S. 3

From that day onward, anarchist attempts followed one another every week
without interruption. The victims were numerous, and almost all of them
belonged to the poorer classes. These crimes roused public resentment.
It was among domestic servants, hotel-keepers, and the employees of such
small shops as the Trusts still allowed to exist, that indignation
burst forth most vehemently. In popular districts women might be heard
demanding unusual punishments for the dynamitards. (They were called
by this old name, although it was hardly appropriate to them, since, to
these unknown chemists, dynamite was an innocent material only fit to
destroy ant-hills, and they considered it mere child's play to explode
nitro-glycerine with a cartridge made of fulminate of mercury.) Business
ceased suddenly, and those who were least rich were the first to feel
the effects. They spoke of doing justice themselves to the anarchists.
In the mean time the factory workers remained hostile or indifferent
to violent action. They were threatened, as a result of the decline of
business, with a likelihood of losing their work, or even a lock-out
in all the factories. The Federation of Trade Unions proposed a general
strike as the most powerful means of influencing the employers, and the
best aid that could be given to the revolutionists, but all the trades
with the exception of the gliders refused to cease work.

The police made numerous arrests. Troops summoned from all parts of the
National Federation protected the offices of the Trusts, the houses of
the multi-millionaires, the public halls, the banks, and the big shops.
A fortnight passed without a single explosion, and it was concluded that
the dynamitards, in all probability but a handful of persons, perhaps