Washington sentinel., 1898-03-12
~, : - SENTINEL


in Eye Witness, f7 the Lswish Chronicle
Il is now nearly seventy years
since the French army captured
Algiers, and finally succeeded IN
putting a stop to the acts of brig
andage, piracy and murder, for
which the Arabs Of Algeria were
so notorious. In 1884, an anti
Semitic disturbance broke out in
Algiers, but it was Of short dura-
ton, and was, happily, quelled by
the police and militia, without any
serious consequences or loss of life.
The riots, remembered by US all,
cannot be compared with those
which we have Just witnessed, and
are still Witnessing, though on a
comparatively reduced scale. This
fresh outbreak had not been fore
seen by the police, consequently
no precautions had been taken in
view of the attack, but in about as
much time as it takes to relate it,
the rioters divided off into groups
Of 100, zoo and 500, commenced to
enter deliberately the shops owned
bv Jews, crying out as ever, "a
bas les Juiisl" assaulting the shop
keepers, smashing the windows,
and laying hands on the goods,
which they actually threw out into
the streets. 1t was now very clear
what was going to take place. The
few agents de police about the town
were quite inadequate to lend
helping hand to the shopkeepers,
nor, in fact, did they try to. In
the space OF half an hour several
Of the shops had been thus pill
laged, and the Jews inside them
badly beaten. They were quite
powerless in the hands OF so many
enemies. The alarm was soon
given at all the police stations and
at the gendarmerie, and extra
forces were at once sent out in
various directions. Little good,
however, did they do, for as fast as
they arrested the rioters, they were
surrounded and knocked about by
the manifestants, that they actually
had to relinquish their hold of
those they had captured. The pill
lage of all the Jewish shops and
stores in Algiers was what had
been decided upon by the anti
Semites, and although they took
whole week to do it, hey thor
oughlV succeeded in carrying out
their villainous and outrageous
intent. And this is not all, for in
some instances the shops, after
complete pillage, were set fire to
and burned. What is worse is the
deplorable loss Of life that oc-
Cured. Three persons were actu-
ally done to death in broad day
light, and several are now lying
dangerously wounded. The police
and gendarmes succeeded IN MAX
ing arrests, but were quite unable
to quell the disturbance, so that by
the end of the first day the mani
testants, who now numbered over
1900, had it almost all their own
way, and resolved on recommend
ing on the morrow.
On tho -fternoon Of the second
day the mobs, in greater force than
the day previous, recommended
their work OF pillage, passing from
one Jewish shop to another, which
they easily distinguished from
those of the Christians Something
was soon to occur, which made
matters more complicated and de-
cidedly worse. The Jews, on their
side, seeing little help from author
ties, had conceived the unhappy
idea OF making a counter demon
stration, and 400 young Jewish
fellows, all armed with sticks,
knives and revolvers, went to meet
a crowd OF some 500 anti-Semites,
and, In the Rue Random street
in the Jewish quarter-a hand-to-
hand and sanguinary fight took
place, resulting in the death OF a
Spaniard, and the wounding OF
many other people, both Jews and
Christians. In this great and
wholesale 6agayrF, the police force
was even less powerful than the
day before; and in face Of the
alarming proportion the riots were
now assuming, it kept as much in
AAA( OaNhk AOAhh do POo9AOACs ~
was case of SaHUe gNf PeHt. By
this time over a hundred Jewish
shops had been pillaged, while the
Christians, also very excited, were
busy looking to their own inter
eSts, and pasting on their shutters
inscriptions such as these: "Maison
Francaise;;" LA maison nest pas
juive;" "Magasin Chretien"
"Maison Catholique;" Ia patron
nest pas juii; "La maison est
Francais ct Catholique," so fright
ened were they that mistakes
should be made by the shop
breakers" which, however, was
the case in four or FIVE instances,
were Catholic shopkeepers were
mistaken for Jews. Nobody, in
fact, felt safe, in the face of such
mobs, gaining strength each hour,
and quite overpoweTing the rela-
lively small amount of assistance
that came from the gendarmes, tor
as fast as they were dispersed from
one shop, they quickly assembled
at another, where the smashing in
OF the shutters and forcing an en-
trance was matter of only lew
seconds.
Finally the troops were called
Il ~