got to fire a second volley, they shrank back again from the dreadful
courage necessary for carrying out another massacre. Meantime the
prisoners, brought the second time before the magistrates under a
strong escort of soldiers, were the second time remanded.

"The strike went on this day also. The workmen's committees were
extended, and gave relief to great numbers of people, for they had
organised a considerable amount of production of food by men whom
they could depend upon. Quite a number of well-to-do people were now
compelled to seek relief of them. But another curious thing
happened: a band of young men of the upper classes armed themselves,
and coolly went marauding in the streets, taking what suited them of
such eatables and portables that they came across in the shops which
had ventured to open. This operation they carried out in Oxford
Street, then a great street of shops of all kinds. The Government,
being at that hour in one of their yielding moods, thought this a
fine opportunity for showing their impartiality in the maintenance of
'order,' and sent to arrest these hungry rich youths; who, however,
surprised the police by a valiant resistance, so that all but three
escaped. The Government did not gain the reputation for impartiality
which they expected from this move; for they forgot that there were
no evening papers; and the account of the skirmish spread wide
indeed, but in a distorted form for it was mostly told simply as an
exploit of the starving people from the East-end; and everybody
thought it was but natural for the Government to put them down when
and where they could.

"That evening the rebel prisoners were visited in their cells by VERY
polite and sympathetic persons, who pointed out to them what a
suicidal course they were following, and how dangerous these extreme