friends could by any possibility have desired. Whether we regard them in point of numbers, in point of wealth, of station, or of influence, we can fairly point to them as surpassing anything of the kind ever seen in this country on this or any other public subject." In the course of the proceedings the resolutions passed at the meeting of delegates in the morning, were submitted to the meeting, and when that pledging the League never to rest satisfied till they had accomplished the object for which they were banded together, was submitted, it was loudly cheered, the whole company rising from their seats, and waving hats and handkerchiefs.
Before the invasion of the metropolis by the forces of the League, it may be well to give the impression produced on the mind of a foreigner by the operations carried on in its offices in Manchester. They have thus been described by J. G. Kohl, in his "Ireland, Scotland, and England":
"Manchester is the centre of the Anti-Corn-Law, as Birmingham is of the Universal-Suffrage, agitation. AtManchester are held the general meetings of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and here it is that the committee of the League constantly sits. The kindness of a friend procured me admission to the great establishment of the League at Manchester, where I had the satisfaction of seeing and hearing much that surprised and interested me. George Wilson and other well-known leaders of the League, who were assembled in the committee-room, received me as a stranger, with much kindness and hospitality, readily answering all my questions, and making me acquainted with the details of their operations. I could not help ask. ing myself whether in Germany, men, who attacked, with such talent and energy, the fundamental laws of the state, would not have been long ago shut up in some gloomy prison as conspirators and traitors, instead of being permitted to carry on their operations thus freely and boldly
