Uploaded as part of the Anarchism in Australia project.
Author: Herald
Originally Published: 29 January 1997
Retrieved from: Trove Newspaper Archive, transcript corrected by Red Black Notes.
Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 – 1954), Saturday 29 January 1887, page 2
Tremble, Tyrants, and Beware!!!
Tremble tyrants, and wave on high the red-flag, oh, ye Communists! The Melbourne Anarchist Club have arisen in their might, and are equal to the occasion. At the club room attached to the Alexandra Theatre a lecture was delivered on Thursday evening, on tho subject of the Chicago “Anarchists’ Trial,” and the following resolution was adopted for transmission to the Governor of the State of Illinois:-“This meeting, convened by the Melbourne Anarchists’ Club, while not endorsing all the principle and methods of social reform advocated by the Anarchist now under sentence in Chicago, express our warmest, sympathy with them in their present unfortunate position, and strongly condemn the tyranny of those in authority, who have so persistently endeavored to effect what we hold to be nothing short of a legal murder, in order to ultimately achieve the end of stifling freedom.’ What the Governor of Illinois will say to or do with this precious document when he gets it the champion conundrumist only knows; and why the hanging of a band of ruffians who tried to commit wholesale slaughter may be called a legal murder is a question the member of the Anarchists’ Club may be left to solve for themselves. ” When this meet the eye of the Czar of Russia,” wrote the editor of the Little Peddwant a Chonicle, just before tho Crimean war, “we warn that potentate, &c.” Well, the Governor of the State of Illinois has got his warning, and will probably wire to Colonel Morgan to apologise to tho Anarchists Club as soon as possible, it is satisfactory, however, so far as Melbourne is concerned, to know that the members of the club ex-proving their sentiments have been described in the Licensing Court by the licensee of the establishment in which they breath these ferocious principles as being— like the “three tailors of Tooley street”— very inoffensive-looking men. They “speak daggers, but use none,” and it is questionable whether, if put to it, any one of them knows how to make a bomb, or would throw it at a flea if opportunity offered. It is possible that Queen Victoria trembled in “her luxurious location in tho Tower of London,” when she road the anathema of Mr Jefferson Buck, and if the remonstrances of our local Nihilists could only keep tho Czar from “going off his Imperial chump,” we should bo grateful to them. For the rest, rejoice, oh, yo Anarchists ! Hangout the red flag on the outer walls. Hang out half-a-dozen red flag if it suits you. As the coster-monger said when ho was chaffed about allowing his wife to beat him, “It amuse her, and it doesn’t hurt me.”