ery legal recognition which
made the civil war possible in the ordinary sense of war; it took the
struggle out of the element of mere massacres on one side, and endurance
plus strikes on the other."

"And can you tell me in what kind of way the war was carried on?" said I.

"Yes" he said; "we have records and to spare of all that; and the essence
of them I can give you in a few words. As I told you, the rank and file
of the army was not to be trusted by the reactionists; but the officers
generally were prepared for anything, for they were mostly the very
stupidest men in the country. Whatever the Government might do, a great
part of the upper and middle classes were determined to set on foot a
counter revolution; for the Communism which now loomed ahead seemed quite
unendurable to them. Bands of young men, like the marauders in the great
strike of whom I told you just now, armed themselves and drilled, and
began on any opportunity or pretence to skirmish with the people in the
streets. The Government neither helped them nor put them down, but stood
by, hoping that something might come of it. These 'Friends of Order,' as
they were called, had some successes at first, and grew bolder; they got
many officers of the regular army to help them, and by their means laid
hold of munitions of war of all kinds. One part of their tactics
consisted in their guarding and even garrisoning the big factories of the
period: they held at one time, for instance, the whole of that place
called Manchester which I spoke of just now. A sort of irregular war was
carried on with varied success all over the country; and at last the
Government, which at first pretended to ignore the struggle, or treat it
as mere rioting, definitely declared for 'the Friends of Order,' and
joined to their bands whatsoever of the regular army they could get
together, and made a desperate effort to overwhelm 'the rebels,' as they
were now once more called, and as indeed they called themselves.

"It was too late. All ideas of peace on a basis of compromise had
disappeared on either side. The end, it was seen clearly, must be either
absolute slavery for all but the privileged, or a system of life founded
on equality and Communism. The sloth, the hopelessness, and if I may say
so, the cowardice of the last century, had given place to the eager,
restless heroism of a declared revolutionary period. I will not say that
the people of that time foresaw the life w