Bread riot

“ When the police, in force, in answer to a riot-call, reached the spot a quarter of an hour later and dispersed the mob, it looked as if the sea had swept over the scene. The car was overturned and stripped to a mere broken shell; and on the ground a hundred paces away, with only a shred of bloody clothing still about it, lay the battered and mutilated trunk of what had been a man trying to make bread for his children, while a wild cry of hate and joy at the deed raged about the street. ”

“ Famine prevails in a region; on every side the starving masses rise, demanding bread: no chief appears here, but spontaneous unanimity. Let us look a little closer. All these uprisings do not break out together; they follow one another like a powder fuse, beginning with a primary spark. A first riot took place somewhere, in a place suffering more and more effervescent than the others, more exploited by agitators, apparent or secret, who gave the signal for revolt. The outbreak was then imitated in neighboring places, and the new agitators, thanks to their predecessors, had less to do ”

“ They hissed and pelted the corn factors; but, about eleven a.m., when they began to break windows, the Lord Mayor appeared upon the spot. In vain he assured them that their behaviour could in no way affect the market. They only yelled at him, ‘Cheap bread!’ ‘Birmingham and Nottingham for ever!’ ‘Three loaves for eighteen-pence,’ etc. They even hissed the Lord Mayor and smashed the windows close by him. This was more than he could bear, and he ordered the Riot Act to be read. The constables charged the mob, who, of course, fled, and the Lord Mayor returned to the Mansion House. ”

“ Thus the well-known Loi martiale of October 20, 1789, a riot act, gives expression to this distinction as it speaks of the "bons citoyens" who must be protected by stern police regulation against the attacks of the gens mal intentionés; "when the mob does not disperse on warning, then the armed forces shall fire." They would so control the caprices of the masses that not a second time should a dagger find its way into the breast of an honourable baker, when the populace without authority would appropriate to itself the bread in the bakeries. ”

“ Bread riots are of comparatively modern date. In the olden days people suffered from scarcity, but they suffered without making senseless riots. There was no Free Trade in corn, and the people had to depend upon home-grown cereals; so that in times of drought or failure of crops they felt the pinch terribly. True, they had a certain amount of protection against overcharge and combination in the form of the Assize of Bread, which, while it gave the baker a working profit, gave the consumer the benefit of a sliding-scale according to the market value of wheat. ”

“ Throughout France, the deepest interest was exhibited in passing events. ... The victory of the Assembly over the king and aristocracy led the people of the provinces to believe that their cause was already won. A general demoralization ensued." After the taking of the Bastille, "the example of rebellion thus set was speedily followed. Rioting and lawlessness soon prevailed everywhere, increased and imbittered by the scarcity of food. In the towns, bread riots became continual, and the custom-houses, the means of collecting the exorbitant taxes, were destroyed. ”

“ For some months it had been rumoured that the Red Republicans, aggrieved at the high price of bread, intended to rise and kill all who possessed wealth; but the people of Buzançais paid no attention to these rumours, and were consequently unprepared to defend themselves when, on January 14, 1853, the rising occurred. Had they banded themselves together, they could have quelled the riot, but, taken by the surprise, the majority sought safety in hiding. ”

“ The amount of capital employed on land in England was at least double that employed in France. Hence, while in England famine was unknown, in France production barely equalled consumption, and scarcities were of incessant occurrence. A single bad season would force the farmer to desert his land, and with his family beg or steal. Whenever bread rose above three halfpence the pound men starved. Bread riots constantly took place in one or another province, and the country swarmed with beggars, brigands, poachers, and smugglers. ”

“ He then devoted himself to being a publicist and sociologist, had charge of bread for the poor during the great bread riots in Amsterdam and is now engaged in grappling nationally and internationally with industrial and civil war as the cause of all failures of men and nations to express and fulfill their real selves in the world. ”

“ After the futile bread riots earlier in the year, put down so drastically by the Archbishops, the population of the city greatly diminished, and the country round about swarmed with homeless wanderers, who at least were sure of something to eat, but being city-bred, and consequently useless for agricultural employment, they gradually joined into groups and marauding bands, greatly to the menace of the provinces they traversed. ”

“ Everywhere ruffians of sinister appearance mingled with the mob, exciting its passions and urging it to acts of violence: the same men, such as are only seen in troublous days, were at the same time scouring Brie, Soissonnais, Vexin, and Upper Normandy; already barns had been burned and wheat thrown into the river; sacks of flour were ripped to pieces before the king’s eyes, at Versailles. In his excitement and dismay he promised the mob that the bread-rate should for the future be fixed at two sous; the rioters rushed to Paris. ”

“ Sabbath-breakers were fined by magistrates. Men often spent Sunday in a tavern.
In general, commodity prices were stable. But when harvests were poor, such as in 1709 when there was famine, and between 1765 and 1775, bread prices rose. The price of wheat in London, which since 1710 had been between 25s. and 45s., rose to 66s. in 1773. Then the poor engaged in food riots. These riots were often accompanied by mob violence, burning, and looting of grain mills, shops, and markets. ”

“ Chief among those against whom the popular feeling was now directed, was Hart & Co., large commission merchants in Washington Street, between Dey and Cortlandt Streets. Their store was packed with flour and wheat, and every day men passed it with sinister looks. Sometimes a little knot of men would stop opposite it, and talk of the loads of grain stored up there, while their own families were pinched for bread. They would gaze savagely on its heavy iron doors, that seemed to defy the weak and helpless, and then walk on, muttering threats and curses. ”

“ People, as a rule, will, unfortunately, not starve quietly, so we hear of food riots occasionally. On 11th April a mob at Portsea attacked the butchers' and bakers' shops, and compelled them with persuasive eloquence to sell, the one, meat at 4d per lb.—the other, bread at 6d a quartern loaf. Again on 20th April, the Oxford Militia, with loaded guns and fixed bayonets, went to Seaford, where, having confiscated all the beef and mutton they could lay their hands on, they sold it at 4d per lb., and then, going to Newhaven, they seized 2000 sacks of flour, and sold it at their own price. ”

“ Starvation will always create a Riot.—Foreign Population easily aroused against the Rich.—Severe Winter of 1836.—Scarcity of Flour.—Meeting of Citizens called without Result.—Meeting called in the Park.—Speeches.—Sacking of Hart & Co.'s Flour Store, in Washington Street.—Strange Spectacle.—National Guards called out.—Disperse the Mob.—Attack on Herrick's Flour Store.—Folly of the Riot.
Hunger will drive any people mad, and once let there be real suffering for want of food among the lower classes, while grain is piled up in the storehouses of the rich, and riots will surely follow. ”

“ Clamoring and shouting for a portion, smacking their lips hopefully or gustily licking long dripping fingers, the people pressed in a furious rabble about the fast-disappearing dainty, so rabid for a taste that one might have thought them engaged in a riot—and few remembered that no other food was being prepared, that no precaution had been taken against possible danger, that no fires were being kindled for the night. ”

“ Food, too, was scarce and dear; and, as very few people starve in silence, riots were the natural consequence. The Acts against “Forestalling and Regrating”—or, in other words, anticipating the market, or purchasing before others, in order to raise the price—were put in force. Acts were also passed giving bounties on the importation of oats and rye, and also permitting beer to be made from sugar. The House of Commons had a Committee on the subject of bread, corn, &c., and they reported on the scarcity of corn, but of course could not point out any practical method of remedying the grievance. ”

“ This flight, the natural consequence of the terrible intimidation that hovered over those who were in any way connected with the furnishing of provisions, interrupted the operations which had been commenced, and exposed the city of Paris to famine.
Bailly, a magistrate of only one day's standing, considered that the multitude understands nothing, hears nothing when bread fails; that a scarcity, either real or supposed, is the great promoter of riots; that all classes of the population grant their sympathy to whoever cries, I am hungry ”

“ After the revolution of July only the deliverance was felt, but after the riots the catastrophe was felt. Every riot closes shops, depresses the funs, consternates the Stock Exchange, suspends trade, checks business, and entails bankruptcies; there is no money, trade is disconcerted, capital is withdrawn, labor is at a discount, there is fear everywhere, and counter-strokes take place in every city, whence come gulfs. It is calculated that the first day of riot costs France twenty millions of francs, the second forty, and the third sixty. ”

“ Each time we speak of revolution, the worker who has seen children wanting food lowers his brow and repeats obstinately—"What of bread? Will there be sufficient if everyone eats according to his appetite? What if the peasants, ignorant tools of reaction, starve our towns as the black bands did in France in 1793—what shall we do?"
Let them do their worst! The large cities will have to do without them.
At what, then, should the hundreds of thousands of workers, who are asphyxiated to-day in small workshops and factories, be employed on the day they regain their liberty ? ”

“ It is to the everlasting disgrace of these Northern cities as it has been of certain Southern cities, that these riots have been started by whites, and that white policemen who should be the first to uphold the law have, in nearly every instance assisted the mobs. Now is the time for all of us to keep our wits: to do nothing wrong, which may be any excuse for riot. Let men and women go about [Pg 294] their work quietly, attending to their business. Keep away from saloons and places where there is gambling. More trouble starts in these places than anywhere else. ”

“ They were composed of very different material from the mob at Twenty-eighth street, where the first conflict occurred, the better class having disappeared, and the worst came to the front. The criminal classes, vagrants, bummers, and tramps of every kind, and such men as we call night owls—never seen in day time, were conspicuous in front, urging each other on. A class of the population that would benefit the community by fertilizing the soil. I think at that time, if we had killed those men, it would have silenced the whole riot. ”

“ A crowd of people assembled for the purpose of accomplishing, however worthy, a purpose in a questionable manner, is very easily converted into a riot, and when a crowd proposed to carry out an unlawful object by violence it soon becomes an uncontrollable mob, if encouraged in its purposes by the sympathy, either expressed or passive, of the community and the civil authorities. ”

“ So of this flour riot, it probably would never have happened, but for demagogues, who lashed the ignorant foreign population into fury against their rich oppressors. Starvation, which as we said may be a justification of violence, did not exist—it was only the high price of provisions, growing out of scarcity, that caused it, but which scarcity, they were told, was created solely by the cupidity of the rich. ”

“ They were not going to starve when they saw the bakers’ shops full of bread, and the butchers’, of meat. Human nature and a hungry belly could not stand it—so we can scarcely wonder at the famine riots which ensued. The shops were wrecked, the food was taken; they even laid their hands on a boat proceeding from Limerick to Clare with relief, and plundered it of its cargo of corn and maize flour. But, alas! this was only the commencement of the sad story. ”

“ Later on, when the heart-rending and mournful hubbub of musketry and firing by platoons becomes audible, the shopkeeper says:—
“It’s getting hot! Hullo, it’s getting hot!”
A moment later, the riot approaches and gains in force, he shuts up his shop precipitately, hastily dons his uniform, that is to say, he places his merchandise in safety and risks his own person.
Men fire in a square, in a passage, in a blind alley; they take and re-take the barricade; blood flows, the grape-shot riddles the fronts of the houses, the balls kill people in their beds, corpses encumber the streets. ”

“ There are millions of unemployed workers in Europe at this moment. It will be still worse when Revolution has burst upon us and spread like fire laid to a train of gunpowder. The number of the out-of-works will be doubled as soon as barricades are erected in Europe and the United States. What is to be done to provide these multitudes with bread ? ”