on was to be presented at six o'clock, but the crowd, who
collected to see it carried into Westminster Hall, began to form
itself by noon. It was said afterwards that many of the houses in
the neighbourhood of Palace Yard and the Bridge were filled with
soldiers; but if so, the men did not show themselves. In the course
of the evening three or four companies of the Guards in St. James's
Park did show themselves, and had some rough work to do, for many of
the people took themselves away from Westminster by that route. The
police, who were very numerous in Palace Yard, had a hard time of it
all the afternoon, and it was said afterwards that it would have been
much better to have allowed the petition to have been brought up by
the procession on Wednesday. A procession, let it be who it will that
proceeds, has in it, of its own nature something of order. But now
there was no order. The petition, which was said to fill fifteen
cabs,--though the absolute sheets of signatures were carried into
the House by four men,--was being dragged about half the day and it
certainly would have been impossible for a member to have made his
way into the House through Westminster Hall between the hours of four
and six. To effect an entrance at all they were obliged to go round
at the back of the Abbey, as all the spaces round St. Margaret's
Church and Canning's monument were filled with the crowd. Parliament
Street was quite impassable at five o clock, and there was no traffic
across the bridge from that hour till after eight. As the evening
went on, the mob extended itself to Downing Street and the front
of the Treasury Chambers, and before the night was over all the
hoardings round the new Government offices had been pulled down. The
windows also of certain obnoxious members of Parliament were broken,
when those obnoxious members lived within reach. One gentleman who
unfortunately held a house in Richmond Terrace, and who was said
to have said that the ballot was the resort of cowards, fared very
badly;--for his windows were not only broken, but his furniture and
mirrors were destroyed by the stones that were thrown. Mr. Mildmay,
I say, was much blamed. But after all, it may be a doubt whether the
procession on Wednesday might not have ended worse. Mr. Turnbull was
heard to say afterwards that the number of people collected would
have been much greater.

Mr. Mildmay moved the second reading of his bill, and made his
speech. He made his spe