And what was the occasion which brought such an enormous crowd together? What spell was there over them all that they pressed onward in phalanx after phalanx to the doors of Exeter Hall? The fact had been noised abroad that the young ex-brewer had accepted the invitation of the Band of Hope Union to preside over their Annual Meeting, under the presidency of the Rev. Charles Garrett, the most famous Temperance reformer of his day. No other man living than Mr. Charrington has ever caused the Strand to be blocked for hours. No such sight was ever seen before or has been since. The interest created was universal. An eye-witness of the scene has told me that it will never be obliterated from his mind while life lasts. Here was a young man, only just entering his twenty-third year, called upon to preside over an immense meeting for which many of his seniors in the Temperance Cause thought it an honour to receive an invitation. When the wishes of the Union were first conveyed to him, and the formal invitation made, it gave him food for deep thought. He had left the brewery, and the world's eyes were upon him. He shrank from the great ordeal which acceptance would mean. Still, he was not a man to turn his face from anything he considered to be his duty, and for the welfare of the cause he had at heart. He assented to the wishes of the committee. "On the night in question," writes a friend who was with him, "Mr. Charrington and I started from Stepney Green and mounted one of the City omnibuses about 7 o'clock. In those days travelling by 'bus was an entirely different thing to what it has since become, and there was always an element of adventure, inasmuch as it was extremely problematical whether the vehicle would keep any sort of time, or even arrive at its destination at all! "We arrived, however, at last, but it was with great difficulty that we managed to get into Exeter Hall, and had almost to fight our way through the crowd which was already gathered, and which had not then anything like the dimensions it afterwards assumed. The front of Exeter Hall was blocked on both sides of the roadway with police drafted to keep the traffic through, and others who were keeping back the non-ticket holders. Shortly after this the task of keeping this great artery of London clear was finally left, and the traffic was diverted into the side streets. Dr. Newman Hall, one of the speakers who arrived late, sat next me on the platform, and he told me that he had been three-quarters of an hour getting into the building.