after considerable delay and difficulty. No sooner had he reached Russell Street than he turned up to escape the crowd; but they followed him. The scene now became one of wild confusion, and it was with difficulty that the powerful horses managed to draw their burdens up the steep hill owing to the surging mass pressing and swaying so heavily against it, many being thrown down and trampled to death by one another, and numbers falling under the wheels of the lorry. Upon arriving at the corner of Collins Street further progress became absolutely impossible. The crowd had now increased by thousands, and rumours were all over the city bringing fresh throngs to the scene. No horse, or no body of horses, could possibly force its way through the immense wall of humanity that came surging up from Bourke Street. One would think that all Victoria had come to witness the indescribable scene.
Seeing that they could make no further retreat the occupants of the lorry held council together as to what they should do under the extraordinary circumstances. The general feeling was to quietly leave the wagon, one at a time, and silently disperse to their homes; but Felix Slymer would not hear of such a thing. He charged them with cowardice, and said that those who were so anxious to fight capital were trying to flee at the first sniff of danger. This rebuke was too much, and they decided to remain.
Taking in the state of affairs, and noticing the perplexity of the labor leaders, Slymer instantly brought himself “in evidence” before the crowd. Hastily rising to his legs, he once more addressed the masses of people who thronged the streets, urging them to resist this “unwarranted breach of discipline on the part of the officials” as he called it, and inciting them to deeds of violence to redress this wrong; he called, in the name of justice, upon those who had been “spoliated” by the capitalists to take their revenge and “loot the shops of the Collins Street aristocracy.” Instantly a rush was made down the street, shutters were torn down, windows smashed with the broken shutters, and the jewellers' and other shops were burst open. A cry was raised “To the banks!” and large numbers rushed for these time-honored representatives of vested interests, but they were too firmly constructed to be burst open, and the crowds returned to the shops of the “small-fry” capitalists. The police and the troopers were powerless to stop the furious onslaught of the people, although they mercilessly beat them with their batons and their swords until wounded and dying rioters were lying about in all directions.
While all this was going on, the lorry remained in its old place, and the great mass of the crowd stayed around it, and hopelessly hemmed it in, while Slymer continued his oration calling on the people to resist force with force. Suddenly Slymer disappeared, and it was thought he had been violently kidnapped by an agent of the capitalists. Harry, noticing his disappearance, hastened to fill his place, and stepping forward on the lorry he cried out “Friends, be calm. There is some treachery here. Let us disperse.” But he spoke too late.
All at once, the mayor of the city appeared, armed with a sheet of paper which turned out to be the Riot Act, and he appeared to read from
