The Dumpling by Coulson Kernahan

When, at the head of his Labour legions, the Dumpling set forth on that eventful Sunday afternoon to march westwards, he and his lieutenants -- and, by means of his lieutenants, his men -- knew exactly what work lay in front of them. That work done, the order had gone forth that the multitude was to break up, and each man was to return quietly to his home, so that next day, at the hour appointed, the legions might re-assemble, rested and ready for the fray. It was known that the Dumpling had told off a certain number of picked and tried men to patrol the streets after the hour of dismissal, and through the night, and that these patrols would deal summarily with all who disobeyed orders.

The man with a genius for organisation is rare. The man who has not only a genius for organisation, but has also a genius for compelling other people implicitly to accept his orders, and to abide by his organisation -- the man who can, at will, mould mankind in the lump, as the potter moulds clay -- comes only once in a hundred years. Such a man was the Dumpling. Instead of letting his vast army straggle invertebrately westwards under his single command, his system of subdividing it into companies, each under a separate picked leader, taking orders from himself, worked out with surprisingly successful results. There was no aimless moving from place to place. Though East London was practically in the hands of the rioters, orders had been given that no man was to leave the ranks, and that London Fields was to be the first halting-place, each company to march thither by a pre-arranged route. At every open space where two or more roads met -- as, for instance, Hackney Triangle -- and where assailing forces of police or military might be expected, expert riflemen, sent on slightly in advance of the main body, were stationed. At Hackney Triangle it was, indeed, that the first brush with the police occurred. Some two or three hundred of the force, hastily gathered together, attempted to stem the onward march of the rioters. The Dumpling at once came forward, speaking to them considerately, even humanely.