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Untitled Article
to look as if that ten thousand men was a mere blank . They lost much right good fun by their obliquity of vision . There was an old greyheaded man , perhaps one of the very few who figured in opposition to Ihe ruffianism of 1792 , who sat in the front seat of the great gallery , and directly face to the Tory ' man , Mr . Spooner ; and when the latter stood up , he also got upon his legs , took off his coat , turned it inside out ,
and put it on again ; and then bent forward , with outstretched arm , pointing to Spooner , while a supporter on each side of him also beckoned to Spooner , to look at this most apt and well-understood illustration of himself . The effect was electric . A laugh from ten thousand throats chorussed against the walls and rolled along the roof . It was a
capital picture ! But the Tories neither saw nor heard anything of this , not they : they were too ' respectable' to gaze on the amusement of the * rabble */ too dignified to be interested in anything which emanated from the ' mob '—though , indeed , if a Church and King ' mob' could have been got up , they would have hailed its members , though all from the treadmills and hulks , as ' their noble , brave , Christian
fellow-townsmen . All was proceeding safely though uproariously , merrily though magnificently , till just as Muntz was hanging Spooner on the tenter-hooks of question , a crash in the corner of the gallery , near my elbow , excited alarm , some apprehension of disaster . It was soon shown , however , that only some benches had broken their legs and backs : and business proceeded for a quarter of an hour longer , when something truly
appalling did occur . There was a strange and fearful commotion in the great gallery , but no sound cou \ & be distinguished as indicating the cause . The commotion of voices smothered the . noise of crashing timber , and the rumbling , crushing , and struggling of human bodies . The eye rested , as it were , on a huge and ominous moving cloud that was spreading destruction noiselessly , and was the more fearful because it smote without sound in its action . Something painful and terrific was in
prog ress there ; what , none , for some moments , could ascertain , till the panelling of the front gallery swung out over the floor of the hall—like a ship's sail which had torn away the belaying cleats ; and body after body was seen pitching over and dropping down on the wedged heads beneath . Perhaps no one who looked afterwards at the course and character of the accident is without astonishment ( there are some who are not thankful ) that so little injury to human life was done . The
back seat of the gallery was pressed on by ten times the ordinary weight which it is calculated to carry : it was completely crushed , and the whole throng fell forwards and down the declivity — each successive row giving way before it , and adding its own weight to the next , till the front of the gallery burst away . Yet it is amazing that only four people were hurt ! and those would have escaped , perhaps , had not fear impelled them to leap from the gallery . No one who thought could withhold his
admiration of the cool presence of mind which was evinced by that dense mass of people . Never , perhaps , was there exhibited so much of the effect of habits of thinking as was displayed on this occasion . Terrific as the alarm was , there was not in the eastern gallery , which was entirely under my range of vision , and crowded so closely as to be one solid body , the least movement : each man seemed confident that hie quiescence was the safety and security of all : this is the result of
Untitled Article
188 Notes on the Newspapers .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1835, page 138, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2642/page/58/
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