THE LORD MAYOR READS THE RIOT ACT
The Long Vacation having dragged its monotonous length to a finish,
the Courts re-opened in the third week in October. The day was dull,
and dull foreboding seemed to oppress the Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and
all the other haunts of law. Fewer people, and less cheerful than of
yore, mustered in the Great Hall to witness the customary procession of
the judges. The Lord Chief Justice bore himself with dignity, but wore
the marks of feeble health. The other judges were ordinary, estimable
men. They had served their clients and themselves with more or less
satisfactory results, and now discharged their monotonous functions
in a duly monotonous manner. The nominal leader of the Bar--his
Majesty’s Attorney-General--was absent again through illness, and the
Solicitor-General, Sir John Westwood--whose looks were criticised
curiously--led the army of the long robe. One and all, with silks and
stuffs by way of tail to the procession, the King’s justices passed
through the long hall of the florid Gothic structure, that cost the
nation a million and a half of money, and still is in process of
absorbing millions more in salaries, fees, and costs.
The function was soon over, and then, in the thousand chambers of the
building, the formal business of the day was dealt with. Once again
the pieces of machinery were got into their appointed places. Once
again the creaking, cumbrous, monstrous thing began to work. Amongst
the unemployed members of the Bar--which is to say, the majority of
barristers--there was much conjecture as to the business outlook.
The cause-list was thin to the point of attenuation, but still there
was a list. But those who were interested in criminal practice in
the magisterial Courts, and at Sessions and the Bailey, were deeply
concerned at the state of affairs which the history of the past few
months foreshadowed. How far were the Leaguers going to carry their
supposed programme? What was to happen if the British juryman failed
his country? Was it possible that our boasted _palladium_ was breaking
down? Britannia might need no bulwarks, but criminal law could not get
on without a fearless jury, to say nothing of fearless witnesses,
undaunted by open or veiled intimidation.
It was confidently believed that in his approaching speech at the
Mansion House, the Prime Minister would make an announcement of the
first importance in reference to the subjects that were agitating the
public mind. Since the great fire in Hyde Park, and the committal of
the seven accused men for trial, the Leaguers had been comparatively
quiet, but their numbers and their funds had further increased, and
there were those who saw in the present quiescence only the lull that
precedes a storm; merely an autumn pause before the oncoming of a dark,
tempestuous winter.
The ninth of November brought with it the accustomed features of
that date, including the presentation of the new Lord Mayor by the
Recorder at the Law Courts in the inevitable speech, replete with
pompous stereotype. The Chief Justice took occasion to comment on the
increasing signs of popular unrest, and various other indications
of the times, which made it of paramount importance that the chief
magistrate of the City of London should possess very special
qualifications for his ancient and important office. His lordship added
that so far as his Majesty’s judges were concerned, the country might
be well assured that the fabric of social safety would be resolutely
maintained, depending as it did on the vindication of justice and the
punishment of evil-doers.
With that significant allusion to what every one was thinking of,
the civic party was dismissed. The puerile pageant, traditionally
associated with the occasion, once more appealed to the contempt of
gods and men, and the Lord Mayor’s show, having wound its way home
through the miry and melancholy streets, was lost to sight in the foggy
City.
At the mayoral banquet in the evening, the First Lord of the Treasury
made his eagerly expected speech, which, however, contained nothing
that had been expected on the burning subject of the hour. The right
honourable gentleman was an oratorical acrobat of no mean talent. He
winged his flight from trapeze to trapeze with marvellous agility,
turned oratorical somersaults at unexpected moments, and came down on
his feet whenever it was expected he would arrive on his hands. The
whole performance was extremely dexterous and carefully non-committal.
When the Prime Minister sat down, of course there were thunders of
applause. Criticism of such speeches comes on the following day. Less
cautious, but also well applauded, were the utterances of my Lord
Mayor. Inspired with the ambitions of the new broom, and encouraged
by the counsel of the Chief Justice delivered earlier in the day, the
unfortunate gentleman made a doughty onslaught on the Leaguers, and
hinted at drastic action if any of them came before him in the justice
room.
With a sense of having risen to the occasion, the chief magistrate
retired late to his couch, fully confident that he had struck the right
note. But next day, when rising from his bed with a slight headache and
other symptoms of discomfort, his lordship speedily discovered that
there was something wrong without, as well as within. From an early
hour small groups of men were observed in the neighbourhood of the
Mansion House, whose gestures and looks indicated no friendly feeling
towards its official resident.
The Lady Mayoress, whose training had been provincial, and whose nerves
were flustered by the responsibilities of her new position, felt much
alarm at the appearance and manner of these men. One of them, moved on
peremptorily by the City police, was seen to hurl a large stone, which
crashed through a window over the portico on the Walbrook side of the
Mansion House. The fellow was promptly arrested and held prisoner,
though an attempt to rescue him on the part of his associates almost
proved successful.
Throughout the day there was much difficulty in keeping the streets
converging at the Mansion House available for the normal traffic.
The streams of vehicles from Cheapside and Queen Victoria Street
here had to be regulated so as to allow free passage for the other
tides of traffic ever pouring in from Cornhill, King William Street,
Threadneedle Street, and Princes Street. Yet at this very pivot-point
of the congested City traffic, there were persistent attempts to block
the way. Again and again the roadways had to be forcibly cleared by
the police, and several accidents occurred. Removed from one position,
groups formed again at another, scowling defiance at the constables who
strove to keep them moving.
For some hours after the first stone was thrown there was no other
overt act of violence. But suddenly, as the sombre afternoon was
merging into darkness, a pistol shot was heard. The report seemed
to come from the corner of Bucklersbury. The crash of falling glass
immediately followed, and over the head of a group of people a revolver
was tossed high into the air and fell upon the shoulder of a constable.
Some eight or ten policemen immediately made a rush in the direction
from which the weapon appeared to have been thrown. A violent struggle
ensued, in the course of which several persons were severely injured,
but the actual offender escaped capture.
A desperate attempt now was made to clear the space on the west side
of the Mansion House, but the difficulty was enormous. A great block
of vehicles and foot-passengers spread right across the end of Queen
Victoria Street and the Poultry. The mob could only be driven southward
or westward through the two narrow necks of Walbrook and Bucklersbury,
and those thoroughfares were so packed already that the attempt to
clear them was ineffectual. The position was rendered doubly grave by
the sudden arrival of another body of police from Cloak Lane, with the
result that the people herded in Walbrook found themselves attacked
in rear as well as in front. Those who sought to escape via the short
curve of Bucklersbury were driven against another force of police at
the Queen Victoria Street end, behind whom was a phalanx of omnibuses
and cabs, wedged together, and rendering escape impossible. Caught
thus, like rats in a trap, the crowd fought desperately. The glass door
of a stick and umbrella shop, which had been insufficiently secured,
was forced by a band of Leaguers, and with such weapons as the stock
afforded the police were furiously belaboured and forced to act on the
defensive.
At this crisis the electric lights flared out, and those who were near
the Mansion House were able to discern the figure of a deformed man
standing on the parapet of the book-seller’s shop behind which rises
the tower of St Stephen’s church. He was bare-headed, and the blue
light shone upon his grizzled hair and strong, pale features. By a
movement of the arm he appeared to convey a signal to the outskirts of
the crowd where Queen Victoria Street and the Poultry form an angle. At
any rate, as if by concerted action, sudden volleys of stones rattled
against the north and west fronts of the Lord Mayor’s residence, and a
terrific crash of broken glass immediately followed.
Within the Mansion House itself, the Chief Clerk, as adviser of the
Lord Mayor in criminal matters, had been in attendance for some hours,
and with great difficulty the City Solicitor and the Town Clerk had
also been brought together to attend a conference. The narrow passage
at the rear of the building was strongly guarded by police, and any
approach to it from the west had long been impracticable. The legal
officials and superior police officers had obtained ingress _via_
George Street on the east, the entrance used being that at which the
“Black Maria” usually set down its prisoners for the justice-room.
The Lord Mayor, pale and nervous, had appealed for advice, and was told
that the police would soon be able to restore order; but the organised
volley which sent stones and glass into the interior of the official
residence showed how futile was that expectation. It was now hastily
decided to read the Riot Act, or, strictly speaking, the warning
proclamation which the Act contains. This Act--passed some two hundred
years before--is intended to meet the case of tumults and riotous
assemblies. If twelve or more persons remain assembled for one hour
after the reading of the proclamation, all are guilty of felony. The
offence formerly was punishable with death.
Not within the memory of living man had the Riot Act been put into
force in the City of London, and for a moment a sense of curiosity
and expectation silenced the swaying and excited crowd, when the Lord
Mayor, in robe of office, came forward, flanked and supported by
officials and police, to signal for attention. The little group stood
on the stone terrace of the building facing north, and his lordship’s
voice sounded singularly thin and weak as he began the proclamation,
having first held up his hand to secure attention:
“Our sovereign lord and king chargeth and commandeth all persons
assembled immediately to disperse themselves and peaceably depart
to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains
contained in the Act----”
The rest was lost in a swift yell of derision and defiance, and the
concluding words, “God save the King,” were quite inaudible save to
those who were around or immediately below the speaker.
The civic group now retired with such haste that a great burst of
laughter came from thousands who observed the retreat. It gave just
that touch of humour to the proceedings that saved the situation. The
police, marking the sign of better temper, stayed their hands, and when
it became known that “God save the King” were the final words of the
proclamation that had been read, here and there in the throng a voice
started the National Anthem, and vast numbers began to chime in. It was
discordant, but hearty, and bore indisputable witness to the personal
popularity of his Majesty. The mob, perhaps, had done all that it had
intended to do; but, at any rate, the crisis was passed, and in less
than the hour’s grace allowed by the Act, the great crowd had marched
away in sections, leaving only the broken windows of the Mansion House
as evidence of the recent onslaught.
It was not generally known until later that a military force had been
hastily got in readiness to aid, if need were, the repressive action
of the police. The outcome, however, was, in one sense, disastrous,
for it led the authorities to conclude that the worst was over; a
miscalculation that facilitated the moves that followed in the daring
campaign of the Leaguers.