Chippinge Borough by Stanley J. Weyman — Read

It has been said that midnight of that Sunday saw the alarm speeding along every road by which the forces of order could hope to be recruited; nevertheless in Bristol itself nothing was done to stay the work of havoc. A change had indeed come over the feeling in the city; for to acquiescence had succeeded the most lively alarm, and to approval, rage and boundless indignation. But the handful of officials who all day long had striven, honestly if not very capably, to restore order, were exhausted; and the public without cohesion or leaders were in no state to make head against the rioters. So great, indeed, was the confusion that a troop of Gloucestershire Yeomanry which rode in soon after dark received neither orders nor billets; and being poorly led, withdrew within the hour. This, with the tumult at Bath, where the quarters of the Yeomanry were beset by a mob of Reformers, who would not let them go to the rescue, completed the isolation of the city.

One man only, indeed, in the midst of that welter, had it in his power to intervene with effect. And he could not be found. From Queen's Square to Leigh's Bazaar, where the Third Dragoons stood inactive by their horses; from Leigh's to the Recruiting Office on College Green, where a couple of non-commissioned officers stood inactive; from the Recruiting Office to his lodgings in Unity Street, men, panting and protesting, in terror for their property, hurried in vain nightmare pursuit of that man. For to such men it seemed impossible that in face of the damage already done, of thirty houses in flames, of a mob which had broken all bounds, of a city disturbed to its entrails, he could still refuse to act.