PARISIAN RIOTERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 265, 1 August 1908, Page 5

PARISIAN RIOTERS.

STREET FIGHTING, A NUMBER KILLED AND WOUNDED. LABOUR GRIEVANCES. (bt teieqraph—ppsa association—coPntianT.) (Rec. July 31, 11.50 p.m.) Paris, July 31. Owing to allegations that tho authorities had harshly treated strikers in tho sandpits at Draveil and Vigneux (in tho environs of Paris), workmen of tho building and allied trades of Paris struck for a day, and organised a monster demonstration, proceeding to Yigneux. : " The Coming War." The chief organiser, named Greffuelhes, a leading official of tho Goneral Confederation of Labour, had issued a manifesto frankly describing tho demonstration as " a preparatory skirmish in the coming war between tho workers and the parasite " (meaning the capitalist).;. Anticipating an Anarchical 'outbreak, two cavalry divisions wero sent to assist tho gendarmorie ant] police in tho Vigneux district. Four thousand Parisian strikers trudged thither. After speeches had been made, a large group, preceded by the Red Flag, started towards Melun (capital of the department of Soine-et-Marne). They came in contact with a detachment of cavalry, whom they greeted with crios of " Down with the Army." Strikers Dispersed. Stones were thrown, and sticks wore brandished by tho strikers to frighten the horses. After a fruitless parley, following, pistol shots from tho rioters, the soldiers struck them with tho flat of their sabres. The strikers thon dispersed. ; Simultaneously another body of rioters was prevented from using a barricade which they had erected. Tho dragoons and cuirassiers pursued them, and, dismounting, fought their way up to the railway embankment, whore a hand-to-hand encounter took placo at an improvised barricade of trucks. The most serious conflict occurred later in the fliain streot of Villeneuve, at a barricade consisting of timber and chains, which had been erected across the street. A Fatal Volley. Shots were fired from the barricade, also from the windows and roofs of houses, besides which there wore showers of stones and bottlo's. Tho Prefect of tho Department telegraphed for reinforcements, declaring that the strikers were masters of tho situation.

After making vain appeals to the rioters to disporse, and after firing four times in the air, the troops fired a volley, which wounded several persons, and killed two. Three succumbed to wounds. . About , twenty were injured in sabre charges. A bullet grazed a General's foot and another hit a Colonel in tho shouldor. Stones and shots hurt twenty soldiers. An Inquiry. The Premier, M. Clemenceau, announces that a judicial inquiry will be held into tho cohduct of those guilty of rebellion against tho forces of the State, and those guilty of instigating them.