Reports from Sheffield stated that on Sunday the gallant defence of the town by General Sir George Woolmer had been broken. We had suffered a terrible reverse. The British were in full flight, and the two victorious Corps now had the way open to advance to the metropolis of the Midlands, for they knew that they had left behind them only a shattered remnant of what the day before had been the British Army of the North. In both Houses of Parliament, hastily summoned, there had been memorable scenes. In the Commons, the Government had endeavoured to justify its suicidal actions of the past, but such speeches were howled down, and even the Government organs themselves were now compelled to admit that the party had committed very grave errors of judgment. Each night the House had sat until early morning, every member who had been in England on the previous Sunday being in his place. In response to the ever-repeated questions put to the War Minister, the reply was each day the same. All that could be done was being done. Was there any hope of victory? That was the question eagerly asked on every hand--both in Parliament and out of it. At present there seemed none. Reports from the theatres of war in different parts of the country reaching the House each hour were ever the same--the British driven back by the enemy’s overwhelming numbers. The outlook was indeed a black one. The lobby was ever crowded by members eagerly discussing the situation. The enemy were at the gates of London. What was to be done? In the House on Friday, September 7, in view of the fact that London was undoubtedly the objective of the enemy, it was decided that Parliament should, on the following day, be transferred to Bristol, and there meet in the great Colston Hall. This change had actually been effected, and the whole of both Houses, with their staff, were hurriedly transferred to the west, the Great Western Railway system being still intact. The riff-raff from Whitechapel, those aliens whom we had so long welcomed and pampered in our midst--Russians, Poles, Austrians, Swedes, and even Germans--the latter, of course, now declared themselves to be Russians--had swarmed westward in lawless, hungry multitudes, and on Monday afternoon serious rioting occurred in Grosvenor Square and the neighbourhood, and also in Park Lane, where several houses were entered and pillaged by the alien mobs. The disorder commenced at a great mass meeting held in the Park, just behind the Marble Arch. Orators were denouncing the Government and abusing the Ministers in unmeasured terms, when someone, seeing the many aliens around, set up the cry that they were German spies. A free fight at once ensued, with the result that the mob, uncontrolled by the police, dashed across into Park Lane and wrecked three of the largest houses--one of which was deliberately set on fire by a can of petrol brought from a neighbouring garage. Other houses in Grosvenor Square shared the same fate.