Anything like a full description of the Gordon riots lies outside the scope of this book; but a brief account of the principal features of the outbreak will very properly find a place here, in order to illustrate the degree of violence that an English mob is capable of, when allowed to get out of hand, and for the purpose of comparing these riots with others that took place on subsequent occasions after our modern police had been established. London is the mother-city of the English-speaking races, all of which have modelled their police forces on the metropolitan pattern; and the Gordon riots, which were the most violent ever experienced in this country, have therefore served as a lesson to cities as distant from us and from each other as Sydney and New York, forewarning those responsible for the maintenance of the peace in those places of the extent of the danger that threatens when proper precautions are neglected. The disturbances in question arose out of an agitation directed against the Roman Catholics, whose position had been much improved by a recent Act of Parliament, the agitation culminating in a demand for the repeal of the unpopular concessions. A monster petition was prepared, and it was decided to present it to Parliament, with such a display of force that a refusal would be unlikely. Accordingly, at 10 o'clock on the morning of the 2nd of June, as many as 60,000 people assembled in St George's Fields to accompany Lord George Gordon in his attempt to intimidate the legislature. Marching to Westminster by different routes, the crowd closed all the avenues to both Houses, stopped peers and commoners on their way thither, and treated those who fell into their hands with insult and personal violence, smashing their carriages, tearing their clothes and in some cases removing their wigs; many members of Parliament were forced to put blue cockades in their hats and shout "No Popery" before they were released, others only regained their freedom on promising to vote for the repeal of the obnoxious act. Whilst these proceedings were taking place, a squadron of horse arrived; but on being hooted and threatened, the troopers declared that their sympathies were altogether with the people, and then trotted off amidst the cheers of the crowd, who soon afterwards began to disperse, to riot in other parts of the town. That evening the Roman Catholic chapels attached to the Sardinian and Bavarian embassies were looted and burned.