Riot

“ For our part, we regret the word riots as being too wide, and consequently too convenient, and make a distinction between one popular movement and another; we do not ask ourselves whether a riot costs as much as a battle. In the first place, why a battle? Here the question of war arises. Is war less a scourge than riot is a calamity? ”

“ And from all the long streets that stretched away into the darkness there came the sound of many running feet, and the cries of excited men. Certainly the riot which our friends had kindled to aid us was no mean one. ”

“ A small band of priests and philosophers ventured into the chaos in the hope of quelling the riot, but a tipsy flute-player placed himself in front of them and throwing back his head blew a furious blast to heaven on his double pipe, shrill enough to wake the dead, while a girl seconded him by flinging her tambourine in the face of the intruding pacificators. ”

“ The air of exultation exhibited in their movement, their loud jocularity and frequent laughter, resembled the burst of gladsome riot with which a party of fox-hunters are wont to announce the first springing of their game, and gave evidence of the feelings of men who set little account upon the annoyance they threatened to a peaceful and unoffending household. ”

“ Now, then, do a contented, prosperous, and happy people leave their avocations and go out upon the streets to riot? Do young men and maidens who are marrying and given in marriage forsake the peaceful paths of life to become a riotous mob? Then who is this street-riot drill for? ”

“ Wrath spreads abroad the riot as wind spreads a fire.
CHAPTER IV—THE EBULLITIONS OF FORMER DAYS
Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. Everything bursts forth everywhere at once. Was it foreseen? Yes. Was it prepared? No. Whence comes it? From the pavements. Whence falls it? From the clouds. Here insurrection assumes the character of a plot; there of an improvisation. The first comer seizes a current of the throng and leads it whither he wills. A beginning full of terror, in which is mingled a sort of formidable gayety. ”

“ Hence a riot of three days costs one hundred and twenty millions; that is to say, if we only regard the financial result, is equivalent to a disaster, shipwreck, or lost action, which might annihilate a fleet of sixty vessels of the line. Indubitably, riots, historically regarded, had their beauty; the war of the paving-stones is no less grand or pathetic than the war of thickets; in the one there is the soul of forests, in the other the heart of cities ”

“ One complete narrative of a riot, for the fidelity of which I can vouch, will expose the truth of the case better than a list of deeds of horror which happened beyond my sight. It is least revolting, too, to treat of a case whose terror lies in its existence, more than in its consequences. ”

“ Outside, in the square, the mob grew in numbers, the panic increased, riot seethed up from among those black clusters of people. Continual fights burst out between groups of men, dock-labourers, and the guard in front of the building, the police. ”

“ Now, stricken with the fear of death, the human cattle fought frantically to reach the inadequate exits of the great theater of tragedy.
There was fighting in the streets, and panic, and stark rumor, of course; and there was heroism, and coolness, and the taking of thought. To the little group of men in the top floor of the Atlas Building the roar of riot came up like the thunder of the orchestra before the rise of the curtain. Most of the people in the streets fled from a danger they did not understand. ”

“ For calling our peaceable meetings riots, which in the legal notion of the word riot is a contradiction in terms, they indicted our friends as rioters for only sitting in a meeting, though nothing was there either said or done by them, and then set fines on them at pleasure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was that furious battle in the Market Place when the Town Hall was nearly set on fire and a policeman had his arm broken.
These are historic occasions; on the other hand the fateful date has passed, often enough, without the merest flinging of a squib or friendly appropriation of the genial policeman's helmet.
No one can say, no one knows, whether there will be riot to-night or no. Most of the young gentlemen now parading the K.P. and Petty Cury would undoubtedly prefer that there should be a riot. ”

“ Bartholomew, the murderers of September, the massacrers of Avignon, the assassins of Coligny, of Madame de Lamballe, the assassins of Brune, the Miquelets, the Verdets, and the Cadenettes, the Companions of Jehu, and the Chevaliers du Brassard,—all this is riot. The Vendée is a grand Catholic riot The sound of right in motion can be recognized, and it does not always come from the trembling of the overthrown masses; there are mad furies and cracked bells, and all the tocsins do not give the sound of bronze. The commotion of passions and ignorances differs from the shock of progress. ”

“ There the Europeans at once armed themselves as soon as the news of the riot reached them, and formed up in the square. Strong parties were landed from the ships of war, and were prepared to give so hot a reception to the mob should they come that way, that the rioters confined their work to the quarter in which it began. ”

“ But Juvenal and Tacitus, like Isaiah in Biblical times, like Dante in the Middle Ages, is man; riot and insurrection are the multitude, which is sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
In the majority of cases, riot proceeds from a material fact; insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is Masaniello; insurrection, Spartacus. Insurrection borders on mind, riot on the stomach ”

“ I made my way across the country, reached one of my garrisons, found the troops, fortunately, indignant at the treatment which the king's colours had received; marched at the head of two thousand men by daybreak, and by noon was in the Grande Place of Nantz; proceeded to try a dozen of the ringleaders of the riot, who had not been merely rebels, but robbers and murderers; and amid the acclamations of the honest citizens, gave them over to the fate which villains in every country deserve, and which is the only remedy for rebellion in any. ”

“ I doubt if there be circles to-day, and seem rather to distinguish confusedly gangs and crowds and camps, more propitious, I dare say, to material affluence and physical riot than anything we knew, but not nearly so appointed for ingenious and ingenuous talk. ”

“ Riot is a species of social atmospheric waterspout, which is suddenly formed in certain conditions of temperature, and which in its revolutions mounts, runs, thunders, tears up, razes, crushes, demolishes, and uproots, bearing with it grand and paltry natures, the strong man and the weak mind, the trunk of a tree and the wisp of straw. ”

“ Every tongue is loosed, and to the uninitiated stranger who approaches one of these commercial orgies for the first time, and when it is at its height, it seems sure that a riot is going on or that a free fight is in hilarious progress. ”

“ Having been requested to supply a number of police to help the soldiery in quelling a riot, he assured the messenger that if any of the people were shot he would have the soldiers hanged, and proceeding himself to the scene of riot he was successful in preventing bloodshed. ”

“ Feature after feature followed, in a swiftly-moving, tightly-packed programme lasting three hours. The riot drill, showing with vivid effect [135] how a battalion of regular infantry can move through a densely packed mob, brought forth tumultuous cheers. When the cheering had subsided such shouts as these were offered by excited spectators:
"Bring your anarchists here to-night, and show them this!"
"Never get into a riot unless you go with the regulars!" ”

“ The result is, that a riot, in a small way, is pretty sure to follow, which ends in the appearance of the captain, and the extinction of the lights, when the prudent ones once more turn in, chuckling over their triumph. ”

“ God save the King." To constitute a riot it is essential that alarm should be caused amongst the King's subjects, and if the four last words of the proclamation are omitted the reading of the Riot Act has no virtue. ”

“ The riot happened in one of the hill towns along the river, and was due to the ugly humor of the unpaid canvasmen and the roustabouts who went searching for trouble as an outlet for their feelings. Guy ropes were cut by an attacking force of half-drunken rowdies ”

“ The distinction between war and riot may be held to be either quantitative or qualitative. If held to be only quantitative, our late war, of course, was a war, and every large riot must then be called a war. ”

“ The ringleaders of riot they think ought to be punished; they would punish them themselves, if they could. Every sober, sensible man would wish to see rioters punished, as otherwise peaceable people have no security of person or estate. ”

“ They were orderly—a quarter of a mile below, at the bridge—there appeared to be entirely too much order for a riot. When there is a riot, they generally do things up very quickly, without regard to who is in the way. ”

“ The Poppleby folk, some of them, believed that riot was the only way to get reform, more of the villagers thought it was the only way of getting rid of the machines, the object of mysterious dread for the future, and more still, chiefly ne’er-do-wells and great idle lads, were ready for any mischief that might be going; and full of curiosity and delight at what Jack Swing might be about to do. ”

“ I despatched the troops to your assistance, but have not yet learned the cause of the riot.”
“The cause of the riot was the popular hatred of myself for enforcing the royal ordinances, and the seditious example set the rabble by the notorious merchant, Philibert, who is at the bottom of all mischief in New France.”
The Governor looked fixedly at the Intendant, as he replied quietly,—“The Sieur Philibert, although a merchant, is a gentleman of birth and loyal principles, and would be the last man alive, I think, to excite a riot. ”

“ I have seen the honourable and learned gentleman thin the House with such incredible expedition, that the benches, which but a few minutes before were crowded, have become almost entirely deserted. The reading of the Riot Act does not more effectually disperse a mob than the honourable member does the legislators of the Lower House. ”

“ if you can't be inconspicuous, be so damned conspicuous that nobody can miss you. And that in itself is a fair concealment. How many people can accurately describe a street riot? ”

“ They would collect thus from time to time, and hold secret or public political meetings, Lewis, McGiffen and other speakers working them up to a state of great excitement.
At one meeting, a riot occurred in which several men were killed or wounded. Mr. Freeman Jones, later Sheriff of the County, gave me a version of it. ”

“ It was hard to believe that this well-built, bright, busy, windy 136city had, only eighteen months before, been the scene of a sanguinary riot, almost a massacre, in which many innocent coloured people lost their lives. ”

“ A riot is punishable by common law; but, as in the case of disturbing a congregation, it may be punished under a particular statute, at the option of the complaining party.
Mr. Carlile: Yes, but the riot is defined. The Riot Act states what shall be denominated a riot. This is not the case here. There was an Act in existence which allowed persons to impugn the doctrine of the Trinity, on which the Christian religion is founded; and by so doing, supported Deism, and admitted the nature of that religion to be investigated. ”

“ The riot is constantly on the increase, and grows every minute more threatening. Count Dietrichstein, and Count Fersen, the director of the police, have repaired to General Bernadotte and implored him to remove the banner. ”

“ His sojourn was cut short at length by the riot which was made by the various persons who were directly or indirectly supported by the revenues of the Temple,--a mongrel mob, brought to terms by the tact of the town clerk, who reminded the howling dervishes and angry silversmiths of the punishment which might be inflicted on them by the Roman proconsul for raising a disturbance and breaking the law. ”

“ In the commencement of a riot, a defeat of the military gives increased confidence, and indeed, power to a mob, and snakes the sacrifice of life, in the end, far greater.
In the fourth place, clearing the streets does not always dissipate a mob. A whole block of houses may become a fortress, which it is necessary to storm before a permanent victory is gained. Half-disciplined men, unaccustomed, and unskilled to such work, make poor headway with their muskets through narrow halls, up stairways, and through scuttle-holes. ”

“ The riot then became general, and some injury occurred to the ladies' dresses and the gentlemen's wigs in effecting their escape from the Theatre. A party who were determined on mischief remained, and proceeded to demolish the boxes, benches, scenes, &c. &c. [202] which they carried into the street, and burnt before the Guards arrived to prevent it. ”

“ If there is a riot in any section of the State, and the civil authorities are unable or unwilling to suppress it, I think it would be my duty, as Executive, to order out the National Guard, and to take charge of the situation to protect life and property. ”

“ Stopped us going across the bridge to see what we were and who we were, but went on notwithstanding. We came east, and at Altoona, when we took breakfast, there were, I suppose, a thousand people around there. A crowd of that sort of people that generally constitute a riot and a mob. ”