CHAPTER XIX

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.