ady
for the fray. Apart from us, the audience was not large, and we had the
hall almost entirely to ourselves. Not a word of the chairman's address
was audible. There was a madman of the name of Captain Acherley who was
in the habit, at that time, of attending public meetings solely for the
sake of disturbing them, who urged us on--and we were too ready to be
urged on. With our voices and our sticks we managed to create a hideous
row. The meeting had to come to a premature close, and we marched off,
feeling that we had driven back the enemy, and achieved a triumph.
Whether we had done any good, however, I more than doubt. There were
other and fairer memories, however, in connection with Freemasons' Hall.
It was there I beheld the illustrious Clarkson, who had come in the
evening of his life, when his whole frame was bowed with age, and the
grasshopper had become a burden, to preside at the World's Anti-Slavery
Convention. All I can remember of him was that he had a red face, grey
hair, and was dressed in black. There, and at Exeter Hall, Joseph
Sturge, the Apostle of Peace, was often to be seen. He was a well-made
man, with a singularly pleasant cast of countenance and attractive voice,
and, as was to be expected, as cool as a Quaker. Another great man, now
forgotten, was Joseph Buckingham, lecturer, traveller, author, and
orator, M.P. for Sheffield.

In the City the places for demonstrations are fewer now than they were.
The London Tavern I have already mentioned. Then there was the King's
Arms, I think it was called, in the Poultry, chiefly occupied by
Dissenting societies. At the London Coffee House, at the Ludgate Hill
corner of the Old Bailey, now utilised by Hope Brothers, but interesting
to us as the scene of the birth and childhood of our great artist, Leech,
meetings were occasionally held; and then there was the Crown and Anchor,
in the Strand, on your left, just before you get to Arundel Street, where
Liberals, or, rather, Whigs, delighted to appeal to the people--the only
source of legitimate power. It was there that I heard that grand
American orator, Beecher, as he pleaded, amidst resounding cheers, the
cause of the North during the American Civil War, and the great
Temperance orator, Gough, who took Exeter Hall by storm. But it was to
Exeter Hall that the tribes repaired--as they do now. When I first knew
Exeter Hall, no one ever dreamt of any other way of regenerating society.
Agnosticism,