ion of business, decided not to suspend
their sittings.

In the mean time the magisterial investigation into the case of those
who had been first accused had come to an end. Perhaps the evidence
brought against them might have appeared insufficient under other
circumstances, but the zeal both of the magistrates and the public made
up for this insufficiency. On the eve of the day fixed for the trial the
Courts of justice were blown up and eight hundred people were killed,
the greater number of them being judges and lawyers. A furious crowd
broke into the prison and lynched the prisoners. The troops sent to
restore order were received with showers of stones and revolver shots;
several soldiers being dragged from their horses and trampled underfoot.
The soldiers fired on the mob and many persons were killed. At last the
public authorities succeeded in establishing tranquillity. Next day the
Bank was blown up.

From that time onwards unheard-of things took place. The factory
workers, who had refused to strike, rushed in crowds into the town and
set fire to the houses. Entire regiments, led by their officers, joined
the workmen, went with them through the town singing revolutionary
hymns, and took barrels of petroleum from the docks with which to feed
the fires. Explosions were continual. One morning a monstrous tree of
smoke, like the ghost of a huge palm tree half a mile in height, rose
above the giant Telegraph Hall which suddenly fell into a complete ruin.

Whilst half the town was in flames, the other half pursued its
accustomed life. In the mornings, milk pails could be heard jingling
in the dairy carts. In a deserted avenue some old navvy might be seen
seated against a wall slowly eating hunks of bread with perhaps a little
meat. Almost all the presidents of the trusts remained at their posts.
Some of them performed their duty with heroic simplicity. Raphael
Box, the son of a martyred multi-millionaire, was blown up as he was
presiding at the general meeting of the Sugar Trust. He was given a
magnificent funeral and the procession on its way to the cemetery had
to climb six times over piles of ruins or cross upon planks over the
uprooted roads.

The ordinary helpers of the rich, the clerks, employees, brokers, and
agents, preserved an unshaken fidelity. The surviving clerks of the Bank
that had been blown up, made their way along the ruined streets through
the midst of smoking houses to hand in their bills of exch