Their counsels became wild and vacillating to the last degree: one hour
they were for giving way for the present till they could hatch another
plot; the next they all but sent an order for the arrest in the lump of
all the workmen's committees; the next they were on the point of ordering
their brisk young general to take any excuse that offered for another
massacre. But when they called to mind that the soldiery in that
'Battle' of Trafalgar Square were so daunted by the slaughter which they
had made, that they could not be 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 courses were
for the popular cause. Says one of the prisoners: 'It was great sport
comparing note