The detachment to which I belonged was despatched to Dudley, so as to be in readiness to aid the civil power in the Staffordshire Potteries. We were there upwards of three weeks, and never slept in bed; some of our horses were kept ready saddled, and we could have turned out the whole fully equipped in "field order" any time at a few minutes' notice. No part of a soldier's duty is more disagreeable than to be called out to quell a riot. To fire upon, ride down, or cut down with the sabre, indiscriminately, any individual that may come within reach, is a proceeding exceedingly repugnant to the feelings of a British soldier; therefore it was with no very pleasureable feelings that we one day noticed a mounted policeman ride hurriedly up to the Stork Hotel, where the commanding officer of the detachment was staying, and in a few moments afterwards the trumpeter sounded "Turn out the whole." We rapidly formed; the command was given, "Threes right," and off we marched at a swinging trot to the place indicated, a town some miles distant, where we found the house-tops literally swarming with human beings, who had ripped the tiles from the roofs to throw at the police and a small troop of yeomanry cavalry, who were totally surrounded by the mob, and getting by far the worst of it, no orders having been given by the civil authorities for the yeomanry to fire; which, indeed, it is questionable whether they could have performed with safety to themselves. As fast as the police arrested any of the mob, they were rescued. The road, or rather street, by which we approached the market-place (a wide thoroughfare) was crammed full of the most lawless-looking ruffians--men and women--it was ever my lot to see together, before or since, in England; they were all armed with sticks, pikes, stones, and some had old guns too, which they now and then fired--more from bravado, I should imagine, than from any intent to kill. The sea of human faces and glistening eyes were turned full upon us as we swept at a rapid trot round a corner into full view of the yelling, screaming mass.