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thought—thought taken closely and sternly in the midst of danger . My firm belief is that such an accident , in such a crowd , could not have occurred in two other towns in the empire , without the crushing mutilation , and serious injury of many hundred men . And though , from the admirable facility of egress , the ground-floor , which was occupied by eight thousand bodies , was , in one minute , almost cleared ; yet there
was no confusion—none of the wild , half-delirious , and screaming efforts to escape , which have so fatally characterised popular assemblies . Each seemed to calculate for himself and his fellow-men , that , following the stream steadily , in his direction , was the safest and shortest way to the street . There was no connection and crossing of currents . The furthest from the door calmly held his turn . That day—that accident , and consequent alarm—may be held as a lesson to the world , and a taste
of the quality of the Birmingham men . All that I saw and heard , told me , in language too clear to be mistaken , these are not the men to be humbugged . Jn less than six minutes from the instant the alarm rose , the floor was cleared , and again solidly wedged with eager and resolved men ; and when the names of Attwood and Scholefield were successively put to the vote , over the black hats a sea of flesh , of arms and hands , was thrown ; hundreds of arms being * stripped bare of coat and
shirtsleeve and all covering , in the forcible thrust of them upwards through the compressed and solid throng of bodies—yes ,, hundreds and hundreds of arms were thus laid bare to the elbow ; and all were as suddenly drawn down again to give opportunity for the friends of the Tory candidate to display their strength . Some fifty hands—not more—on the Tory committee side , went gallantly up ; and throughout the whole mass of the assembled beyond , I counted ( after looking sharply ) three solitary
—yet , be justice done—courageous hands : and , with this unequivocal sense of the popular opinion , they went to the poll . They calculated on certain weapons , which they used unsparingly with those who had votes—wherever they had hardihood to venture them ; and if by such means they could have gained a majority of the three thousand electors , they would have trumpeted to the Duke the pleasing intelligence that there was a reaction of popular opinion , in favour of him , in Birmingham ! ! I Why , if they had quadrupled the numbers who voted for the
Reformers , it would have proved nothing of the popular opinion in their favour . I do not mean that they miscalculated their aid from a certain party , their error was in imagining this party had weight with honest men , and men who think . They had bullied , and insinuated , and swaggered , and sneered a confident positive change of public opinion ; that the weathercock now pointed to them . They had , for months previous , been snugly and secretly cooking up the church-rate affair ; employing every art and delusion they could invent and combine , for a grand blow , whenever a fit moment should arrive for unmasking their batteries and
sweeping down all before them . And such was their stupidity that they selected as the most opportune hour , the one in which the news of Wellington ' s appointment to the Dictatorship arrived in Birmingham ! Did they fancy that name carried irresistible lightning with its sounds No ; their error was more astonishing- still—more miserable , yet more laughable—more contemptible—more piliably blundering . They attached a charm—a fascination—a delighting electricity to the name of that hater of popular sense ; that would-be crusher of thoughts and soul—that
Untitled Article
Notes on the Newspapers . 180
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1835, page 139, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2642/page/59/
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