Some people, says this story, were going to hold a ward- mote here, or some such thing, and the Government of London, or the Council, or the Commission, or what not other barbarous half-hatched body of fools, fell upon these citizens (as they were then called) with the armed hand.

That seems too ridiculous to be true; but according to this version of the story, nothing much came of it, which certainly _is_ too ridiculous to be true." "Well," quoth I, "but after all your Mr.James is right so far, and it _is_ true; except that there was no fighting, merely unarmed and peaceable people attacked by ruffians armed with bludgeons." "And they put up with that ?" said Dick, with the first unpleasant expression I had seen on his good-tempered face.
Said I, reddening: "We _had_ to put up with it; we couldn't help it." The old man looked at me keenly, and said: "You seem to know a great deal about it, neighbour! And is it really true that nothing came of it ?" "This came of it," said I, "that a good many people were sent to prison because of it." "What, of the bludgeoners ?" said the old man.

"Poor devils!" "No, no," said I, "of the bludgeoned." Said the old man rather severely: "Friend, I expect that you have been reading some rotten collection of lies, and have been taken in by it too easily." "I assure you," said I, "what I have been saying is true." "Well, well, I am sure you think so, neighbour," said the old man, "but I don't see why you should be so cocksure." As I couldn't explain why, I held my tongue.

Meanwhile Dick, who had been sitting with knit brows, cogitating, spoke at last, and said gently and rather sadly: "How strange to think that there have been men like ourselves, and living in this beautiful and happy country, who I suppose had feelings and affections like ourselves, who could yet do such dreadful things." "Yes," said I, in a didactic tone; "yet after all, even those days were a great improvement on the days that had gone before them.

Have you not read of the Mediaeval period, and the ferocity of its criminal laws; and how in those days men fairly seemed to have enjoyed tormenting their fellow men ?--nay, for the matter of that, they made their God a tormentor and a jailer rather than anything else." "Yes," said Dick, "there are good books on that period also, some of which I have read.