A reporter's life brings him into contact both with tragedy and comedy. I have an amusing recollection of a visit paid by Edward VII., when Prince of Wales, to Upper Teesdale during my stay in Leeds, for the purpose of shooting on the Duke of Cleveland's moors. I travelled in the special train which took the Prince and his party to the little station of Lartington, then the terminus of the line which now connects the east and west coasts. No royal personage had visited that beautiful valley before. It was Sunday, and the whole population seemed to have turned out to see the train, in which the heir to the throne travelled, fly past them. Everywhere it was greeted with the waving of hats and handkerchiefs; but I saw one old man, apparently an agricultural labourer, who was not content with uncovering his head when the train went by. Reverently he sank down upon his knees, and remained in that position until long after we had sped past him. From Lartington the Prince and his party were to drive to the inn at High Force, a dozen or fourteen miles away. I, and a companion, representing a Sheffield newspaper, were to take up our quarters for the night at the little village of Middleton-in-Teesdale, halfway to High Force. A country omnibus had been provided for the Prince and his friends, and in this they drove off. We had to walk, as no vehicle was to be got.
When we had tramped a mile or more on our way, we met two men who were walking quickly towards Lartington. One of them, who from his appearance might have been a village schoolmaster, accosted us politely. "Can you tell me if his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has arrived at Lartington station yet?" "Yes," I replied, "he got there more than half an hour ago." "Then where is he?" said my interlocutor in an injured tone of voice. "He surely cannot be stopping there?" I told him that this was not the case, and that he had already preceded us along that very road. "Impossible!" retorted the schoolmaster. "I've been on this road ever since the morning, and I can assure you that his Royal Highness has not passed this way." "Did you not see a small omnibus pass," I asked, "with some luggage on the roof?" The schoolmaster's companion, who was younger, admitted that he had done so. "Well, then," I continued, "you must have seen a gentleman in a brown felt hat sitting beside the driver, and smoking a cigar. That was the Prince of Wales." "Don't attempt to make a fool of me, you impertinent jackanapes!" roared my schoolmaster friend in a mighty rage, and, setting off again at full speed, he proceeded on his way towards Lartington, in search of the kingly vision he expected to discover.
There was another occasion, during those early Yorkshire days, when I had a little experience connected with the Prince. He and the Princess were about to be received as the guests of a great—a very great—dignitary. It was the first occasion on which this really eminent man had entertained their Royal Highnesses, and he had specially furnished certain rooms in his stately abode for their use. He gave a polite intimation that he would be glad to see one representative of the Press of the United Kingdom, in order that he might show him these apartments, with a view to their being properly described in print. My colleagues of the Yorkshire Press unanimously selected me to represent them on this great occasion, and were good enough to warn me that they would expect at least a column of descriptive matter detailing the glories of the upholstery provided for the Royal apartments.
To my surprise, when I got to the house I was at once brought face to face with the Great Man himself. He was mighty affable, and most desperately anxious that I should do justice to his newly bought furniture. I shall never forget my tour of the bedrooms and boudoirs to which I was expected to do justice. The Great Man pounded the beds to prove their elasticity. He turned down the bedclothes to convince me of the fineness of the linen. He lifted up chairs in order that I might satisfy myself of the solidity of their construction, and he expatiated upon the beauties of curtains, window-hangings, and carpets in periods as sonorous as any with which he had thrilled the House of Lords. I frankly confess that I was astounded, and not a little shocked. I could see that the Great Man was disappointed at my somewhat stolid reception of a florid eloquence of which George Robins, the auctioneer, might have been proud. I do not think, however, he was half so much disappointed as my colleagues were when I returned to them and dictated a dozen lines of severe catalogue as the only "description" I was capable of giving of the furniture of two commonplace bedrooms. I never met the Great Man in after life without seeing him, in my mind's eye, flourishing a chair upside down, or lovingly patting with his mighty hand an embroidered coverlet.
Upon the whole, the most important of the events in which I took part as reporter and descriptive writer during this period at Leeds was the series of Reform demonstrations in which Mr. Bright played the leading part in the autumn of 1866. I remember no public meetings in the course of my life that equalled them in enthusiasm. The Russell administration had been defeated in the previous session on the question of Parliamentary Reform, the defeat having been brought about by the action of the Adullamites, so-called, under the leadership of Lord Grosvenor and Mr. Lowe. John Bright, to use a phrase that has since become historic, "took off his coat" at the end of that session, and went to the country with the avowed determination of raising such a movement in favour of Parliamentary Reform that even the Tory Government, which was now in office under the Premiership of Lord Derby, would be compelled to yield to it. His plan of campaign was as simple as are most great plans. He arranged to address meetings in the chief cities of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Each meeting was to be preceded by a Reform demonstration held on some open piece of ground in or near the city where the meeting was to be held. These demonstrations took place at Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, and London. I was present at all of them.
Never were such open-air gatherings held in England before. On more than one occasion the attendance exceeded a hundred thousand. The gatherings were without exception orderly and enthusiastic. All the smaller towns and villages near the scene of meeting sent deputations. There were great processions through the streets, headed by bands and political banners. At the place of meeting many different platforms were erected, and resolutions calling upon the Government to introduce a measure of Parliamentary Reform were put simultaneously from all the platforms. Nothing could have been more impressive as a demonstration of national feeling than these wonderful gatherings, so vast, so resolute in their bearing, and yet so orderly. They made even Ministers feel that the time had passed for trifling with the question of Reform. The Government were compelled to yield, and, as everybody knows, the session of 1867 witnessed the passing of the Household Suffrage Act. But by far the most important factor in each of these successive gatherings was the evening meeting that followed the open-air demonstration. At this Mr. Bright was always the chief speaker. I do not think he ever made better speeches than those which he delivered during this autumn of 1866. I have recorded the first occasion on which I heard Bright speak, and have said that his oratory was not so impressive on a first hearing as people might suppose. For my own part, I found that the spell of his magic grew stronger every time that it was renewed, and before I had listened to the last of this wonderful series of orations I had become what I remained to the end—the most enthusiastic of his admirers.
The opening speech of the series was delivered at Birmingham, and it contained one passage that, after all these years, is still stamped upon my memory. It was a brilliant vindication of Mr. Gladstone, as the apostle of Parliamentary Reform, from the sharp attacks made upon him by the Adullamites. Even then the intrigues against Mr. Gladstone's leadership of the Liberal party—intrigues which did not cease until the day of his final retirement nearly thirty years later—had begun. Bright treated them with characteristic contempt. He inveighed with all his force against the men who were going about declaring that Mr. Gladstone was unfit to be the leader of the party, and, with that accent of withering scorn which was one of his most formidable weapons as an orator, he cried, "If they have another leader who can take Mr. Gladstone's place, why do they not let us see him? Where have they been hiding him until now?" That single sentence fell like a hammer upon the heads of the intriguers of the Cave. In face of it they could not continue their absurd attempt to rob Mr. Gladstone of his appointed place.
The most florid and poetical of Bright's Reform speeches was that which he delivered at Glasgow. It consisted, for the most part, of a noble appeal to ministers of religion, and to all interested in the social welfare of the people, to try what a Reformed Parliament could do to remove the burdens laid upon the shoulders of common humanity. "The classes have failed, let us try the nation." The speech closed with a fine peroration in which the speaker, after referring to the effect already produced by the public movement in favour of Reform, declared that he could see "as it were upon the hill-tops of Time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a new and a better day for the country and the people that he loved so well." It was with this peroration still ringing in my ears that I hurried from the meeting to the telegraph office. I was palpitating with excitement under the influence of Bright's magic eloquence. Judge of my astonishment when I heard two worthy citizens of Glasgow who had just left the hall comment upon the speech in these words. First Citizen: "A varra disappointing speech!" Second Citizen: "Ou aye! He just canna speak at all." This extraordinary incident at least bears out what I said as to the disappointing character of Bright's eloquence upon people who listened to it for the first time. A man needed to grow into an appreciation of it. There was, by the way, an amusing incident in connection with the reporting of this Glasgow speech. Bright, as I have said, had referred to the influence of the great popular demonstrations in favour of Reform, and had spoken of them as "those vast gatherings, sublime in their numbers and in their resolution." Some unhappy reporter, by a very slight slip, made him speak of the meetings as sublime in their numbers and their resolutions—a very different matter.
His last Reform speech in 1866 was delivered in London, in St. James's Hall. It was preceded on the previous day by the usual procession through the streets and an open-air demonstration at Lillie Bridge. The poor Londoners were very much alarmed at the prospect of the gathering. The editors of the morning papers opened their respective Balaam boxes and gave the asses a holiday, to borrow a phrase of Christopher North. Innumerable letters were published, declaring that the mob of reformers, led by the wild man from Birmingham, would probably sack the town; and fervent entreaties were addressed to the Government to line the streets with troops for the protection of peaceful and law-abiding householders. The Government, which had received its lesson in Hyde Park in the preceding summer, did nothing of the sort; but I believe that a good many houses and even shops in the West End were actually closed and barricaded by their perturbed and nervous proprietors. There was one notable and significant exception to this rule. Miss—now the Baroness—Burdett-Coutts not only did not close her house in Piccadilly, but assembled a party of friends at it, and, seated in the midst of them in the great bay-window overlooking Piccadilly, saluted in friendly fashion the great army of the unenfranchised as they passed along the road. She was cheered vociferously, and must have felt a thrill of satisfaction at the thought that she was recognised as the worthy representative of that stout old Radical reformer, Sir Francis Burdett. I took up my position to see the procession pass in Pall Mall, opposite the Reform Club. I had never before seen that famous building. It struck me at the time as having a cold and gloomy exterior, yet I gazed upon it with reverence as the home of the most distinguished of the men who espoused the cause of liberty. I little thought, on that dull winter day, how many years I was destined to spend within its walls, or how large a part I was to take in its affairs.
Of course, all the fears of the alarmists were falsified. The only untoward incidents were the raids of the pickpockets upon the crowds. I myself was one of their victims, in a somewhat curious fashion. I was riding with another reporter in a cab at the tail of the procession. The crowd, as we approached Lillie Bridge, was very dense, pressing upon us on all sides. Suddenly a hand was put in at the open window of the cab, and, before I had the presence of mind to grasp the situation, the pin I wore had been removed from my scarf, literally under my very eyes. It was one of the neatest and most impudent robberies I ever saw.