A Tale of One City: the New Birmingham: Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald"Anderton, Thomas
History
A Tale of One City: the New Birmingham: Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald"
Anderton, Thomas
Birmingham (England); Birmingham (England) -- Social life and customs
Of course I remember a good deal about the late Mr. John Bright and his
visits to Birmingham. So do other people, and as many of these others
are scribes and quasi-historians who have published their records, there
is really not much for me to tell. I may say that I heard nearly every
speech our distinguished member delivered in Birmingham, for I hardly
ever missed a meeting at which Mr. Bright was a spokesman. Even now I
distinctly recall the first occasion on which he spoke after he became
M.P. for Birmingham. The Town Hall was more than crowded, it was packed;
indeed, I might almost say that herrings in a tub have elbow room
compared with the very compressed gathering that welcomed Mr. Bright on
the occasion.
In order to make more space the benches were removed from nearly all
parts of the Town Hall, and the curious sight of the sea of faces when
Mr. Bright appeared lingers in my memory still. One curious thing I
observed at this gathering was that so long as our member was speaking
the vast assembly was held spellbound. But when he paused for a moment
to turn over his notes or take a sip of water, the tightly squeezed
audience swayed for a little bodily relief and expansion, and this
resulted in big surging waves of humanity, which rolled from one end of
the body of the hall to the other, and often lasted for some little
time.
At this moment I can recollect almost word for word the stirring and
eloquent peroration with which Mr. Bright closed his first address to
his Birmingham constituents. It roused his hearers to a pitch of
demonstrative enthusiasm such as I have never seen equalled.
I could quote from memory many striking passages from the principal
speeches I heard our distinguished member deliver. But why? Are they not
recorded in a hundred books, or at least in many books and hundreds of
newspapers? I will, therefore, now content myself with just one or two
personal reminiscences connected with our great Parliamentary
representative.
One little story I have to tell is connected with Mr. Bright's speech on
the occasion of unveiling the statue of Mr. Joseph Sturge, erected at
the Five Ways, Birmingham. There was an immense gathering on that
occasion, and of course I was there. I secured a good position for
hearing, but, unfortunately, there was a woman near me with a crying
baby in her arms. This prevented me hearing much that the speaker said,
and at last I got quite out of patience, and turning to the woman I
remarked, "Why don't you take that noisy child home?" "Oh," said the
woman in reply, "her's just as bad at home." I felt I had my answer, and
that there was no more to be said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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