328 



TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



the town, with liberty to do " just as you plerse." 

 What would Messrs. A, B, C, and D, who advised the 

 Governor, have been able to do with these innocent 

 people and their " fun " or, as they put it, " innocent 

 amusements " ? 



I am to this day a living witness that it would 

 have been impossible for any body of men to behave 

 better or act more bravely than did the police of all 

 ranks on that night. Eighty men, (only four of them 

 mounted) armed with truncheons, cowed and over- 

 came an infuriated mob numbering thousands. From 

 the time I first knew this force I had confidence in it, 

 and from that night to the day of my severance from 

 it, that confidence in its integrity and bravery never 

 changed. The strike was not on their own account, 

 but, as they forcibly put it, " to express their indig- 

 nation at the way their several leaders of the night 



before had been treated by a governor. 



Do demagogues and those who, for some mistaken 

 purposes, urge the people on to the performance of 

 some foolish act ever pause to think of the frightful 

 risk they run, and the jeopardy in which they place 

 innocent citizens when they harangue an irresponsi- 

 ble mob, with hints to oppose lawfully constituted 

 authority ? Or when their efforts have been even 

 partially successful, do they realise the injury they 

 did to, and the stigma they have placed upon, their 

 country ? It is easy to inflame the passions of an ex- 

 citable people, but it is difficult to control or subdue 

 them when they turn them into a riotous mob. 



