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 notes when we
came out anent the attempt of the Government to »get at« us separately in
prison, and how we answered the blandishments of the highly »intelligent and
refined« persons set on to pump us. One laughed; another told extravagant
long-bow stories to the envoy; a third held a sulky silence; a fourth damned the
polite spy and bade him hold his jaw - and that was all they got out of us.
    So passed the second day of the great strike. It was clear to all thinking
people that the third day would bring on the crisis; for the present suspense
and ill-concealed terror was unendurable. The ruling classes, and the
middle-class non-politicians who had been their real strength and support, were
as sheep lacking a shepherd; they literally did not know what to do.
    One thing they