The Dumpling : $b A detective love story of a great labour risingKernahan, Coulson
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The Dumpling : $b A detective love story of a great labour rising
Kernahan, Coulson
Detective and mystery stories; English fiction -- 20th century
When, at the head of his Labour legions, the Dumpling set forth
on that eventful Sunday afternoon to march westwards, he and his
lieutenants--and, by means of his lieutenants, his men--knew exactly
what work lay in front of them. That work done, the order had gone
forth that the multitude was to break up, and each man was to return
quietly to his home, so that next day, at the hour appointed, the
legions might re-assemble, rested and ready for the fray. It was known
that the Dumpling had told off a certain number of picked and tried
men to patrol the streets after the hour of dismissal, and through
the night, and that these patrols would deal summarily with all who
disobeyed orders.
The man with a genius for organisation is rare. The man who has not
only a genius for organisation, but has also a genius for compelling
other people implicitly to accept his orders, and to abide by his
organisation --the man who can, at will, mould mankind in the lump,
as the potter moulds clay--comes only once in a hundred years. Such
a man was the Dumpling. Instead of letting his vast army straggle
invertebrately westwards under his single command, his system of
subdividing it into companies, each under a separate picked leader,
taking orders from himself, worked out with surprisingly successful
results. There was no aimless moving from place to place. Though East
London was practically in the hands of the rioters, orders had been
given that no man was to leave the ranks, and that London Fields
was to be the first halting-place, each company to march thither by
a pre-arranged route. At every open space where two or more roads
met--as, for instance, Hackney Triangle--and where assailing forces of
police or military might be expected, expert riflemen, sent on slightly
in advance of the main body, were stationed. At Hackney Triangle it
was, indeed, that the first brush with the police occurred. Some two
or three hundred of the force, hastily gathered together, attempted
to stem the onward march of the rioters. The Dumpling at once came
forward, speaking to them considerately, even humanely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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