owed the van in a cab, and one (Sergeant Brett) sat within the
van, the keys of which were handed in to him through the grating,
after the door had been locked by one of the policemen outside. There
were, in all, six persons in the van: one of these was a boy, aged
twelve, who was being conveyed to a reformatory; three were women
convicted of misdemeanours; and the two Irish-Americans completed the
number. Only the last-mentioned pair were handcuffed, and they were
the only persons whom the constables thought necessary to lock up, the
compartments in which the other persons sat being left open.

At half-past three o'clock the van drove off, closely followed by the
cab containing the balance of the escort. Its route lay through some
of the principal streets, then through the suburbs on the south side,
into the borough of Salford, where the county gaol is situated. In all
about two miles had to be traversed, and of this distance the first
half was accomplished without anything calculated to excite suspicion
being observed; but there was mischief brewing, for all that, and the
crisis was close at hand. Just as the van passed under the railway
arch that spans the Hyde-road at Bellevue, a point midway between
the city police office and the Salford gaol, the driver was suddenly
startled by the apparition of a man standing in the middle of the
road with a pistol aimed at his head, and immediately the astonished
policeman heard himself called upon, in a loud, sharp voice, to "pull
up." At the spot where this unwelcome interruption occurred there
are but few houses; brick-fields and clay-pits stretch away at either
side, and the neighbourhood is thinly inhabited. But its comparative
quiet now gave way to a scene of bustle and excitement so strange
that it seems to have almost paralysed the spectators with amazement.
The peremptory command levelled at the driver of the van was hardly
uttered, when a body of men, numbering about thirty, swarmed over
the wall which lined the road, and, surrounding the van, began to
take effectual measures for stopping it. The majority of them were
well-dressed men, of powerful appearance; a few carried pistols or
revolvers in their hands, and all seemed to act in accordance with a
preconcerted plan. The first impulse of the policemen in front appears
to have been to drive through the crowd, but a shot, aimed in the
direction of his head brought the driver tumbling from his seat,
terror-stricken but