparatively
limited functions, to take these circumstances into
consideration in dealing with the cases which have
thus arisen. After some remarks upon the nature of
their duties, the Grand Jury were dismissed to their
room.

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