Oliver Spence/Chapter 1
THE COMING TERROR
CHAPTER I.
THE ATTACK ON THE BANK.
Crash! Crash!! Crash!!! went the falling timbers of the Austral Bank, while a furious and ferocious mob, drunken with wine and victory, shrieked, fought, and swore in front of the burning edifice. The features of the men and women who composed this mob, rendered savage by want, suffering, and oppression, were distorted by hate, the desire for vengeance and lust for destruction, while they were lit up by the huge fierce flames which issued from the rapidly perishing but once magnificent building.
A golden shower of sovereigns fell upon the heads of the raging crowd. A safe containing sovereigns had been thrown from a window, and opening as it fell, scattered its contents in all directions. A brutal, frantic struggle then took place; women and children were trampled to death, and men were disabled by kicks and blows from their rivals, while a perfect Babel of yells and curses from the injured and injuring rent the air.
Who were these people who for the time had apparently ceased to be human, and had become as wild beasts? They were "les miserables" of Sydney; the exploited, the destitute, the unemployed. The Great Problem of how to provide with suitable occupations those who, though perfectly willing to labor, were by unjust social conditions precluded from earning bread for themselves and those dependent on them, had reached the acute phase where the proverbial worm is said to turn—and it had turned with a vengeance! The men who previously had been distinguished by their spiritless, cowed demeanor, had become desperate demons, whose fierce bloodthirstiness and ruthless destructiveness had filled the rich with terror and panic, and handed over the control of the city to King Mob. A Sydney mob were now doing in Australia what a Parisian mob had done in France in 1789. Just as the French mob had demolished the Bastille, which they considered the type and corner-stone of their oppression, so an Australian mob was now inaugurating a vast social rebellion by the demolition of the great and famous Austral Bank, which for generations reigned supreme over the financial institutions of Australia, and had gathered within its octopus-like grip half the great industries of the country.
To return to the mob. Among the men who particularly distinguished themselves in the attack on the bank, was a gigantic navvy who, brandishing a large new axe, marched in the forefront of the rioters, and—the bank having been now successfully looted—called upon his followers to hasten to destroy the "den of thieves," by which term he meant the Parliament. The crowd, with many vociferations and execrations, followed their leader along King Street, looting and wrecking the luxuriously furnished shops as they passed along that fashionable afternoon promenade. The attempts of shopkeepers to defend their wares were of course unsuccessful, the mob having armed itself by the looting of the gunshops and making short work of those who attempted any resistance. One man who attempted to defend the jewellery of which he was the nominal owner, by pointing a revolver at the crowd, was promptly disarmed, and thrown crashing through the plate glass window of the shop in which he acted as the agent of a financial syndicate. Cries of "Bread or lead" "Down with the bank swindlers" "Work or blood!" "Give us back our savings!" "To hell with the financiers!" resounded on all sides, while the flames from the houses fired by those in the rear of the mob, and the reports from firearms, gave the street the sounds and appearance of the mythical Pandemonium.
On arriving at Parliament House the mob found a small detachment of the Permanent Artillery, armed with a machine gun, guarding the entrances of that building. The men in charge of the gun were soon disposed of by some insurgent marksmen, who, firing from the crowd, or the adjoining housetops, picked them off with a skill which showed them to be no novices in the use of the deadly Giffard gun. The insurgents then by a strategic move captured the gun, and the artillerymen surrendered.
The crowd then poured into the House, while a number of pale, panic-stricken legislators tumbled over each other in their anxiety to avoid the inrush of the avengers. Several of the most unpopular members were killed on the spot, among them being the members of the Government, the other members being allowed to escape with more or less severe injuries. Spence, the gigantic navvy, then took possession of the Speaker's chair, and in a few firmly-uttered words announced that henceforth the House be used as the meeting place of the Revolutionary Committee.
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