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Mr. Beales will descend from his high estate and deign to accept the inferior post of representative in the rather tame and ordinary assembly that meets at St. Stephen's. The works that this man has done are these—He has incessantly tried to give currency to the strongest adjectives in the language—He guided, or rather misguided a mob to pull down the railings of Hyde Park, costing the nation only about £12,000, and by stopping traffic in the streets, causing poor men to lose their day's wages, and possibly to spend nearly as much in ale houses—at least £50,000 more. For these magnificent labours, it has been seriously proposed to reward him with a national testimonial of £10,000, and about half a score Liberal M.P's are Vice Presidents of the Committee.
I quote from the Pall Mall Gazette, of August 28, some very excellent remarks upon the very point I wish to illustrate.
"It is impossible not to feel that he (Beales) is to be paid, not because he is a popular leader in any good sense of the word, but because he has been the centre and idol of a mob, because he bullied a minister of state, because he was the occasion, if not the cause of a riot, and because a happy mixture of audacity on his part, and weakness and disingenuity on the part of the Government, gave him the best in the game of brag, which was disgraceful to both the players. It is a melancholy thing to see services of this sort rewarded with large sums of money, and to reflect on the encouragement which such a proceeding
