"We want universal suffrage!"
"We want rest, we want sleep, we want a nine-hour workday!"
The crowd that set off from the café entrance shouted with hysterical voices, venting their dissatisfaction. The dual blows of a railway speculation bankruptcy and the Irish potato crop failure pushed these already overburdened destitute workers completely into hell. They no longer wished to live a life of muddle and hunger, no longer wished to face the despair of watching their own children die of starvation.
Since they (referring to the bureaucrats and the elite class of the United Kingdom) claim all men are born equal,
Why can the people of the West District live without worries of hunger and disease, while they can only huddle in dark corners eating leftovers?
Is it truly because they are not working hard enough?
The world shouldn’t be !
The workers’ naive class consciousness detected deceit from London’s high society, but they couldn’t articulate it clearly.
Their simple class perspective made them believe someone in this world would be willing to help them.
Now, someone willing to "help" them had arrived, and he (a member of the Charter Faction) told them (the workers) to strive to fight for their rights, to demand bread and work. They fulfilled part of [Note 1] their promises, and the workers agreed to follow their (the Charter Faction’s) command, to fight for more of their rights.
The parade slowly advanced towards St. Martin’s Church, with new workers continuously joining their ranks on the road toward St. Martin’s Church.
A group that initially only had over 100 people gradually expanded to over 200.
From St. Martin’s Church looking towards London Bridge, one could also see many workers gathering, seemingly ready to cross London Bridge and enter the West District.
Over thirty vigilantes around St. Martin’s Church couldn’t help but swallow as they faced the workers who vastly outnumbered them.
Armed with only smoothbore pistols, they were no match for those people. Those "wretches," slightly inferior in physical stature, need only rush in to tear them apart.
Several vigilantes, overwhelmed by pressure, almost ran away.
If not for the timely arrival of a dozen formally organized police officers.
The leader of the dozen policemen was a pot-bellied fat man. Dressed in a dark green uniform, with medals hanging from his chest, he looked less like a competent chief and more like a traditional aristocrat, ignorant and weak.
"Officer, what should we do now?" The supporting officer asked, somewhat daunted by the mighty crowd.
The fat policeman looked at the vast crowd in the distance, a frightened expression on his face. He glared viciously at the officer expecting him to make a decision.
Which bastard told me there were only a dozen demonstrators!
The officer being glared at by the fat policeman could only lower his head, not daring to meet the gaze.
Since he was already here, he absolutely could not let this group of "wretches" recklessly intrude.
Otherwise, the aristocrats of the West District would skin him alive.
The thought of the Metropolitan Police Chief’s sinister eyes made the fat policeman shudder.
"What else can we do?" The fat policeman gritted his teeth and whispered, "We absolutely can’t let these guys in. Otherwise, I’m finished!"
Sweeping his gaze across the regular police beside him, the fat policeman added, "If I’m done for, you guys won’t fare well either! You bunch of losers, gluttons, thugs, don’t think I don’t know what you all do on regular days!"
The dozen regular policemen also tensed up inside, aware of their past actions.
If the fat policeman truly fell, they feared they wouldn’t be spared either.
Colleagues not yet in the system wouldn’t mind reporting their "crimes" to the Metropolitan Police Department to replace them.
"But sir, we simply don’t have enough manpower!"
"Don’t worry, I’ll report the situation here to the police department shortly! I believe they’ll send more personnel. Besides, aren’t they still there?" The fat policeman pointed to Jerome Bonaparte and others, saying matter-of-factly, "We combined have over 50 people, I don’t believe we can’t stop those wretches! Are they really not afraid of guns?"
Then, the fat policeman arrogantly pointed at the vigilantes and said, "You must all obey my orders now, understood?"
"But..." Jerome Bonaparte, holding Ham, stepped forward and said, "I’m just an innocent passerby, not a vigilante, so can I leave?"
"No!" The fat policeman rudely replied to Jerome Bonaparte, "Every resident has the duty to prevent this uprising!"
The fat policeman, gripped by nameless rage, wished he could tear a person in half, so how could he let Jerome Bonaparte leave?
"Alright!" Jerome Bonaparte could only rejoin the lineup, taking the revolver from his hip into his hand.
The parade, in only 5 minutes, reached the stability maintenance team composed of vigilantes and police.
The fat policeman, hiding behind the regular police, looked at the workers, their eyes filled with resentment and numbness, and pre-emptively shouted, "You bunch of swine, wretches, who let you join this parade? Who organized you? Your actions are a betrayal against the United Kingdom, you’re committing treason!"
The fat policeman’s tactic of preemptive shouting was indeed effective. Some workers couldn’t help but step back slightly upon hearing the word "treason."
A small-scale disturbance appeared in the group of over 200 workers, Jerome Bonaparte among the vigilantes couldn’t help but shake his head.
Workers without formal military training had less discipline and combat capability than a bunch of pigs; only workers who had undergone comprehensive militarized training with iron discipline could contend with regular armies.
In this extremely urgent situation, a man at the forefront stood forward and said, "We have no intention of treason, nor do we wish to clash with you! We just want to claim our rightful shares, we’ve tried negotiating with them, but we’ve never received a response! Finally, we found only this way can make them take us seriously!"
PS: 1. Thanks to the brief collapse of the old two-party system in 1847, a short period of turmoil arose in the United Kingdom politics, and the Charter Faction seized the opportunity to petition for a ten-hour working law, which the United Kingdom court, under pressure, agreed to. Although the ten-hour working law was passed by the Royal Family court, it fundamentally did not improve workers’ interests.