First come
outcries, then jeering and then scuffling; the women rival the men in
struggling and in profanity,[68] and they hustle each other. The line
suddenly breaks; each rushes to get ahead of the other; the foremost
place belongs to the most robust and the most brutal, and to secure it
they have to trample down their neighbors.
There are fisticuffs every day. When an assemblage remains quiet the
spectators take notice of it. In general "they fight,[69] snatch
bread out of each other's hands; those who cannot get any forcing
whoever gets a loaf weighing four pounds to share it in small pieces.
The women yell frightfully. . . . Children sent by their parents
are beaten," while the weak are pitched into the gutter. "In
distributing the meanest portions of food[70] it is force which
decides," the strength of loins and arms; "a number of women this
morning came near losing their lives in trying to get four ounces of
butter. - More sensitive and more violent than men, "they do not, or
will not, listen to reason,[71] they pounce down like harpies" on the
market wagons; they thrash the drivers, strew the vegetables and
butter on the ground, tumble over each other and are suffocated
through the impetuosity of the assault; some, "trampled upon, almost
crushed, are carried off half dead.
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