[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
GREAT GATHERINGS.
There will probably be many who remember the agitation there was in London when, at the end of the session of 1872, the Parks Regulation Bill was "smuggled" through the House of Commons, an agitation which did not subside until the Government announced that it would not seek to enforce the regulations before they had been ratified in the coming session by a vote of both Houses. This concession was regarded by many as a complete surrender to the Radicals, and equivalent to the handing over the four chief parks "to agitators, whenever they chose to take possession of them." In any case Mr Ayrton did not appear to regard the Government pledge as binding, for before long he posted the regulations in Hyde Park, and in November he caused Mr Odger and some ten or eleven others to be summoned as participators in a meeting held there in favour of the release of the Fenian prisoners. The case first taken was that of Mr Bailey, the chairman of the meeting, who, upon the hearing of the summons, was fined £5. As Mr Bailey's case was to decide the others, it was resolved that the magistrate's decision should be appealed against.
Mr Bradlaugh maintained that the Commissioner of Works had no power to make regulations without the sanction of Parliament, and immediately called a meeting of protest, to be held in Hyde Park on Sunday, December 1st. As there had been some disturbance at one of Mr Odger's meetings, as well as some threat of force to be used at his own, in his last notice convening the meeting my father specially asked that every one who went to the park should aid the stewards in preserving order.
Sunday December 1st came, and with it most inclement weather; but in spite of cold and rain and mud, thousands of men and women made their way to the trysting-place, which came well within Mr Ayrton's proscribed area. There were no bands or banners, and the journeying of the people to the park was likened by Mr Austin Holyoake to "a pilgrimage of passion, all the more intense because subdued." At this meeting, characterised by the utmost unanimity, Mr Bradlaugh was the only speaker, and no other inducement was offered to people to come through all that dreary weather than that of uniting in a solemn protest against this infringement of the right of public meeting. "It is useless to blink facts," lamented one of Mr Ayrton's supporters,[173] "and it may as well be confessed that the assemblage was large, perfectly under control, and orderly, and composed of apparently respectable persons. These may be melancholy facts, but they are facts.... It was a dense assemblage, standing as closely as it could be packed, and extending over an area of more than an acre." Even the Times was impressed by the size, the orderly character of the gathering, and perhaps even more than all by the fact that those who came "without bands and banners, and marching through the streets," pledged nevertheless to maintain order, "and actually succeeded in no small degree in overawing the 'roughs' and thieves who congregate on these occasions." In continuation, the Times remarked that "Mr Bradlaugh, whose voice could be heard at a considerable distance, was listened to with great attention; he spoke throughout in terms of advice to the 'people' to preserve peace, law, and order."
When we find such reluctant witnesses speaking in such terms, one can form some idea of the size of the meeting and the spirit which animated it. It is to be regarded as not the least among my father's triumphs that he could always bring people together in vast numbers, with no other inducement than the justice of the cause which they had at heart. A little earlier in that very year George Odger had said in a letter to him: "It will be a grand day indeed when the Democrats of London are sufficiently organised as to be ready to march in their tens of thousands from all parts of London to the park or some other large place, inspired only by the conviction of right which the soundness of their principles must ultimately produce." This is exactly what happened at my father's meetings. He said: "Come, because it is right to come; come quietly, without clamour." He trusted the men and women with whom he was working; he knew that when they saw the right, the cause alone would be sufficient to move them; they would want no other inducement. His trust was justified and reciprocated; the mass meetings which he called, and the control of which depended upon himself alone, were always great demonstrations, were always impressive, and were always perfectly orderly.
Notwithstanding this open defiance of his regulations, Mr Ayrton refrained from taking proceedings against either Mr Bradlaugh or any of those who took part in the meeting. And yet the magistrate's decision against Mr Bailey was confirmed on appeal by the Court of Queen's Bench, and the Treasury claimed costs against him. After some delay, however, this claim was abandoned by the Government, which, in the matter of these Parks Regulations, at least, does not seem to have distinguished itself by firmness or decision.