Mobs and circuses

From Murder in the First-Class Carriage: The First Victorian Railway Killing by Kate Colquhoun. Page 164.

“In the event, the repeal of the Corn Laws (which had held the price of corn artificially high) in 1846 did much to draw the sting of proletarian fervour. Rising employment and wages, improvements to scandalous factory working conditions and falling food prices during the early 1860s all somewhat appeased the mobs, though occasional, violent agitation for reform would continue until the Second Reform Act of 1867, which doubled the number of English and Welsh adult males allowed to vote. Even then, 60 per cent of males would remain unfranchised, harbouring a grievance that would rumble well into the twentieth century. Meanwhile, the taint of revolutionary aggression remained attached to the congregation of mobs, and the criminal element endemic in any large crowd made them deeply unsettling in their unpredictability. The publicity surrounding Thomas Briggs’ murder and the capture and repatriation of Müller was likely to ensure the congregation of thousands wherever the prisoner appeared.