The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-11-19 00:00:00

T R A FALG AR- SQTYA.RE .

THE "finest site in Europe," as Trafalgar—
square was styled by one who knew Europe
well, has been the cynosure of all British
eves since Sunday last, when the intersected
quadrangle on which stands the Nelson
Column saw as strange an occurrence as has
ansnired in the capital for many a day.
closely-packed :policemen two,
Four, and at exposed points six deep—were
drawn ap to exatude the people of London
from the Sri uai e, fully one thousand five
hundred constables being thus on guard.
Hundreds more men in blue occupied the
adjecent theroughfares, while numbers of
mounted officers galloped hither and thither
to prevent the approach of processions of
demonstrators. A great meeting, it had
been announced, would be held at the feet
of Landseer's lions that afternoon te protest
against the action of the Government in
imprisonirg Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., in
Ireland, for breaking the law; and further,
to register its disapproval ot Sir Charles
Warren's police orders prohibiting proces-
sions to and from speeches in Trafalgar-
square, that order having been made in view
of recent rather inconvenient gatherings of
crowds or people purporting to be unem-
ployed. The meeting had been convened
by London Radical Chiba with the view
chiefly of asserting what their members
held to be the right of public meeting in a
convenient open space at such times as the
procession and assembly would not cause an
obstruction of traffic. But the assembly
having been distinctly and specifically pro-
hibited by the Chief Commissioner of Police,
it became thenceforth the duty of every
law-abiding person to refrain from attending
it; yet large numbers of London Radicals
refused to take this view of the case Pro-
cessions started from many parts of the
metrop ,lis towards Charing-cross, and but
for the overwhelming exhibition of physical
force on the part of the authorities, meetings
would doubtless have been held. But the
five thousand policemen, backed by mounted
Life Guards and Grenadiers, armed with
bayonets and ball cartridge, who were con-
centrated round about Trafalgar-square,
proved more than sufficient to enforce the
dictum of the Police Commissioner. Those
who flung themselves against the defending
force have since, many of them, had sore
reason for regret; for some are suffering
imprisonment, with hard labour, which is to
be continued from fourteen days to six
months, according to the violence used by
the ill-advised "demonstrators ;" and many
have received bruises and bodily wounds of
more or less significance, one hundred and
fifty or so having to be treated in hospital on
Senday evening. Trafalgar-square was held,
however, notwithstanding the attempts of
demonstrators" to force a passage to the
centre, so that the whole affair was futile so
far as regards the London Radicals. It is
said that the question of right to assemble
in the space before the National Gallery will
be tested before a legal tribunal; but this
might have been done without such a
dangerous and disgraceful gathering as that
of Sunday last. The
.sight of an array of
iniitary and police of gigantic proportions,
will a magistrate holding the Riot Act in
ilia hand at its head, facing a motley gather-
ing of extremists in politics, swelled to a
hundred thousand in number by the atend-
ance of idle sightseers, constituted a tre-
mendous peril to London; and it is only
because the law's representation on the
occasion had palbably the strongest arm
that a scene of indescribable panic and blood-
shed did not occur. Looking back to the
possibilitiesrof that afternoon London may
well be congratulated on having escaped s
calamity which would have dwarfed the
importance of any of the disturbances that
recent history tells of. Cannon were not
7,lantod on Westminster-bridge, as once
:luring the Chartist agitation in '4B; neither
was a policeraan killed, as on the occasion
of the Manhood Suffrage Riot in Coldbath-
ields fifteen years earlier; but the element
,f danger was in some points even greater
„ban was the case in either of these disturb-
.ances or at the Bread Riots in the Crimean
War time. Consequently a tremendous
,Teponsibility lay on the heads of those who
~,eaaaisecl the " demonstrations" against
,thority- last Sunday; and it will be seen
satisfaction that statesmen of the
dibre of Mr. Gladstone and his leading
ipporters discountenance end deprecate the
roceedings ; that seal an eminent Radical
•:Ivyer as Sir Charles Russell plainly says
ic procEssionis s were in the wrong; and
tat such unco;npr .m .:
-ins deinLeratic poli-
as Mr. Laboncnere an.l Mr. Brad.
i.lngh, while sympathisium with the objects
•, " .lorinnstrators," °hold they were
!wise in theit ;1., ii ,n, r.r.rl si)neal to them
again to rue their :i="st a s:one
„ 11, ' b,;t to '' kitvu th dgb of meeting
.?. decision in the Law Cur." We have
b::t strong condemnation for those
. ied on the defiance against constituted
'led that entirely irrespective of
..ty considerations; for whoever sets the
f v at nought, be he Conservative or Radi-
;:
.1. Unionist or Gladstonian, only retards
'4 own cause and merits reprehension and
•enishment which devolves upon. the
'-er. The two most notable persons
Sunday were John Barns, the
-aee, who has already suffered
fer his notorious antag-
f the Stotel 04 Mar

Vie -of