Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 2 (of 4).—1857-1874Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
History
Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 2 (of 4).—1857-1874
Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Humor
But Mr. Walpole had to defend himself in the House, and also had to
see a Reform deputation, before whom he wept, and some of whom
managed to misunderstand him, or pretended to do so, whereby there
was another meeting summoned, as if with Government sanction, but
after explanations, in and out of the House, the idea was given up.
So ended the campaign, and _Mr. Punch_ is almost ashamed of the
fuss which has been made over an affair of broken heads, while two
great nations are mourning over slaughtered myriads.
[Illustration: NO ROUGH-IANISM
WORKING MAN: "Look here, you vagabond! Right or wrong, we won't have
your help."]
[Sidenote: "_One Beales_"]
"One Beales," as _Punch_ contemptuously describes him, was a political
agitator, but of a very different type from the "delegate" as depicted
in a previous page. He was an Etonian, a scholar of his college at
Cambridge, a barrister of the Middle Temple, and a revising barrister
for Middlesex, who died in the odour of legal sanctity as a County Court
Judge. But as a member of the Emancipation Society in the Civil War, a
member of Mill's Jamaica Committee in connexion with the case of General
Eyre, and above all as President of the Reform League, and advocate of
Manhood Suffrage and the right of public meeting, he had incurred
_Punch's_ unremitting hostility. "Beales and his Bubbly-jocks" were
constantly held up to ridicule. But they were very far from being
ridiculous. The League served as a spear-head for the discontent aroused
by the failure of Russell's Reform Bill, which it had cordially
supported. The meeting in Trafalgar Square on July 2, 1866, had been
prohibited, but Sir Richard Mayne, the first Commissioner of Police,
withdrew the prohibition, and the meeting, attended by nearly 70,000
persons, passed off quietly. Beales is declared to have shown great
courage and coolness on July 23. The meeting assembled near the gates of
Hyde Park; the invasion of the Park and the pulling down of the railings
occurred as the crowd were returning to Trafalgar Square, but the
leaders were in no way responsible. The police were roughly handled and
had to be reinforced by the Guards before the crowd was driven out; but
an amicable arrangement was reached between Beales and Walpole next day
as to the discontinuance of any further meetings except by arrangement
with the government. The Reform League had done its work; its mission
was virtually ended when Disraeli's Reform Bill passed in 1867 and it
was formally dissolved in March, 1869, three days after Beales had
resigned the presidency. No amount of belittling of Beales can disguise
the fact that he and his League gave a great impetus to the Reform
movement--the Lord Mayor of London actually presided over one of its
meetings in the sacred precincts of the Guildhall--and forced on the
introduction of the Bill of 1867. During its progress through Parliament
another great meeting convened by the Reform League was held in Hyde
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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