Every copy that reached the Polterham vendors was
snapped up within a few minutes of it arrival. People who had no
right of membership ran ravening to the Literary Institute and the
Constitutional Literary Society, and peered over the shoulders of
legitimate readers, on such a day as this unrebuked. Mr. Chown's
drapery establishment presented a strange spectacle. For several
hours it was thronged with sturdy Radicals eager to hear their
eminent friend hold forth on the situation. At eleven o'clock Mr.
Chown fairly mounted a chair behind his counter, and delivered a
formal harangue--thus, as he boasted, opening the political
campaign. He read aloud (for the seventh time) Lord Beaconsfield's
public letter to the Duke of Marlborough, in which the country was
warned, to begin with, against the perils of Home Rule. "It is to be
hoped that all men of light and leading will resist this destructive
doctrine. . . . Rarely in this century has there been an occasion
more critical. The power of England and the peace of Europe will
largely depend on the verdict of the country. . . . Peace rests on
the presence, not to say the ascendancy, of England in the Councils
of Europe."
"Here you have it," cried the orator, as he dashed the newspaper to
his feet, "pure, unadulterated Jingoism! 'Ascendancy in the Councils
of Europe!' How are the European powers likely to hear _that_, do
you think? I venture to tell my Lord Beaconsfield--I venture to
tell him on behalf of this constituency--aye, and on behalf of
this country--that it is _he_ who holds 'destructive doctrine'! I
venture to tell my Lord Beaconsfield that England is not prepared to
endorse any such insolent folly! We shall very soon have an
opportunity of hearing how far such doctrine recommends itself to
_our_ man 'of light and leading'--to our Radical candidate--to
our future member, Mr.
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