The sarcasm and humour of the foregoing make it no easy matter to pick out the scattered grains of truth: nevertheless, we may gather from it that the boldness, earnestness, and eloquence of the "young gentleman by the name, we believe, of Bradlaugh," did this much—it made an unusual impression upon his Tory listener.
At a great gathering[86] held in Trafalgar Square on the 2nd of July, my father was one of the speakers. Lord Russell and Mr Gladstone had resigned from the Ministry, and Lord Derby had been "sent for." Parliament stood adjourned until July 5th, and the Reform League held this meeting prior to the reassembling of the House to protest against the proposed Derby administration, and to deplore the retirement of Mr Gladstone and Lord Russell. There was unusual excitement about this meeting, for Sir Richard Mayne had first of all intimated that it would not be allowed to take place. He, however, met with such a strenuous outburst of condemnation that for the moment he was checked, and withdrew his prohibition. By this time Mr Bradlaugh's popularity in London was becoming very great, and in the Times' notice of the meeting it is remarked that he was the chief favourite, and that "the mass soon commenced clamouring" for him.
The Derby Cabinet, as every one is aware, was formed with Disraeli[87] in Gladstone's place as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and with the formation of the new Cabinet all immediate hopes of the passing of any real measure of Reform were abandoned, although the League continued its work with untiring energy. An utterance of Mr Bradlaugh's on the chief point in the programme of Reform then advocated, viz. extension of the Suffrage, is worth repeating here, as it indicates a line of conduct which Mr Bradlaugh himself pursued and enjoined upon others in regard to other matters of Reform than the Suffrage. He would always seek and work for a thorough and complete measure; but if he could not get all that he asked for, rather than have nothing, and thus leave matters in the bad state in which he found them, he would take what ameliorations he could get without ceasing to aim at ultimately winning the whole. He had, at the time of which I am writing, occasion to allude to a little pamphlet published in 1838. He remarked:—
"The author says well when he tells you, 'Demand universal Suffrage;' but I am not quite sure that he is right in saying, 'Take no less than your full demand.' He is right in declaring the Suffrage a natural right, and therefore undoubtedly all our agitation should be based on this principle; but I am not of opinion that the extension of the Suffrage to a portion of the working or middle classes necessarily makes them enemies to their unenfranchised brethren. Each step in the Reform movement, whether theological, social, or political, is educational in its effects even beyond the circle in which the step is taken. My advice would be: Seek justice; but refuse no point which may be conceded, for each concession gives you additional means and strength to enforce your claim. The people are growing stronger and more worthy every day; but there are, alas! even yet in this country hundreds of thousands who are intellectually too weak for, and apparently hardly worthy of, enfranchisement. Our mission is to educate them to strength and worthiness, to strip off the badge of servitude they wear, to teach them that labour's rights and duties are as honourable and onerous as the rights and duties of the wealthiest employer of labour, and that the labourer—if honest and true to his manhood—has a higher patent of nobility than was ever given by yellow parchment or crumbling seal."
The Tories had declared that the people themselves did not want any extension of the suffrage, and spoke sneeringly of the apathy and indifference of the working classes towards any measure of enfranchisement. Determined to show they were not apathetic, working men in London and the provinces held meeting after meeting. The one in Trafalgar Square was followed three weeks later by that famous gathering in Hyde Park, when the railings "came down." This meeting was announced for Monday, July 22nd, but a few days before the time arrived Sir Richard Mayne posted a notification on the park gates forbidding the meeting to take place; and this time Sir Richard Mayne held to his prohibition. The Council of the National Reform League met on the 20th specially to consider this police order; Mr Beales, the president, stated the case as impartially as possible, and put the legal difficulties before the Council. Mr Bradlaugh moved that notwithstanding the police notice of prohibition the meeting be persisted in. Mr Cremer and others opposed the resolution, but when it was put it was carried by a large majority. Mr Bradlaugh put himself entirely under the direction of Mr Beales, and it was arranged that at the given time the leaders of the demonstration should appear at the Marble Arch and demand admission into the park; if this was refused, having made their protest, they should separate into divisions and proceed quietly by different routes to Trafalgar Square.
When the time came, procession after procession marched in orderly fashion to the park gates, and the meeting became a truly magnificent one, composed as it was mainly of respectable working men, thoroughly earnest in their desire for Reform. They were not all Londoners either; there were representative men from the provinces, from Yorkshire, Lancashire, Plymouth, and other parts, men who had travelled many miles and undergone much fatigue to take part in the forbidden demonstration. From a brief notice of the meeting which Mr Bradlaugh wrote for the National Reformer, it appears that Mr Beales and the committee reached the Marble Arch Gates shortly after seven o'clock, and leaving their vehicles they went together to the police at the gate to demand admission. "The police, however, meant mischief; one mounted man, 'V. 32,' backed his horse right on to Mr Beales and myself, and the example being followed by another mounted policeman, some confusion was created, and this was evidently the result desired by the police. The truncheons were all out, and some rough intimations given to those in front that mischief was meant." On his demand being made and refused, Mr Beales and his colleagues turned, as had been arranged, to lead the meeting by different routes to Trafalgar Square. Mr Bradlaugh's division turned down Park Lane, but some of those on the outside, being irritated by the behaviour of the police, made an attack upon the railings of the Park. Having read numerous accounts of this episode, I should judge that the first railings fell partly accidentally through the enormous pressure of the moving crowd, and were partly torn up in anger. When a few rails had given way, the idea of gaining ingress to the park in that manner spread through the crowd like a flash of light, and in a few minutes many yards of railings were upon the ground and the people leaping excitedly over them. Mr Bradlaugh, strenuously adhering to the programme of his leader to carry the meeting to Trafalgar Square, set himself to the difficult task of restraining the wild tumult and preventing the mass from destroying the railings and forcing an entry. After a little, although not before he himself had been knocked down, he was successful, and his column resumed its orderly and peaceful march to Trafalgar Square, "whence, after much speechifying, we all went home." The Times remarked that in his efforts to prevent a breach of the peace "Mr Bradlaugh got considerably hustled ... falling under the suspicion of being a government spy." It is little to be wondered at that the people hardly knew friend from foe, for the confusion and excitement were so great that they were for a moment bewildered. The police, said the Morning Star,
"hit out with their truncheons like savages who, having been under temporary control, were now at full liberty to break heads and cut open faces to their hearts' content. It mattered not to them whether the interloper had actively exerted himself to force an entrance, or whether he had been merely hurled in the irresistible crush of those who pressed behind. Wherever there was a skull to fracture, they did their best to fracture it; everybody was in their eyes an enemy to whom no mercy was to be shown. The mob was at first stunned by the vigour of the assault, but presently turned upon the aggressors and repaid blows with their kind—in the end inflicting as much punishment as they received."
In any case the police attempt to prevent the people entering the park was futile, for although the more orderly passed on to the appointed meeting-place, in the course of half-an-hour many thousands gained admission through the openings made in the railings. At length, the police confessing themselves powerless, the military were called out and marched through the park. Lord Derby, in the House of Lords, asserted that altogether not less than 1400 yards of railings were pulled down, and complained loudly of the injury done to the flower-beds and other "property of the Crown;" but on this head a rather remarkable statement was made by Mr Cowper, M.P., formerly First Commissioner of the Works, who expressed himself against holding public meetings in the Park. Mr Cowper said that when the crowd (composed, according to the Times, of "London roughs") had
"forced down the railings and made good their entrance to the Park, they abstained from injuring the flowers, and even in the heat and hurry of the disturbance, they frequently went round along the grass so as not to tread upon the flower-beds and borders."