Note 92 — Chapter XXIII

In a general "damnatory" description of the demonstration given from "a club window," which appeared in the Times of February 12th, there is a caricature of Mr Bradlaugh, spiteful in intent, but amusing and really interesting if one looks between the would-be scornful words. We are told that "a dapper youth, mounted on a brown horse, exerted himself to make up for the shortcomings of the public force, and was a host in himself. He was evidently a man in authority, and acted in close connection with the Reform magnates, whose carriages stopped the way before our doors. He raised his whip as freely as if it had been a constable's truncheon or gendarme's broad-sword, and apostrophised, or—why should I not say the word—bullied the crowd in a tone and with manners which would have done an alguazil's heart good. The sovereign people put up with the man's arrogance with incredible meekness and patience, and allowed itself to be marshalled hither and thither as if the Queen's highway were the Leaguers' special property and the public were mere intruders."

The "Club" man was evidently irritated that these same people who at Hyde Park had refused to obey a police proclamation backed by a free use of the truncheon and display of the bayonet, yet implicitly obeyed the "youth mounted on a brown horse" whose only authority was derived from the love the people bore him. The sneer as to "tone" and "manners" is not worth noticing; you cannot issue commands to tens of thousands in Trafalgar Square in the same gentle tone in which you can ask for the salt to be passed across the dinner-table.