Rebellion and Independence 241
mention In any history of the rebellion. For these murders
nearly thirty people were eventually executed (April 9)—
among them members of the political and professional
class. There is evidence, however, that such leaders on
all occasions but this succeeded in restraining organised
mobs from murder. The isolated murders of British
officers and men were carried out in cold blood by
desperadoes and disapproved by the organisation. For
example, the arrival of this blood-stained train at Minieh
might have excited a massacre of the British there had
not an Egyptian doctor, a member of the local revolu-
tionary committee, risked his life to restrain the mob.
Which, however, did not save him from three years'
penal servitude.
The rising remained therefore, with few exceptions,
a demonstration restricted to the destruction of public
property and to the dislocation of all public business. The
murders were restricted to officers and soldiers and to a few
civilian officials in uniform or in company with the troops.
British officials attended their offices and even inter-
vened to stop rioting without being injured or insulted.
Private property suffered, but there was no general
looting and licence such as would have occurred had the
Cairo mob or the country Bedawin been uncontrolled.
The Egyptian Army and the Labour Corps were not
allowed to demonstrate, for obviously by so doing they
would only have uselessly drawn on themselves the
severest disciplining by the British. Some special corps
were raised by nationalist committees but professedly
for police purposes. So that in the absence of any
attempt to organise armed resistance, the British, after
the first confusion, soon began to recover control. By
March 25 patrols were policing the cities, mobile
columns were marching through the Delta, and a puni-
16