Читать книгу The Youthful Wanderer - George H. Heffner - Страница 21

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This park has an area of 388 acres, upon which may be seen all the wealth and fashion and splendid equipages of the nobility and gentry of England. A meeting of the Radicals had been announced and placarded over the city, inviting all workingmen to be present and enter their protest against Parliament appropriating any money to the Prince of Wales for defraying the expenses of his contemplated trip to India. The novelty of seeing a political meeting on Sunday, and that too on the part of the Republicans in monarchial England, was enough to entice me thither, so I went early and spent an hour with a silver-haired clergyman, upon a settee under the shade of a tree not far from "The Reform Tree," around which, as this gentleman informed me, the nucleus of Radical meetings is always formed. On my way to the park, I was accompanied for some distance by a certain policeman, (whose acquaintance I had formed during the week); to him I expressed my surprise at seeing Great Britain compromise the sacredness of the Sabbath with radical Republicanism and Rationalism! "Well," said he, "If we let them have their own way, they will come here and hold their meetings and after they have listened to their leaders awhile and cheered right lustily, they will scatter and that is the end of it, but when we interfere, there is no telling where the matter will end. In 1866, we once closed the park against them, and the consequence was a riot in which the police suffered severely from brick-bats, and the mob finally took hold of the iron fence and tore it away for a long distance along the park, made their entry, and took their own way." "Well could you not have punished those offenders according to due process of law?" I asked. "Yes," he rejoined, "we might, but their number was so great that we could never have finished trying them all!" Thus it often happens that what is criminal for one or several to do, goes unpunished when a thousand offend, and besides they open the way to new privileges and greater liberties.

At 3:00 o'clock a mighty flood of the Reform Party, headed by Bradlaugh and Watts, marched into the park and, soon a large meeting of many thousands was formed, which increased in numbers as long as the speakers continued to address them. It is a striking feature of these reform agitations, perhaps of every revolutionary movement that has ever been undertaken and accomplished, that they are headed and lead by men whose personal influence embodies the whole power of the organizations, and whose word and command are their supreme law. This meeting was variously estimated at between 20,000 and 50,000 persons, and this immense concourse of people was us perfectly under the control of Chas. Bradlaugh as the best organized army can be under its general. This harmony must be attributed to the fact that the movement is a spontaneous one in which each member participates because he likes the leader and his principles. It is an encouraging feature of these reformers that they do not despise everything that the past has handed down to our time, as the hot-blooded Communists of Paris seemed to be inclined to do in the late crisis. The dress of these agitators speak nothing about bloody revolution as did the "red cap" and slouch hat of the political reformers of Europe of earlier times.

Bradlaugh, for an example, wears a black dress coat, silk dress hat, lay-down collar and black necktie, and carries a cane. The great majority of the meeting wore also the fashionable "stove-pipe." These things and the sound judgment of the leaders promise "peaceable reforms" but the boundless enthusiasm of the mass of them when imflammatory remarks are made, betray the existence of feelings that are akin to pent up volcanoes, and may break out in violent eruptions when least expected. There is certainly fire enough in European Republicanism to impel them on to mighty efforts when the proper time comes. The part played by several ladies in this movement has a salutary influence for moderation and order. Mrs. Besant and the two daughters of Mr. Bradlaugh are always accompanying him wherever he lectures in London. A table was placed in the center of a circle formed around the leaders, and upon this Mr. Bradlaugh took his stand in addressing the meeting. His voice is far more powerful than that of any other man that I have ever heard, and by the use of medicine which his elder daughter (Alice) reaches up to him very frequently during his speeches, he keeps it perfectly clear to the end; though in these open air meetings he often, stands in the face of 10,000 to 100,000 persons, speaking by the hour with a force quite equal to the roaring of a lion. This violent exercise of his vooal organs, he sometimes repeats several times every day for a month in succession, displaying powers of endurance which are perhaps not equaled by any other living orator. It is an exciting scene to behold acres of hats beclouding the sky while "cheers rend the air," and to see a field white with hands when votes are taken. Only three persons in this entire meeting voted in favor of granting the Prince of Wales the $700,000 asked for, while some acres of people voted against it.

It should be remembered that this was a meeting of the extreme branch of the Republican party in London. There is a more moderate party headed by leaders who only despise royalty, but abide with the Church and the Christian religion, and which is said to be far more numerous than the extremists are. In the evening the Radicals had a meeting in the Hall of Science, where Mr. Bradlaugh addressed them on the subject of religion and social ethics. His discourses here are generally very abtruse. None but a very intelligent audience, and educated in his system of philosophy would understand his logic or appreciate his wit and humor at the expense of royalty and Christianity. The hall will hold about 1,500 adults and his congregation (?) is a mixed one comprising both sexes, just like all church organizations; after which, it is a copy. There is no praying, but the Miss Brad laughs render music upon a melodian or organ both before and after the lecture. In place of the "collection," they charge a small admittance, which becomes a source of considerable revenue; as the hall is crowded at almost every meeting. I must here record, one more feature which implies, besides the oratorical powers and progressive originality of the father, an intensity of interest on the part of a daughter, in her father's views, such as is seldom witnessed. Miss Alice B. will, from the beginning to the end of every lecture, keep the eye of her father, watching every change of his countenance from the flush of a glowing enthusiasm to the pallor of bitter contempt, catching every syllable he utters, reflecting with beaming smiles every happy hit he makes, and sinking down to the paleness of utter disdain with him, when he comes to the recital of the heartless oppressions of the aristocracy; continually following his remarks with such an interest as if she was seeing and hearing him for the first time in her life.

I have given a somewhat lengthy account of these Radical meetings and rationalistic sentiments, not on account of their popularity in England, for though hundreds of thousands endorse the movement in London and a number of other cities in Great Britain, still they are by far in the minority, at least when the question of religion is taken; but upon the continent of Europe--in France, Germany, and I had almost added Switzerland and Italy, the case is already different or fast becoming so. Rationalism is rampant, and the reader should constantly bear in mind, as I may not often return to this topic, that the majority of the intelligent people in most places are of the camp that I have described as holding these meetings on Hyde Park and in the Hall of Science in London.

Those Radical societies have their own hymn-books, and even their children are baptised and the dead buried, according to their own forms and ceremonies, of unbelief.

Of the numerous other parks in London, I have no room to make mention. Of the British Museum, comprising a collection of books, works of art, antiquities, and curiosities, larger than that of any other museum contained under one roof in the world, costing in the aggregate $12,000,000, and the building $5,000,000, and of the South Kensington Museum fast approaching the British Museum in the vastness of its collection, I can only add, that a complete catalogue of their collections would fill several large volumes, and to examine all their contents would require many weeks. There are numerous other museums and galleries of art strewn over the great metropolis, each more comprehensive than the pride and boast of many other cities of pretention in the world, but in London they are only regarded as second rate collections.

If a tourist has only a few days to devote to London, he should not fail to pass through Park Lane (along Hyde Park, at the foot of which lives the son of Arthur, the Duke of Wellington, Commander at Waterloo) thence along Piccadilly, passing Charing Cross, Trafalgar Square, the Strand and Fleet Street, and, having visited Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, will now find