to get up meetings which will command attention, spend their time in doing their utmost to ruin the meetings of reformers who are just as sincere as they are, and, in the matter of wisdom, possibly more advanced. They come to the meeting—accompanied by a tail—and get up with an air of unimpeachable virtue, to propose an amendment embodying some extravagant proposal, upon the abstract principle of which, as an ultimate goal, the majority of the meeting are probably agreed. Now this system has been pursued so steadily of late that large political meetings in the Metropolis have become fewer and fewer, and we are compelled to look to other towns to undertake the agitation which is so sadly needed. It is difficult to get any politician of weight to attend a London public meeting—the very best men and some of the truest friends of progress have become entirely disheartened. Only this year, at Chelsea, a meeting held under the auspices of Sir Charles Dilke, in favour of household suffrage in the counties, was spoilt—to the delight of Tories and Whigs— in precisely the same way as the Electoral Reform Meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern was spoilt last November. In the same manner all movements on behalf of Land Tenure Reform have been rendered abortive by wild amendments in favour of raw schemes which are scouted by the community. Not even the reputation of John Stuart Mill—not even his unswerving devotion to the cause of the proletariate—was sufficient to save him from this treatment at the Freemasons' Hall on the part of a couple of raw politicians, one of whom was not even able to express himself in decent English. I say that if there be any dignity or wisdom in the London Democracy it will give no encouragement to such insane behaviour in future. I am well aware that in thus expressing myself I am likely to offend some of my friends; but I have never yet been accused of adjusting my opinions with a view to popularity, and I shall not commence to do so now. If a Radical plays the game of a Tory, it is necessary to admonish him.
I, for my part, must decline to acknowledge any infallible mouth-piece of Democracy, and I yield my claim to no one as an interpreter of its true interest. I am aware that there is a superstition among certain fanatics that generous thought can only exist in a working man, and that a man must either have plied his awl, driven his gimlet, or hammered his anvil so many times, or have carried so many sacks of coal to and fro, per day, in order to qualify him for correct political judgment. Now every one who knows me knows that few people have been at the pains to defend working-class politicians than I have; but because
