The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-11 00:00:00

BREAD LIOTS.

A bread riot is a very old and very vulgar thing.
There were bread riots a few months after the
enactment of the Corn Laws of 1815, and they re-
curred at rather short intervals till 1846. Indeed,
there have been bread riots in all ages, for when
bread is dear, and the people unemployed,—two
things very likely to happen together,—the people,
being hungry and having nothing else to do, are
apt to make a rush at bakers' shops, when
they have exhausted both their cash and their
credit. We say " the people," though it is won-
derful how a mere handful of fellows nobody ever
saw before can emerge from somewhere nobody
knows, and get up a riot for any purpose whatever,
the stupid respectables going round with them,
simply to see whatever is to be seen, but thereby
giving body to the movement. But a bread riot,
after °all, is a mere flash in the pan. There is no
more method, or danger, or augury of any sort in
a bread riot than in a " town-and-gown ' row, or
in the recent snowballing match on the Liverpool
Exchange, or, to come nearer to the point, in the
circumstance of some disorderlies, on being released
from a goal, breaking some large plate-glass shop
panes in order to extort money from Poor Law
guardians, or in the act of the half-starved mother
who slips a bit of bacon from a shop under her
shawl. Anybody who plunders a shop proclaims
himself in the wrong. There is no argument or
pretence of argument in the case, unless the fact
of a person being hungry and out of temper is to
be considered a justification for a crime. When,
twenty years ago, agricultural mobs went about
breaking thrashing-machines, and when, half as long
ago, agricultural labourers went about firing stacks,
there might be a shadow of bad argument in these
outrages. There is not even that much of reason
or sophistry in a bread riot. It is a mere act of
hunger and passion. Bread is sometimes cheap,
and sometimes dear. For the last seven years the
complaint on the part of the agriculturist has ever
been that it was too cheap, and, so far from exces-
sive fluctuations, no period can be shown in which
the price of bread was so uniform. The result is,
that for these seven years we have had no bread
riots ; and when people in London are told that
the bakers' shops at Exeter were pillaged the other
day, forthwith some people with short memories
pretend to think it quite a sign of the times, a
modern invention, a natural result from the repeal
of the corn laws, and never heard of before.
Nay, an amiable and judicious contemporary
goes even further, and suggests that hunger is
a very good excuse for robbery, violence, and
theft. If a man bas been led to expect that he
will have cheap bread, and has had it cheap enough
for a good many years, the instant it becomes dear
he may, it seems, go and take it without paying for
it, and break the baker's head or windows into the
bargain. We cannot congratulate these would-be
incendiaries on their prospect of fanning the flame,
for flame there is none, and, if it were, all the
puffing and blowing of the anile pair of cheeks in
question would never get it up. Think of these
writers telling a few ill-conditioned vagabonds in a
low part of Exeter that they had " been goaded to
extremities" by " illegitimate practices," meaning
by that singular phrase the arguments in favour of
frse trade. Think of charging Free-traders
exclusively with " waging war against labour"
by the introduction of machinery, when every
labourer knows that machinery had . been in-
troduced into agricultural processes as fast as the
farmer could afford it, long before free trade
was a question of the day ! We are then gravely
informed that these ragamuffins at Exeter had been.
" seduced by the sophisms of Free Trade emis-
saries," and that having, " consequently, antici-
pated great amelioration in the external conditions
of life," on the " exposure of the fallacy" they had
" considered themselves aggrieved, and, impelled
by the cruel pirichings of hunger, had risen
up against their betrayers "—viz., the poor
little bakers, provision dealers, and other pur-
veyors of the labouring class.
cannot be fanned, at least it can be felt, and
the writer warms up with his own combus-
tibles. Civil war itself rises in all its charms to his
disordered imagination, and he is prepared to
excuse it. "If rebellion is in the slightest
degree excusable—justifiable it can scarcely ever
be—it is when men are driven to it by want."
Why, who does not want ? If that is an excuse,
everybody has only to take what he wants, and the
law of might at once becomes the only law of the
land. But an agricultural rebellion would be a
very poor thing ; so, besides fanning the flame, a
a further attempt is mad to direct it—just to throw
a flake or two over the wall to the manufacturers,
and bring the hungry, and therefore quite " ex-
cusable," rebels about their factories. "We very
much fear lest the people in the manufacturing dis-
tricts should embark in a similar course of violence."
What a kind interest to take in the welfare and
peace of the millowner, and how surprised he must
be at this expression of sympathy from so un-
expected a quarter ! Whatever you do, don't
nail his ears to the pump. " But," continues
our new " Manufacturer's Friend," " should the
" supplies, that is, the weekly subscriptions for the
Preston turnouts, before the difference between
the employer and the employed is settled, and
should they be then rendered desperate by want,
we cannot answer for the consequences." We be-
lieve we can allay the grievous apprehensions of
our nervous contemporary. We will "answer for
the consequences." We will pledge all our political
reputation that if a mob of Preston turnouts at-
tacks either a baker's shop or a manufactory, and
does a little plunder or destruction, the mischief
will stop there, and Parliament won't think it ne-
cessary to pass a hasty bill re-enacting the Corn
Laws.—Times.