Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, and the larger towns presented a gloomy, sorry aspect. Business was suspended, the majority of the shops were closed, the banks barred and bolted, and the only establishments where any trade flourished were the taverns and music halls. These were crowded. Drink flowed, gold jingled, and the laughter at wild jest or the thunder of applause which greeted dancing girls and comic vocalists was still as hearty as of old. Everywhere there was a sordid craving for amusement which was a reflex of the war fever. The people made merry, for ere long they might be cut down by a foeman's steel. Restless impatience thrilled the community from castle to cottage, intensified by the vain clamourings of Anarchist mobs in the greater towns. As in London, these shock-headed agitators held high revel, protesting against everything and everybody--now railing, now threatening, but always mustering converts to their harebrained doctrines. In Manchester they were particularly strong. A number of serious riots had occurred in Deansgate and in Market Street. The mob wrecked the Queen's Hotel, smashed numbers of windows in Lewis's great emporium, looted the _Guardian_ office, and set fire to the Town Hall. A portion of the latter only was burned, the fire brigade managing to subdue the flames before any very serious damage was occasioned. Although the police made hundreds of arrests, and the stipendiary sat from early morning until late at night, Anarchist demonstrations were held every evening in the city and suburbs, always resulting in pillage, incendiarism, and not unfrequently in murder. In grey, money-making Stockport, in grimy Salford, in smoky Pendleton, and even in aristocratic Eccles, these demonstrations were held, and the self-styled "soldiers of the social revolution" marched over the granite roads, headed by a dirty scarlet flag, hounding down the Government, and crying shame upon them for the apathy with which they had regarded the presence of the bearded Caucasian Tcherkesses of the White Tsar. The kingdom was in wild turmoil, for horror heaped upon horror. Outrages that commenced in London were repeated with appalling frequency in the great towns in the provinces. An attempt had been made to assassinate the Premier while speaking in the Town Hall, Birmingham, the bomb which was thrown having killed two hard-working reporters who were writing near; but the Prime Minister, who seemed to lead a charmed existence, escaped without a scratch. In Liverpool, where feeling against the War Office ran high, there were several explosions, two of which occurred in Bold Street, and were attended by loss of life, while a number of incendiary fires occurred at the docks. At Bradford the Town Hall was blown up, and the troops were compelled to fire on a huge mob of rioters, who, having assembled at Manningham, were advancing to loot the town.