3-078-083 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Labour Agitation in Austria: riots at Fulneck, Moravia, 1890. 'demonstrations of the working-men claiming more liberal terms of employment, on Thursday, May 1...there had been serious riots in several provincial manufacturing towns in Moravia and Silesia, at Fulneck and Bielitz, occasioned by meetings of that class a week before...on April 23, a thousand workmen assembled in the market-place of Bielitz, and marched through the streets, smashing all the windows in the suburbs. Every spirit-shop was plundered and wrecked. The inhabitants became panic-stricken and shut themselves up in their houses. A detachment of cavalry and a company of infantry soon appeared on the scene..The rioters, many of whom were armed with pickaxes, began to press the military; two revolver shots were fired at the captain in command, and a shower of stones and bottles flung from the windows of the houses...a charge with fixed bayonets was ordered, but, as this failed to intimidate the mob, the order was at last given to fire two rounds of ball cartridge. The effect was instantaneous...three men were picked up dead and others wounded. Seventeen lives were lost. This is by far the most serious affair which has taken place since the beginning of the labour agitation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.