apathy by the speeches in which the Tories and Adullamites had held them up to contempt. The Reform League promptly set on foot a great popular agitation, and, to the astonishment of the Adullamites and the Tories, the reply of the people to the refusal of a £6 franchise was a demand for “registered residential manhood suffrage and the ballot.” Huge mass meetings were held all over the country, at which this demand was put forward, and the temper of the populace rapidly became revolutionary. An accident brought this unpleasant fact home to the minds of Ministers. The Reform League, under the leadership of Mr. Edmond Beales--an energetic barrister, who afterwards became a County Court Judge--organised a meeting in Hyde Park. On the 22nd of July, 1866, notices were posted up by order of the Government prohibiting the Reformers from holding the meeting. On the 23rd the Leaguers, accompanied by an angry mob, proceeded to the Park and demanded admission. When this was refused, Mr. Beales and his colleagues tried to lead the crowd to Trafalgar Square for the purpose of protesting against the action of the Home Secretary. But the crowd refused to be led. It took a more summary and effective method of protesting, for it tore down the railings of Hyde Park and held the ground till it was driven out, after a desperate fight with the police and Life Guards. It was at first supposed that this timely exhibition of force would end the conflict; and Mr. Walpole, the Home Secretary, posted strong patrols of police and soldiery all over the Park. That step was, of course, quickly resented by the people. They attacked the police and the troops on the 24th, and it was not till cavalry were employed that the turmoil was suppressed. But during the whole day the fashionable people in carriages were pelted with mud and stones by the “roughs” whenever they made their appearance. This inglorious warfare went on in the same manner till the 27th, when the Duke of Cambridge decided to bring up three additional regiments of cavalry, whereupon it began to dawn on Society that somehow or other life was not altogether pleasant in the West End of London under the new “Government of moral order.” The Queen, whose legal right to exclude people from the Royal Parks was the pretext for the action of the Government, became extremely nervous as to the effect which the policy of her Ministers might have on the stability of the Monarchy, and it finally turned out that the Home Secretary had gone beyond the law, in vindicating her Majesty’s rights over Hyde Park by military force. Those rights were secured to the Crown solely by a civil action for trespass. At the height of the dispute the leaders of the Reform League obtained an interview with Mr. Walpole, in the course of which that amiable but misguided Minister shed tears when the grave consequences of his action became manifest to him. He withdrew his opposition to the use of the Park.