The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-04 00:00:00

VIE REFORM DEMONSTRATION.

ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS.
The marching pace was at first at the rate of three
piles an hour, and the men were so anxious to get
out of the Park that whenever the horsemen and
the carriages at the head of the procession were
enabled to push on they fairly went off at the double.
The crowd on either side seconded their attempts
and activity so well, by preserving order for them,
that the rate of progress of the head of the column
may be stated throughout the route at two miles
and a half an hour, stoppages included.
The principal thoroughfares from Regent-circus
to Old Brompton showed nono of the sympathy ex-
pressed by flags, colours, and banners. In the
Brompton-road the flag of the Reform League—a
not very bright or attractive tricolour of red, b.lue,
and green—began to be visible at various points,
and the ladies at the windows waved a more cordial
welcome. At the Admiral Keppel Tavern and else-
where streamers were shown. Seats view the pro-
cession were extemporised and advertised to be let,
but while the number of spectators in windows and
balconies increased, the number of spectators on the
foot pavement diminished. There was here a steady
and continuous stream wee tward, and these ardent
Reformers were soon to become by their numbers a
source of unforeseen difficulty and embarrassment.
At Walham-green a large body of mounted and
foot police were drawn up. The procession bad now
to traverse a narrower road, and here, as many had
foreseen, the real " pinch" began. The grand car-
tiage entrance was by a gate in the North-end-road,
avd this was the only entrance for the possessors of
tickets, whether they presented themselves in car-
riages, in a mass of independent foot passengers,
or in the procession. The consequence was that
when the mounted farriers arrived they found the
narrow approach to the only entrance in the pos-
session of a mob of persona holding tickets. It
was exceedingly difficult, if not ungracious, to force
a way for the carriages through such a crowd, but
it had to be done.
The men themselves submitted to this displace-
ment with as much good temper as could have been
evectea, but a mob of roughs, with their usual in-
stinct for scenes of confusion, had established them-
selves at this spot, and reaped a rich harvest. They
snatched breast-pins from gentlemen in the carriages,
opened both doors at once, and almost dragged the
occupants out, and when they had alighted robbed
them of everything they could lay their hands upon.
One gentleman, from Leeds, lost his gold watch, and
not a few were roughly handled by these ruffians in
attempting to defend their persons and property.
One set of roughs bad the audacity to take the linch
pins out of a carriage in order to get its occupants
more completely in their power.
If the police arrangements were in any respect
faulty it was at this point. A strong police force
appeared to be wanted at the entrance gate to hold
the thieves in check and preserve the peace. The
mounted Farriers did what they could. They charged
now and then among these desperadoes, and ex-
pelled a few from the crowd, and at length formed
a half circle with their horses to keep the gateway
clear. As the pressure increased, the difficulty of
entering the grounds caused continual and more
frequent delays in the line of march. Additional
obstacles were imposed by the necessity of breaking
the procession, in order to allow the traffic so long
suspended at the side streets to intersect the line of
route. From these causes combined the later sub-
divisions of the procession were stopped every few
yards, and only enabled to approach Beaufort-house
at a snail-pace. From the same causes alsothe cur-
rent flowing into the grounds was exceedingly inter-
mittent. An interval of five or ten minutes some-
times occurred between the ingress of each body of
trades, and this was the case with sections as high in
the list and as early in their arrival as the Glass-
workers and Ropemakers.
It soon became evident that very few of the
Second Division of the procession could enter the
grounds, and prompt measures were taken to cut the
procession in halves and shunt the remainder into a
side road. This was rendered the more necessary
from the state of the weather. A cold, drizzly, and
uncomfortable rain had set in, and the independent
ticket-holders, as distinguished from those who
marched in the procession, begin to move towards
the only gate alike of egress and ingress.
A marshal was sent down the line to stop the
procession and march the Third Division out of the
way. Ile arrived at the Temperance Societies, ex-
plained the case, transmitted his orders, and they
were promptly and cheerfully obeyed. At this mo-
ment there was a quarter of a mile of trades' and
friendly societies still struggling on, in some slender
hope that their march through mud and rain would
be rewarded by an entrance into the grounds and
by participating in the pleasures of eloquence and
of sense by turns
,offered by the platform and the
canteen.

Thus, it will be seen, almost as soon as the meet-
ing began the crowd within the grounds began to
disperse. At no time could all the friends of the
League who in the course of the day gained ad-
mission to Beaufort-house grounds be seen together.
No means of judging of the number present could
thus be obtained by the eye alone, and when the
tolerably harmless fib" was passed down the line
that the grounds were full and no more could be
admitted, it may safely be asserted the grounds
could easily have held three times the number who
were then present.
The behaviour of every individual member of the
procession had been admirable. Not a single man
among all those assembled thousands was seen to
exhibit the least symptom of intoxication, although
the inclemency of the weather, the not infre-
quent showers, the state of the roads, and the
fatigue of being so many hours afoot, might well
have excused at any other time a resort to some
form of alcoholic stimulant. The temper, pa-
tience, and good humour of the processio.nists "ere
as remarkable and as praiseworthy as their sobriety.
It is a pity that men who had kept the peace so
well themselves should have been exposed, at
the most critical point of the day's proceed-
ings, to the violence and ruffianism of the very
scum of the population of the metropolis. The
scene of tumult and confusion which had been
clearly foreseen actually occurred, at the one en-
trance to the ground, and the narrow approach to
it, between half-past 3 and half-past 4 o'clock.
The exact time may seem to be vaguely given, but
at that particular place it would have been the ,
height of imprudence to attempt to look at a watch.
That element of the London population with which
it is so difficult to deal on public occasions bad per-
ceived instinctively that here at least, if nowhere
else, it would sooner or later have a chance of turn-
ing a scene of inevitable struggling and confusion to
profitable account. The roughs had collected in
some force here, as we have seen, in the early part
of the day, and their number increased while the first
division of the procession was passing through the
gate. About half-past 3 o'clock, when the trades
forming the first division had passed in and those
heading the second division were coming up, it was
found necessary not to augment the numbers on the
ground,. so as to enable them to leave it within the
stipulated time. As the rain continued to fall those
7110 had been on the ground began to leave it in
increasing numbers, and came through the gate in a
closely-packed
crowd. Immediately outside they met
a strong current proceeding in an opposite direction,
and now and then attempting to march to the music
of a band. The conflicting crowds came into violent
collision. At one tune that at which was making its
al
egress seemed to carry before it. !,hen it was,
fora
as it were, dammed up few minutes, and a
fragment of the procession made some
e way towards
m
the gate. Some even forced their through the
gate into the ground, determined not to atop short
of their destination. Others more wisely
quickly as
judged
gate.(. Some-
times it was best to get out of the wad:ea
possible, and they gladly passed by
times the mounted farriers covered and protected the
processionists, but their ranks were often broken
by passing traffic. Short and narrow as the lane is
from which the ground is entered, no effort was
made at either end to keep vehicles out. Spring
li
carts, hansoms, cabs, and carriages were permitted
to pass both ways, with the current or against it,
and drove into the midst of the reeling, eddying
crowd. Here for a time they would become fixed,

with the crowd pressing Y Joth shafts, and the horses'
heads turned first one V ay and then another, until
the number of persons -who had taken refuge in the
rear of the vehicle beau me numerous enough to push
it and horse together through the crowd on both
sides. A brewers' drtuman drove two heavy horses
and a large covered w aggon into the crowd about
the time when matters were at their worst. These
passages of vehicles, however, afforded temporary
relief by carrying cuff numbeis who were glad to
escape in their rear. In the crowd there were men
of all ages, and many women and girls, and their
continued calls and shouts produced a Babel of
sounds. The roughs increased the confusion by
rushing :to and fro in bodies, and their endeavour
seemed to be on each occasion to carry off a respect-
able person, and, by quite surrounding him and
almost lifting him off his feet, to render it impossible
for him to protect himself. One young man, well
dressed in black, was seen to be literally swept away
backwards at such a rate and by such an overwhelm-
ing number of thieves that he was plundered with-
out resistance. The bystanders were quite power-
less to assist. A slight gap in the crowd, occasioned
by the great speed with which the victim was pro-
pelled, revealed a dozen or more hands at his pockets.
Soon afterwards the same gang returned and passed
the gate in the opposite direction, and immediately
after they had done so a middle-aged man backed
out of the crowd and exclaimed that the fellows had
robbed and cleared out all his pockets. At another
moment, a tall, powerful, well-dressed man, on
discovering that his pocket was being tampered with,
turned round and attempted to defend himself with
a short whip. The roughs met the attack with equal
promptitude and resolution, and the gentleman was
surrounded and put hors de combat as quickly as if
all about him were privy to the plot. Others took
his part, and there was a short, sharp, and general
fight before the ruffians retreated. A little later
two or three mounted policemen came up and rode
to and fro. Looking down upon the crowd from
the midst of it, they rendered pocket-picking opera-
tions a little more difficult One officer was seen to
point in a certain direction and beckon to another,
and in a minute they unkennelled and drove out of
the crowd half a dozen men and lads who were un-
mistakeably of the criminal class. This exciting
scene lasted about an hour. Once or twice a pick-
pocket was caught and carried off a prisoner. About
half-past 4 o'clock, when all the advancing proces-
sionists had been turned back, and the ranks of
those leaving the ground became thinned, the crowd
diminished and the tumult gradually ceased, and
towards 5 o'clock it was a relief to know that the
ground was all but cleared, and that, so far as was
known, no serious accident had occurred.