And further, throughout the crowd, were flung long lines of the Metropolitan Constabulary, while in the rear were the reserves-tall, well-fed men, with weapons to wield and muscles to wield them in case of need.
And as it was thus at Trafalgar Square, so was it along the whole line of march- force, overpowering force; myriads of men, splendid men, the pick of the people, whose sole function in life is blindly to obey, and blindly to kill and destroy and stamp out life.And that they should be well fed, well clothed, and well armed, and have ships to hurl them to the ends of the earth, the East End of London, and the 'East End' of all England, toils and rots and dies.
There is a Chinese proverb that if one man lives in laziness another will die of hunger; and Montesquieu has said, 'The fact that many men are occupied in making clothes for one individual is the cause of there being many people without clothes.' So one explains the other.We cannot understand the starved and runty toiler of the East End (living with his family in a one-room den, and letting out the floor space for lodgings to other starved and runty toilers) till we look at the strapping Life Guardsmen of the West End, and come to know that the one must feed and clothe and groom the other.
And while in Westminster Abbey the people were taking unto themselves a king, I, jammed between the Life Guards and Constabulary of Trafalgar Square, was dwelling upon the time when the people of Israel first took unto themselves a king.You all know how it runs.The elders came to the Prophet Samuel, and said: 'Make us a king to judge us like all the nations.'
And the Lord said unto Samuel: Now therefore hearken unto their voice; howbeit thou shalt show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.