drowned in the uproar made by his adversaries. The following reports of public meetings, chosen from hundreds of similar examples, and taken from the daily papers, may be considered as typical:—
"One of the organisers of the meeting having asked the assembly to elect a president, the storm bursts. The anarchists leap on to the platform to take the committee table by storm. The socialists make an energetic defence; blows are exchanged, and each party accuses the other of being spies in the pay of the Government, &c. . . . A citizen leaves the hall with a black eye.
"The committee is at length installed as best it may be in the midst of the tumult, and the right to speak devolves upon `Comrade' X.
"The orator starts a vigorous attack on the socialists, who interrupt him with shouts of Idiot, scoundrel, blackguard!' &c., epithets to which Comrade X. replies by setting forth a theory according to which the socialists areidiots' or `jokers.'"
"The Allemanist party had organised yesterday evening, in the Hall of Commerce, in the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, a great meeting, preliminary to the workers' fete of the 1st of May. The watchword of the meeting was `Calm and Tranquillity!'
"Comrade G—— alludes to the socialists as idiots' andhumbugs.'
"At these words there is an exchange of invectives and orators and audience come to blows. Chairs, tables, and benches are converted into weapons," &c., &c.
It is not to be imagined for a moment that this description of discussion is peculiar to a determined class of electors and dependent on their social