THE ELLAND MEETING.
Benedict. “Here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my lady Tongue.”—MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
“Do you hear the rumour? They say the women are in insurrection, and mean to make a——.”—THE WOMAN’S PRIZE.
“Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.”—K. HENRY IV.
“In a word, the Tartars came on.”—ROBINSON CRUSOE.
IN my M. S. days,—and like many bookish bachelors of the same standing,—I was a member of a private literary society, with a name whereof I only remember that it began in Greek and ended in English. This re-union was framed on the usual plan of such institutions; except that the gallantry of the founders had ruled that half the members might be of the female sex, and accordingly amongst our “intellectual legs,” we numbered a fair proportion of the hose that are metaphorically blue. We assembled weekly at the house of some Fellow that had a house, where an original essay was first read by the author, and then submitted to discussion, much as a school-boy first spins his top and then lays it down to be pegged at by the rest of the company. The subjects, like Sir Roger de Coverley’s picture, generally left a great deal to be said on both sides, nor were there wanting choppers, not to say hackers of logic, to avail themselves of the circumstance; and as we possessed, amongst others, a brace of Irish barristers, a Quaker, a dissenter to everything, an author who spoke volumes, a geologist who could find sermons in stones, and one old man eloquent, surnamed for his discursiveness the rambler, we had usually what Bubb Doddington has called “a multiplicity of talk.”
It is worthy of record, however, and especially as running counter to the received opinion of the loquacity of the sex, that no female member was ever known to deliver or attempt to deliver a sentence on the subject in debate. Now and then, perchance, a short clearing cough would flatter us that we were going to benefit by feminine taste and delicacy of sentiment; but the expectation invariably fell to the ground, and we might as well have expected an opinion to transpire from the wax work of Mrs. Salmon or Madame Tussaud. I have since learned, it is true, from one of the maturest of the she-fellows, that she did once actually contemplate a few words to the matter in hand, but that at the very first stitch she lost her needle, by which she meant her tongue, and then in seeking for her needle she lost the thread of her ideas, and so gave up the task, she said, as not being “woman’s work.”
It would seem therefore, that a set discourse in company is altogether incompatible with the innate diffidence and shrinking timidity of the sex. Milton, indeed, makes this silent modesty a peculiar characteristic of perfect womanhood, as evinced in the demeanour of “accomplished Eve.” To mark it the more strongly, he liberally endows our general mother with fluency of speech in her colloquies with Adam, so as even to “forget all time” in conversing with him; whereas in the presence of a third party,—the Angel Visitor for instance, whom she less bids than makes welcome to her dessert,—she seldom opens her lips. Nor is this an overstrained picture: the same matronly, or spinsterly reserve, having survived the Fall, and the confusion of Babel, and the more womanly of her daughters, however good at what the Scotch call “a two-handed crack,” in a corner or behind a curtain will still evince a paradisiacal hesitation, amounting to an impediment, in addressing the most limited audience. In fact up to a comparatively recent period, the Miltonic theory was practically acknowledged and acted upon, at the theatre, the female characters of the Drama being always represented by proxies of men or boys.
Even in the present age, the début of an actress, having so many “lengths” to deliver in public, is reckoned one of the severest ordeals that womanly modesty can undergo. The celebrated Mrs. Siddons described it as a “fiery trial,”—a “terrible moment,”—and any play-goer who has witnessed the first appearance of a young lady on any stage will easily give credit for its agonies. The late Mrs. —— once described to me very vividly her sufferings on a like awful occasion:—“The voice that would not come, and the tremor that would not go—the frame inclining to sink, and the head determined to swim,—the distinct consciousness of the presence of the body, with the indistinct impression of the absence of the mind. Thank Heaven,” she concluded, “that I had not to ‘extort’ the people, as Mawworm calls it, out of my own head—that I had not to furnish the speech, as well as the courage to utter it; for I protest that I could not have put together a sentence of my own, for the saving of my life!”
A FIRST APPEARANCE ON ANY STAGE.
With such experience and impressions of the inaptitude of the sex for popular orators, my profound amazement may be conceived when on lately glancing over the columns of a morning journal, my eye was arrested by the extraordinary heading of
PUBLIC MEETING OF WOMEN AGAINST THE POOR LAWS.
In the first tumult of my agitation I pitched my Morning Herald, where Parson Adams threw his Æschylus, namely, behind the fire; but the very next instant, with a vague notion that it would blow up, I snatched it out again. I am not certain,—being in weak health and spirits, and more than commonly nervous,—that I did not cry murder!—My first sensation, indeed, was a physical one, a complication of acuteness of earache, with the numbness of lock-jaw:—and then came the moral consciousness of some stunning domestic calamity, that seemed dilating every instant from a family into a national visitation. In fact I recollect nothing at all approaching the first bodily shock, except once, on the explosion of some neighbouring powder-mills, when a few highly condensed moments of intense silence were followed by the sudden burst of an imaginary peal, from a bell assembly of all the steeples in England; nor can I recall any experience equal to my mental horror afterwards, unless a certain delirious dream of being run away with by four gray mares, in the York mail!
It was a considerable time before I could muster resolution to peruse the speeches, the tone of which my prophetic soul forestalled as less resembling the notes of the feminine dulcimer, or piano, or hurdy-gurdy, than those of the masculine brazen trumpet. And should this seem a harsh anticipation, it must be remembered that I had been prepared by no previous rehearsals for such a burst of female oratory. If I had met with a paragraph hinting that certain females had been observed in rough weather, mysteriously haunting the sea-beach, say of Scarborough for instance, and gesticulating, as if on speaking terms with the billows, my classical reminiscences might have recalled the system by which Demosthenes braced himself against the murmurs and roarings of a popular assembly—and I might have comprehended that the hoarse waves were resorted to as oratorical breakers-in. But there was no such warning; and consequently the report came upon me with all the startling suddenness and crash of a sempstress’s splitting a piece of stout calico. There was something astounding in the bare idea of a female voice, so commonly requiring a high pressure to induce it to sing in private circles, volunteering in public assembly to spout! A maiden speech even in a man is apt to excite a maidenly fever of nervousness; and many a rough and tough old sea-commander, who would have returned a broadside without flinching, has been converted physiognomically into an admiral of the blue, white, and red, and has found a bung in his speaking-trumpet, on having to reply to a volley of thanks. The very subject, so steeped in party spirit,—for alas! it is undeniable that the woes and wants of the poor have become a party question,—the very subject so steeped in party spirit, always a raw unrectified article, and at the present time distilled particularly above proof, seemed peculiarly unfit for womanly lips. In short I concluded primâ facie, that a female who could come forward, without a rehearsal all along shore, or practise on provincial boards, as a public orator, and on political topics, must needs be what some old writer calls “a mankind woman,”—and akin to the Hannah Snells and Mary Ann Talbots, that have heretofore enlisted in our army and navy. How far I was justified in these forebodings a few extracts will serve to show.
“Mrs. Susan Fearnley having been voted into the chair, opened the business of the meeting by exhorting the females present to take the question of a repeal of this bill into their own hands, and not to rely on the exertions of others, least of all on the House of Commons, but at once to assert the dignity and equality of the sex, and as the chief magistrate of the realm was now a female, to approach her respectfully, and lay their grievances before her; and, should their application be unsuccessful, she would then call upon them to resist the enforcement of this cruel law, even unto the death—(loud cheers). Mrs. Grasby said, the new Poor Law was not concocted by men, but by fiends in the shape of men; it had been hatched and bred in the bottomless pit—(cheers). She could wish the authors of this law to be sent to St. Helena, where Napoleon was sent to, and remain till their bodies were wet with the dew of heaven, and their hair as long as eagles’ feathers. She would oppose that law, and she called upon her sisters now before her to follow her example—(tremendous cheering). Mrs. Hanson alluded to the personal disfiguration of the hair cutting off, which excited much disapprobation; this was followed by a description of the grogram gowns of shoddy and paste in which the inmates of the bastiles are attired.” The address said, “We approach your Majesty, and pray that you will exercise your prerogative, and remove from your councils those heartless men who are attempting to place us under this horrible law. We beg leave to remind your Majesty that allegiance is due only when protection is extended to the subject.
“Signed on behalf of the Meeting,
“SUSAN FEARNLEY, Chairwoman.”
And the report said, “Thanks were then voted with loud cheering to Earl Stanhope, Mr. J. Fielden, to the Chairwoman, Mrs. Grasby, and Mrs. Hanson, for their eloquent speeches, and to the other females, who had got up and managed the meeting. Three groans were then given for the Whigs, and all who support the Poor Law Bill.”
I have purposely omitted an astounding declaration of the wives and mothers in the address, about their daughters, hoping that it is only founded on local scandal; and now, if such another merry meeting may be wished, what right-thinking Benedict or Bachelor but will join with me and Dogberry in a “God prohibit it?” When the Steam Washing Company was first established, there was a loud and shrill outcry against what were facetiously called the Cock Laundresses, who were roundly accused of a shameful invasion of woman’s provinces, and favoured with many sneering recommendations to wear mob caps, and go in stuff petticoats and pattens. But if Hercules with the distaff be but a sorry spectacle, surely Omphale with the club cuts scarcely a better figure. The he-creatures may now fairly retort, that it is as consistent with manhood to go out washing, as for womanhood to do chairing at a public meeting. If it be out of character for a fellow in a coat and continuations to be firsting and seconding linen, it is equally anomalous for a creature in petticoats to be firsting and seconding political resolutions; and for my own part, as a matter of taste, I would rather see a Gentlemen blowing up a copper flue than a Lady blowing up the foulness of the Poor Law.
In the mean time, there is reason to apprehend that the infection is gaining ground; the last post having brought me the following letter on the subject from a country correspondent.
To the Editor of Hood’s Own, &c., &c.
HONOURED SIR,
I don’t know whether you be married or likely to be in the way of courting, but whether or not, most likely you have a mother or sister, or aunt, or she-cousin, or some such connexion of the female sex; as such will be interested in the following, as a matter that concerns us all, and particularly men like myself of a quiet turn and domestic habits.
By station I am only a plain, family man in the farming line, but to my misfortune, as turns out, I am locally situated in the county of York, and what’s worse, a great deal too nigh Elland, and where the women got up the spouting meeting again the Poor Laws that made such a noise in the country. I’m not a political character myself, and as such have nothing to object for or against public meetings and speechifyings, so long as it’s confined to the male kind; but with as good nerves as most men that can ride to hounds, nothing since incendiarism has given them such a shook as the breaking out of female elocution, for in course like the rick burnings and the influenzy, or any other new kick, it will go through the whole country. My own house has catched for one, and I will inform you the symptoms it begins with. The Elland Meeting, you see, was on a Tuesday, and between you and me and the post, it’s my belief that my mistress was present, though she do say, it were a visit to her mother. Otherwise I cannot think what could put her teeth into her head on the Wednesday for the first time, by which I mean to say her spelling for a new set, if it was not to assist her parts of speech. Agricultural distress has made gold much more scarce among farmers than formerly, and I don’t mind saying it’s more than I could afford comfortably at most times to lay out twenty guineas in ivory for the sake of a correct pronouncing. However I made no remark, except to myself, namely, that they wasn’t wanted to keep her tongue between. For my own part I have always found she could speak plain enough, and particularly when I couldn’t—by reason of dining at the ordinary on market days and the like. Any way she always contrived to speak her mind, but ever since the meeting she seems to have had more mind to speak; for instance, a long confabbing with every beggar at the gate, instead of sending off as formerly with nothing but a flea in their ear, as the saying is. In short, many more things struck me as suspicious, and amongst the rest, her making an errand again to Eland for a piece of stuff and a little fustian—in pint of fact, that visit seemed to set her more agog than before, so as to start a new notion of going up to London about Betsy’s impediment, and says she, I can kill two birds, and get my new teeth at the same time. If that don’t look oratorical, thinks I to myself, then I don’t know what does. However, last Sunday was a week lets the whole cat out of the bag, as the saying is as near as may be as follow. It was just after dinner, and only our two selves quite domestically, Betsy being gone to grandmother’s, and me going to take my first glass of wine, and so as usual, I nodded to my good woman, with a “Here’s to ye, Kate!” according to custom—when lo! and behold, up jumps Madam regularly on her legs opening like a hound that has just hit the scent, and begins a return thanks, and delivery of sentiments and so forth, before I knew where I was. Where she got the knack of it without practice, Lord knows, for it’s more than ever I was competent to, as for instance, when I’ve been publicly drunk at our Coursing Club, and the like. However she was five good minutes long afore she broke down, or recollected herself, I don’t know which, and I’m free to say, left me so dumbfounded in a mizmaze that I hadn’t presence of mind to argue the point. However, before going to bed, I thought best to open gently on the subject, but as might be expected, the more we differed, the more we debated, which in course was just what Madam wanted, till at long and at last, seeing that I was only being practised upon, like Betsy’s piano, I thought proper to adjourn myself off to roost, but from the nature of my dreams, have reason to think she continued the argument in her sleep.
And now, honoured Sir, what is to be done to stop such a national calamity as hangs over us like a thundercloud, unless it’s put down by the powerful voice of the public press? Not wishing to connect myself with politics, which all newspapers are more or less inclined to, and your periodical being mentioned to me by our doctor as an impartial vehicle, am induced to the liberty of this communication, to be made use of at your discretion. My own sentiments are very strong on the subject, but more than I can express by penmanship. We have a saying here in the north about a crowing hen that seems quite pat to the case. And if you keep live stock, what can cut a foolisher figure than a great gawksome hen, leaving her eggs to addle in the neat, or her chicks, if so be, to the care of the kite, to go a spurring and sparring about the yard with her hackle up, and trying to crow like a cock of the walk? So it is with the mistress of a house leaving her helpless babes, or what is worse, her grown-up girls, to their own cares and looking after, to go ranting and itineranting all over the country, henpecking at the heads of the nation, and cackling up on tables, or in waggons, or on the hustings. It’s my opinion nature intended the whole sex to be more backward in coming forward, let alone tattle at tea-drinkings, or gossiping at christenings, or laying-in, but to be totally unaccustomed to public speaking. As to state affairs, some do think there’s more talking than doing already, and in course it will be no cure for it, to match the House of Lords with a House of Ladies. In the mean time, I don’t mean to come down the money for the new teeth or the impediment, and hoping that the speeches at Elland may prove the last dying speeches of female elocution,
I remain, Honoured Sir,
Your very humble Servant to command,
RICHARD PAYNE PILGRIM.
AUDIENCE FIT, THOUGH FEW.
DISCOVERING THE POLE.