Untitled - Electric Scotland

1856-60] THE RIOTS AT THEIR HEIGHT 245
of the mob, but on January 1st, 1860, this assistance was
suddenly withdrawn, and once again, as soon as the
Choral Service was attempted, the Church became a
scene of the wildest tumult.
" 1 The whole service/ wrote Mr. Bryan King, "
was inter
rupted by hissing, whistling, and shouting. Songs were roared
out by many united voices during the reading of the lessons and
hassocks were thrown down from
the preaching of the sermon ;
the galleries, and after the service, cushions, hassocks, and books
were hurled at the altar and its furniture. I myself, and the other
officiating clergy, had been spat upon, hustled, and kicked within
the Church, and had only been protected from greater outrages,
for several Sundays past, by the zealous devotion of some
sixty or eighty gentlemen who attended from different parts of
London."
For more than half a year these disturbances continued
almost without abatement. The matter came before
Parliament again and again. In the session of 1860, it
was discussed on six several occasions in the House of
Lords, and advantage was taken of the passing of an
unimportant Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Bill to
introduce new provisions for the summary correction and
punishment of Church brawlers. Bishop Tait explained
on several occasions, in the House of Lords, the difficulty
in which he found himself, owing, on the one hand, to the
Rector s determination to continue the obnoxious ritual,
and, on the other, to the apparent inability or unwilling
ness of the police authorities to prevent the misconduct
of the mob.
As to the miserable state of things," he said,
"
in the dis
tracted parish of St. George in the East, he regretted it as much,
or more, than any man, for he had more cause to regret it, but
although much abuse had been bandied about on every side, and
The quotation is from Mr. King s pamphlet Sacrilege and its Encour
agement, page 2^.