DARK SATANIC MILLS 75

Rochdale, Todmorden, Bury, Macclesfield, Bolton, Stockport,
Burslem and Hanley. At the latter place 5000 strikers marched
on a neighbouring country mansion and left it blazing. Hordes
of rough-looking men in fur caps carrying clubs and faggots
patrolled the squalid unpaved roads around the idle mills; others
attempted to hold up the mail and tear up the permanent way
on the Manchester-Leeds railway. Next morning, though
Sunday, the Cabinet met and issued urgent orders to the Guards
and the Artillery at Woolwich to hold themselves in readiness
for Manchester. That evening as the 3rd battalion of the
Grenadiers debouched with band playing through the gates of
St. George's Barracks into Trafalgar Square, vast numbers of
working men and boys closed in and tried to obstruct its
progress. In Regent Street the crowd became so menacing that
the order was given to fix bayonets; all the way to Euston Square
Station, which was packed with police, hisses and groans con-
tinued. The 34th Foot, summoned in haste from Portsmouth,
was also continuously hooted on its march across London.

By the evening of the i6th, Manchester was held by three
regular infantry battalions, the ist Royal Dragoons and artillery
detachments with howitzers and six-pounders. A few miles away
the streets of Bolton were patrolled by companies of the 72nd
Highlanders. Other troops poured in by the new railroads with
such rapidity that the rebellion quickly began to lose its dangerous
appearance. All that week the magistrates and police, protected
by the military, were busy arresting ringleaders and detachments
of rioters, and every main road and railway was watched by
mounted constables and dragoons.

After that the insurrection crumbled. Further resort to force
was useless. Hunger did the rest. Anger and hectic excitement
gave place to weakness and despair. The shops were guarded and,
with the mills closed, even the miserable wages of the past year
of want ceased. The poor rates in every Lancashire town soared
as pale, famished multitudes besieged the workhouses, and
ruined householders, unable to pay their rent, abandoned their
homes. In November Engels saw gaunt, listless men at every
street corner in Manchester, and whole streets of houses in
Stockport standing empty.

• ••••••

Gradually the factories reopened and a defeated people
crept back to work. The insurrection had failed. Yet, like the