RIOTS IN BELGIUM.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 361, 9 August 1875, Page 3

RIOTS IN BELGIUM.

The London correspondent of the Argus says:—

Belgium is agitated by religious feuds. The Ultramontane party is forcing itself upon the attention of the Government in a manner more urgent than the German despatches. The Protestants in Belgium are a small minority, but the Catholic population includes a powerful liberal element, and its two sections —the liberal party and the priest party—have come into sudden and dangerous collision. While the Government were still endeavoring to adjust the questions raised by Germany, they found themselves summoned to the more difficult duty of preserving order at home. The Belgian priests, taking advantage of the Pope's declaration of a year of jubilee, had organised extensive pilgrimages. The Liberals, however, regarded these pilgrimages as political demonstrations favourable to the extreme pretensions of Dltramontanism. which wonld set the church over the state. The popular feeling showed itself first at Ghent, where some 25,000 pilgrims, mostly peasants, were interrupted in their journey ; and in the conflict that ensued one man was killed and some 500 persons were hurt.' In other towns the ordinary religious processions were broken up in their passage through the streets. At Brussels, on Sunday, May 23rd, the ranks of a procession were broken by the spectators, and order was only restored by the police charging with drawci swords. On the following Sunday another procession left the same city under a cavalry escort, and an attempt to break it up was frustrated only by the troops. Last Sunday Brussels was placed under arms, aa it might have been if an insurrection were impending. Bodies of troops were stationed at special points, and the streets were lined with an armed force, all that a religious procession of the sacred Host—priests with crosses, and young girls with flowers—might pass through the streets unharmed. At Antwerp a slight incident roused a furious storm. A schoolboy belonging to the Atheuicum or Government school, which would bo called a " godless college" by the Jesuits, did not take off his cap when the Host was passing. He was taken severely to task by a fisherwoman standing by, and some schoolboy chaffing ensued. The rumour spread that the young iconoclast had blown out one of the holy candles. Forthwith the whole fishmarket arose in arrar, and laid siege to the Athenteum, the windows of which were broken ; crowds gathered in the street with sticks, and not a few persons came out with revolvers in their pockets. It wanted only another spark to kindle a general conflagration ; but, happily, the catastrophe was avoided. The offending boys were conveyed quietly away, and night cooled the turbulent crowds. These quarrels, however, are but indications of opposing currents that are beginning to run strongly in Belgian politics, and to affect social life. The newspapers talk of the oossibility of civil war, and rather fan the flame than eubdue it by their articles.