British Miner and General Newsman : — 1862-10-11 (London, England)

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.  THE RIOT.  Cade: "Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech God on my knees thou may'st be turned to hobnails. (They fight, Cade falls.) Oh, lam Slain! Famine and no other has slain me; let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, gardens, and be henceforth a burying-place to all that do dwell in this house, because the unconquer'd soul of Cade is fled."—Second Part of King Henry V/.  ON the following day the good folks of Firelake shut up their shops, and prepared for the worst. A number of regular constables arrived, and a larger number of " specials " were sworn in. Several people had been stopped and robbed on the high roads, and when they reached the town, the sufferers, half mad with terror, had declared that "the miners" had robbed them— , that "the miners" had ill-used them, and what a fearful thing it was that "the miners" should be such disorderly, ruffianly, murderous brutes. All this time the miners had been staying at home, ekeing out a scanty meal by a more than a usually liberal allowance of sleep, or wandering about the country endeavouring to earn ever so small a piece of bread. They varied this dreadful monotony of hunger by public meetings; and if they talked a little wildly, it should be remembered that "it is ill conversing between a full man and a fasting." The district round and about Firelake was disturbed, and ruffians, thieves and impostors made their harvest of the poor man's sufferings. Not a thief in the adjacent counties that did not flock to the neighbourhood, assumed the dress and dialect of honest workmen, and exercise their craft under that disguise ; it was a stale trick, but it succeeded. Private plunder was put to the account of political excitement, and the "miners" bore the odium of the crimes of the collected rascality of half-a-dozen  counties.  The day for the greatmeeting dawned. The Mayor of Firelake rose with a white face and a palpitation of the heart, and drank brandy to his breakfast. The constables posted themselves with professional coolness at the places to which they were ordered by their chiefs; and the "specials," their truncheons tightly gripped or swinging carelessly and gracefully from their wrists, marched forth gallantly: some of the younger men really pleased at the prospect of a row, others thoughtful and determined, and others in an agonising state of fear.  "If it were only to-morrow morning," thought the mayor, "or the Dragoons had come ?" There are moral epidemics as well as physical, and the moral epidemic is always contagious. No sooner had the famishing miners held a meeting and discussed their wrongs, then the "hands" at a large mill in the vicinity "struck" for wages. More "strikes" followed, and even wise men, who could see into the distance, shook their heads and feared both for the present and the future. The procession advanced upon the town. Women and children flocked to the up-stairs windows, and uten drew tight their waistbelts. First marched a band of men "on strike"—sinewy, swarthy fellows, bronzed by constant exposure to flame and furnaceWork • Two of them bore a banner, on which was inscribed the words, "Our rights! More wages and fewer hours' work !" After came a small brass band, which Was followed by a large body of miners walking six abreast. Poverty had printed their features, and a settled and determined gloom was on their faces. They looked an organised hunger, demanding food to the sound of discordant music. A banner, on which was written "We are starving !" flapped in the wind, and a tall, gaunt