SHIRKERS SHOT DOWN.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 59, 9 March 1916, Page 6

SHIRKERS SHOT DOWN.

SOME FORMER TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES. WILL THEY BE REPEATED TO : DAY? r_ - - [What will happen when the Compulsion Bill is enforced? Will the members of the No-Conscription Fellowship who have discovered they have got ; consciences resist to the last, go to prison, and undergo whatever the punishment may be? Or will they, in spite of their pseudo-conscientious objections to fight, make fox’cible resistance when they are called for to be fetched? These are the questions asked by a writer in an English paper.

The only precedent for the present situation was in 1863, when President Lincoln brought in conscription in the States during the savage war between the North and South. There were no more volunteers forthcoming after mor e than two years of war, and to apply compulsion was the only way to win the war. All the men of military age wrere enrolled and were called up by ballot under the draft system. A large number were, of course, exempt, and many were able to avoid service by finding substitutes and paying £BO to the State. There Was violent opposition to the Conscription Bill, and the shirkers were much more numerous than those in England, partly because they had the support of many influential men and because there was a good deal of sympathy with the cause of the South. ENCOURAGED BY GOVERNOR. In New' York City the opposition was very grave. For several days the mob of shirkers got the upper hand and there wmre terrible scenes of carnage in the streets. There is a distinguished American in London who passed through the city at the time and saw some of the rioting. He is Mr R. Newton Crane, a barrister of the Middle Temple and an ex-chairman of the American Society in London.

“In New Ycrk City the Governor himself was cn e of the most earnest opponents of Lincoln, and he encouraged the people .to oppose the draft,” he told a “Weekly Dispatch” representative.

“The mob got cut cf hand, and began to assault people in the streets, plunder the houses, and wreak their vengeance upon the coloured population. I remember as a boy of sixteen passing through the city on my way to college. It was the first day cf the riots, and the crowds had already begun to burn down buildings. I could see the smoke of many fires and found that the traffic in the streets had stopped. In one street I saw a (cheering, yelling mob pillaging a iicuse. Some men were passing through ‘a first-floor window a piano, which was thrown into the streets. The crowds were breaking into shops, and the police were running round in hands trying in "tain to check the rioters.

THE DAY OF THE DRAFT. This is hew the New York Herald of July 14, 1863, announced what happened on the first day; - “ENROLLING OFFICES OF THE EIGHTH AND NINTH DISTRICTS DEMOLISHED. “TWO WHOLE BLOCKS OP HOUSES BURNED IN THIRD AVENUE A,ND BROADWAY, “MILITARY CALLED OUT.” ’‘CITIZENS AND SOLDIERS KILLED’ “RAID ON THE NEGROES.” “COLOURED ORPHAN ASYLUM LAID IN ASHES.” Colonel o’B‘rien had fired on the crowd with his revolver and the bullet had struck a woman and a child. The crowd, mad with rage, waited for their chance, seized the colonel, and heat him to death. At one enrolling office as soon as the last name was called a stone came crashing through the window and a crowd armed with iron bars, revolvers, and knives made a rush. They started a fire inside which burned the office to the ground, and they cut the telegraph- wires. The provost guard was called out and fired on thei crowd, but wsre compelled to beat a retreat so furious was the onslaught they had to meet. “The crowd soon overcame them,” wrote one reporter. “They wrested their muskets from them and beat £hem over their heads, and some nine of the soldiers were carried away terribly mutilated.” {

The newspapers announced that on the second day business was entirely suspended. "FIGHTING IN NEARLY ALL THE WARDS.” •COLQNEL O’BRIEN HANGED TO A LAMP POST.” “BODY- BEATEN TO A PULP ” “LOADED CANNON IN THE STREETS.” “BAYONET CHARGES.”

“NO ATTEMPT TO CONTINUE THE DRAFT.” The military were not in, sufficient numbers to stop the rioting, and many regiments had to be brought hack from the front. These men who had been fighting their country’s battle did not hesitate to obey orders and fired frequently on the rioters, says one writer. a;N ARMOURY RAIDED.’

“The soldiers at once opened fixe upon the mass assembled about them, and simultaneously the howitzers we re pointed and discharged into the houses and up the street. The crowd was very compact, and the casualties must have been numerous.” In another street the soldiers were overpowered, a captain and a lieutenant of the National Guard were killed. About two thousand people broke into an armoury. The armoury was defended with forty policemen 'armed withrifl.es, but after firing one \olley they fled.

Two battalions back from the front charged repeatedly with fixed bayonets, but were repeatedly driven back. At the windows and on the housetops were civilian snipers picking off the officers 'and men. The “New York Tribune” discovered one street where the police w’ere successful in beating the rioters: “The .police made another of the magnificent charges which have w r on for them during this figfiht with rowdyism and rascality the gratitude of every true and honest citizen. They charged the mob, scattering them, smashed them, knocked them down, and left some of them, thank God! for dead.”

It was not until the fourth day after the opening of the enrolling offices that order was restored. But no attempt to enforce the law was made until a month later ,and then there were 30,000 troops under arms in the streets. There were batteries of artillery in all the important thoroughfares, and the troops were specially armed with hand grenades. But this time there was not the slightest trouble. The shirkers were overawed and listened to the calling out of their names with quite good humour. The regiments so badly in need of reinforcements were filled again, and the North entered upon a new and victorious campaign.