Note 175 — Chapter XXXVII

Commenting on this emendation, one provincial journal—the Liverpool Daily Post—remarked with more than usual outspokenness: "Thanks to Mr Carlyle, it has long been acknowledged that revolutions cannot be made with rose water; and Archbishop Manning and other amiable ecclesiastical philanthropists will have to learn that revolutions cannot be made with holy water either. In this world it is necessary to do good, even if the devil bids you; and if Mr Bradlaugh can get the ear and the vote of a vast meeting by turning half-measures into whole ones, his alliance will have to be accepted, and perhaps his advice may have to be followed." But the day for that was not yet come, and few saw the inevitable so clearly as Mr Bradlaugh. The Times very fairly admitted that on a division his supporters formed the majority of the gathering, but a very garbled account of the proceedings appeared in many journals, one paper even going to the length of saying that Mr Bradlaugh was "ejected" from the meeting, and another seriously admonishing him that his reception at Exeter Hall ought to show him that the bulk of the working classes had no confidence in him.