Britain: From Rite To Riot

Almost as regularly as the summer solstice sunrise that they come to celebrate every June, crowds of scruffy youths descend before dawn on ancient Stonehenge on Britain's Salisbury Plain. Last week 4,000 hippies, as they are quaintly called in Britain, turned the annual rite into a full-scale riot, partly to protest the barriers erected around the early Bronze Age monument in recent years to protect it from crowds.

Nine policemen and three hippies were injured in the clashes, and authorities arrested 67 protesters. Meanwhile, as dawn approached, about 60 modern-day Druid believers moved calmly in procession among the stones, praying for enlightenment and peace.