a mere huge shop for selling wares; but a great school for propagating an idea. And the pupils were not Londoners alone. From every part of the land monster trains hurried up their visitors. From the tracts where tall chimneys stand like forests—from the districts where the plough not the engine, labours—where the farm-steading takes the place of the factory—where the 'mill' means not that weaving yarn, but that grinding corn—from town and country-shipping port and inland city—steam has whirled its tens of thousands to one common centre—to see a great demonstration—to take a great lesson, and then to narrate and teach what they have beheld and learned to others.
From the Illuminated Magazine:—
"It is a great public cause, and we never witnessed so much and such widely-spread conviction in any other. There has been soul of devotion, a heroism in individuals of all classes, an amount of excitement no selfish feelings could have produced. Small tradesmen and tradeswomen in London have given away their goods out of their own shops to the Bazaar as a patriotic offering; giving away their stock and their trade at the same time—quiet, unostentatious offerings to the spirit of good, and with no hope of their names being published in the newspapers. Women have made presents of their jewels, toys, and trinkets, as well as their time; and we have no doubt that had such a proposal been made, and a free-trade use found for it, thousands of women would have been found to shear a way the hair from their heads, as is recorded to have been done in one of the sieges of old to furnish cordage for the engines of death. We could almost wish that such a use had been found—not in the cause of war, but of peace—and we are sure that there are thousands of high-minded women who would have considered it a reproach to be seen adorned with the beautiful hair which might help to purchase freedom from misery to millions of their fellows. The distinctive mark of free trade would have been written on their brows in the unmistakeable character of self-sacrifice."
From the Economist
