Several examples might be given of the ill-success which has almost invariably attended the employment of London police in the provinces; but the following is selected as a particularly well-defined instance. In the summer of 1839 a force of Metropolitan policemen, about ninety strong, were dispatched to Birmingham, to over-awe the turbulent crowds which, it was feared, might proceed to extremities if their demands were not complied with. When the police arrived in the town, a noisy public meeting was in progress at the Bull Ring, but no overt act of violence had as yet been committed. The Superintendent in charge of the constables peremptorily ordered the crowd to disperse; his summons was as positively disregarded, and within five minutes blows were exchanged. In the melée which followed, the police were worsted, and the situation was barely saved by the opportune appearance of the military. On the ensuing Monday evening, a second conflict took place, in which the policemen were victorious, though at the expense of an increase of bitterness on both sides. A spurious semblance of peace having thus been restored, fifty constables returned to London, and only forty were left to deal with any recrudescence of disorder; for this they had not long to wait, as an attempt to break up a public meeting, a few days later, was followed by the most serious consequences. After destroying some iron palisading which surrounded the Nelson Monument, the crowd, now animated by a worse temper than before, made weapons of part of the débris, and drove the small force of constables to take refuge in the police-yard. For the next hour and a half the town was at the mercy of the rioters, who, having begun by smashing lamps and windows, ended by pillaging shops and warehouses.[217] Eventually the police charged the mob with drawn cutlasses, and, assisted by dragoons, got the upper hand; shortly afterwards the police were withdrawn, and the task of keeping order was entrusted to a strong levy of special constables locally enrolled, who succeeded in maintaining the peace where their more professional _confrères_ had failed. There is little doubt but that these riots might have been avoided, or at least mitigated, had no strangers been introduced to quell them.[218] An isolated fact seldom proves anything; but it will be allowed, without the production of additional evidence, that the Birmingham fiasco affords sufficient proof that the Metropolitan Police had not yet learnt the art of managing an angry crowd. There are, no doubt, many occasions on which it is desirable to transfer bodies of police from one place to another in order to concentrate the forces of law and order at some threatened or strategic point, but in so doing the danger to be apprehended from the resulting increase of local animus, ought to be taken into account, and adequately provided for.