ured up a card of mine. It was the talisman to which he trusted as the one link connecting his life with hope. He left London, and followed the setting sun, inquiring his way by humbly showing my address to those who passed him on the muddy country roads. His few shillings were soon exhausted; the rain rained upon him, the wind blew upon him; but still he trudged on, sleeping in barns or outhouses, but often in the open air. In country villages the children ran after him, throwing stones, and calling him "Blackie," or inquired when the circus was coming, evidently connecting his pic turesque figure and tarnished lace with some company of itinerant mountebanks. Here a gentleman gave him a shilling, there a cottager a loaf of bread; and every day he was a little nearer my house. But the pain in his chest was daily worse and his strength less, until at last, utterly worn out, he had cast himself down in the place I had found him. We arrived home in a deluge of rain, and my wife and little girl ran out to the hall door in surprise to meet us. "Poor fellow, how wet he is!" said my wife. He was so stiff, cold, and exhausted that it was not easy to get him off the horse, and when he was dismounted he swayed backwards and forwards, unable to stand, and leaned against the doorpost for support. We put him to bed, offered him food, which he could not eat, and left him for the night. Early next morning I went to his room. He was lying, looking strangely dark against the white bedclothes, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes, evidently worse. Abdoolah!" I said, but he did not heed me. His mind was wandering, and he muttered words in a low tone in bis own tongue. His skin was parched and dry, his breathing labored. I sent off the groom for a medical man, who arrived shortly. Meanwhile my wife had succeeded in making him swallow some beef tea. The doctor declared the patient to be suffering from a complication of diseases of the lungs, evidently of long standing, and when he heard Abdoolah's story said it was a wonder he had lived so long. It was plain to us all he was sinking now. The doctor left; the servants moved by the door in awe, as though we were harboring some strange creature, and feared to enter the room, but I sat and watched over the fading life. The housemaid, a rosy Devonshire girl, but with all her roses blanched, brought in the medicine the doctor had sent. "They've sent this for the heathen, sir," she said, and hastened away. I scarcely wondered at her dread, for indeed there seemed something uncanny about Abdoolah now. He had crept so mysteriously to our remote home in search of his ungrateful master, and now he lay silent and still in the little bedroom, like some tawny-skinned creature in a white nest. For two days he lay motionless, and for the most part unconscious, with the halo of a romance behind him and an unknown past in his own land, of which we could know nothing. On the third day, about twelve o'clock, he seemed to rouse himself. We were alone, and he turned towards me. "Sar!" he murmured, in so low a voice I could scarcely hear it. 66 What is it?" I asked, placing my ear near his parched lips. "Master come?" "No; not yet." Then a little spasm passed over his face, and he closed his eyes and began to fumble the white sheet with his bony black fingers, murmuring I know not what. Hearing my voice, my little daughter, who had been listening outside, crept into the room with silent feet, and remained near the door in awe, watching. Abdoolah's lips were moving. I lis tened intently. "Sar-rah Bernhardt. Gerran-ole-man." And the ghost of a smile flickered on his face. "Is the poor black man saying his prayers?" whispered the little girl, in a voice full of childish awe. "No, dear, he's talking to his donkeys." She began to cry silently, for fear of disturbing him. "Master Selby. Me say me did it. Den we go back to Cairo. Gerran-oleman. Donkey, sar?" Then slowly, like an unseen cloud, a great change stole on him, and he murmured no more. The dark face became rigid, the eyes stiffened, the breathing ceased. 66 Look, papa, look," cried the little girl in terror, "he's Yes; poor Abdoolah was dead. If you go to our little churchyard, where all the gravestones bear old west-country names, you will find a new one, that of Abdoolah, and will know, now, whose faithful memory it preserves. PERCY WHITE. From The National Review. THE BURNING OF BRISTOL. A REMINISCENCE OF THE FIRST REFORM BILL. three days like those at Bristol, and "an Bristol in 1831. IN the present crisis, all lovers of the Constitution may read with instruction and as a warning the following narrative of "The Burning of Bristol in 1831," one of the most disgraceful incidents of the agitation by which the first Reform Bill was forced on the legislature. In it they will recognize the types of the present agitation on the Franchise Bill. The Birmingham Caucus, with its affiliated six hundreds in other towns, occupies the position and wields the power then possessed by the Political Union of Birming ham. The prime minister of to-day hurls similar threats against the House of Lords to those his noble predecessor then did not, indeed, in the same short and plain language, for to plain speaking the fluent and involved orator of the present day is a stranger. His burly henchman at the Home Office, whilst professing to explain away his leader's phrases, covertly endorses his threats. Mr. Chamberlain recalls to a crowded meeting the threat of their brother Radicals in 1831 to march on London a hundred thousand strong. Another member of Parliament significantly alludes to the fall of Charles the First; and a metropolitan representative, otherwise respectable for his professional position, abuses the peers in the language of the fish-market. Again the cry is raised, Down with the House of Lords," and a Cabinet minister, the heir of one of our noblest dukedoms, conveniently retires from a Liberal gathering, so as to allow a resolution to be carried disestablishing his own father. Again, as in 1831, money is readily provided by those in the background to promote processions of thousands trooping wearily along for the sake of the day's pay, and knowing little, and caring less, for the cause in which they are nominally enrolled, obeying as clockwork figures the fugleman on the platform. That all this is looked kindly on, if not promoted, by ministers, who can doubt? Happily, the bulk of the people are not now, as in 1831, uninstructed in their duties as citizens, and the inertia of a widespread faith in the Constitution acts as a dead weight on the violence of the Radical agitators. Still, if Constitutionalists are to be content with an inert resist-if they are not prepared to speak out as plainly and as boldly as their opponents, and to rally round the constituted 66 ance authorities in the preservation of peace and order - we may live to see another infuriated and reckless mob" in the possession of a fair city; its chief magistrate "unsupported by any sufficient force, civil or military, and deserted in those quarters where he might have expected assistance."* Forewarned is forearmed. Until the later years of the eighteenth century Bristol held the proud position of the second commercial city in England, and though from that time displaced by the increasing activity of Liverpool, still retained an eminent place among the great centres of our trade. Compared with the Bristol of the present day, its inhabited area was narrow, and its population scarcely half as numerous as at present. Within this area, some three-quarters of a mile in length and breadth, a population of less than one hundred thousand persons was closely packed. The working classes in it, almost entirely dependent on the trade of the porta strong, rough, and too often turbulent race were fairly provided with employment, but notoriously improvident, and to an almost unexampled extent dependent on the poor-rates and charities of the city. At the time of the events now to be chronicled the merchants and greater manufacturers of Bristol, with but few exceptions, lived near the scene of their operations, and the homes of their artifi cers and laborers, near the cathedral and bishop's palace on College Green, or the Mansion House in Queen's Square. The latter was an open space, about two hundred yards square, bordered by broad avenues of trees, with a grass enclosure in which stood an equestrian statue of King William the Third. On such a population as that of Bristol the news of the "Three Days' Conflict in Paris," and the consequent overthrow of Charles X., had a marked effect. Hence Bristol was one among the first of the great cities and towns in England to hold meetings congratulating the citizens of Paris on the success of their appeal to arms, and to pass resolutions hailing the struggle in the streets, as "giving the fairest hope that the progress of modern civilization, and the influence of popular forms of government, had opened a new history in the civilization of man."† Still, notwithstanding the impetus given by the head centre at Birmingham, the change of Verdict of the jury in the case of the mayor of † Meeting at the Guildhall, September 8th, 1830. Bristol. believing that adults in the nineteenth century were to be led like children or driven like barbarians.”* opinions thus fostered in Bristol might have worked its will with comparative peace and order, had the political unions been curbed instead of being encouraged Against the peers the language was, if by the partisans of the government, and possible, even more bitter and abusive. had not leading men connected with the "The whole aristocracy," it was said, ministry inflamed the multitude by their" had been brought into derision and disspeeches. like." † 66 brous lumber; the arch-disturbers of the peace when their own interests were concerned," and "who only supported gov. ernments when they were military ones," and as "the patrons of indecent and blasphemous papers." Lord Grey had told the bishops that, in opposing the bill, 'they were supporting a system founded in hypocrisy, falsehood, and fraud, and were confirming the pollution by which the edifice of the Constitution was desecrated," and then applying the words of the prophet when announcing the ap proaching death of King Hezekiah, had warned them "to set their houses in order to meet the coming storm." The political unions, however, were now "The House of Peers," said a brother in full operation under the practical pro- lord, "had evinced no sympathy for the tection of the Cabinet. From Birming- people, and could, therefore, expect none ham, agents were steadily spreading from them; in the eyes of the people that throughout the great towns. The arti- House had no character to lose." They cles in the Reform newspapers, and the were denounced by a subordinate minisspeeches, not merely of the usual Radical ter as "hard and oppressive taskmasters, orators, but of men in good social stand- who wrested from the people a power they ing, and even of those who held high po had no right to enjoy."§ With the peers, sitions in the Cabinet, were most un- the bishops and clergy were classed as guarded and violent. The existing sys-"arraying themselves against the happitem of representation had been denounced | ness of the people." The dignitaries of by the introducer of the bill as at once the Church were stigmatized as "a cum"barbarous, immoral, and destructive of freedom; that it had disregarded the expressed wishes of the nation, and set at nought the petitions and demands of the people."* One minister had described it as "offensive and disgusting; "t another as an abuse so monstrous, that its defects did not require to be detailed;" a third, as ་་ a juggling system, a hideous depravity, a plague-spot to be purified, a vice to be held in execration;"§ and a fourth, as "foul, fraudulent, disgusting, vile." One law officer of the crown had declared that "it was hatched in jobs, and ever producing new ones." Another had said, that "he found in the present House of Commons the dirt and rubbish of unconstitutional practices, conventional abuses, crimes, and evasions of law."** And even the stately premier had proclaimed the present system to be "odious, illegal, unconstitutional, disgusting; founded in hypocrisy, falsehood, and fraud; an eyesore, a blot, and a consuming ulcer." The lord chancellor had even justified the political unions, as "the natural consequences of justice denied, rights withheld, wrongs perpetuated, the force which common injuries lends to millions, the wickedness of using the sacred trust of government as a means of indulg. ing private caprice, and the frenzy of The utterances of the newspapers will hardly be believed by the readers of their present successors. Not to crowd our limited space with other examples, " Usurpers of the public franchise, cutpurses of the people's money and robbers of the public treasury, under laws enacted by the plunderers for their own extortion," were the epithets used by one journal, and that no mean one, in describing the House of Commons. Speech-makers at public meetings out-heroded the press in their denunciations, and there were not wanting in their hustings addresses such significant hints as 'that, if necessary, the arms as well as the voices of the people would be raised against the enemies of the Bill." 66 Many of these denunciations may have been uttered in haste and under excite. ment as mere strong expressions, ora * Mirror of Parliament, October 7, 1831. Mirror of Parliament, October 10. $ Chief secretary for Ireland, September 30. torical clap-traps. But when these utter-guage the recklessness of his opponents. ances were circulated throughout the Unhappily for Bristol, the usual day for masses, in journals, pamphlets, and flying the opening of his assize came round soon sheets, they could not but have the effect of spreading discontent and producing disaffection among the lower classes, especially when these learned that "they had been received with indifference by ministers, who either apologized for the offenders or visited them with a degree of reprobation ludicrously inadequate to their offences.”* after the bill had been rejected by the Lords, and furnished the opportunity and nominal occasion for the violence that broke out on his arrival. Previously to his expected coming he had been studiously attacked by the local press, whilst placards on the walls, pocket handkerchiefs with his effigy and appropriate abusive mottoes, and ballads in the streets, were freely used in creating an unhealthy and dangerous excitement. The effect of this language was painfully exhibited when the Bill was rejected by the Lords, in the first week of October, Aware of this, the magistrates, after 1831. The agitation that was then ex- consulting with him, sent a deputation to cited throughout the country was unex- Lord Melbourne, the then home secretary, ampled. The funds fell three or four per which represented to him the necessity cent.; the shops in London were closed, for the aid of a military force to protect to a great extent, for fear of the mob alike the peace of the city and the person which, almost unimpeded, demolished the of the recorder. At Lord Melbourne's windows of the residences of the opposi- request, the members for Bristol met the tion peers; the various Reform asssocia deputation at the Home Office, when their tions, headed by the Political Unions, renewed application for efficient military called the masses together to condemn aid was opposed by one of the members what they stigmatized as "the insolent Mr. Protheroe who had been reinjustice of the House of Lords," and to turned as a Radical reformer at the last demand its immediate abolition; the de- election, and was an active leader of the termination not to pay taxes was openly Political Unionists. If, said Mr. Prothe advocated, not only by the crowds to roe, he might be allowed to enable the whom the tax-gatherer was a stranger, but people of Bristol to express, in some by men of high social position; threats of measure, their strong and unalterable disviolence soon became acts of violence; approbation of Sir Charles Wetherell, and the lives of the leading opponents of the he could be secured against thieves and Bill were endangered. At Nottingham adventurers from other places, he, with the old castle of the Duke of Newcastle his friends of the Union, would keep perwas sacked and burnt; and at Worcester fect peace and order." Notwithstanding and Derby the violence of the rioters was this impudent offer, Lord Melbourne so only repressed by the exertions of the far agreed with the deputation as to sanctroops and at the cost of several lives. tion the holding of the assize, and the Bristol remained quiet. The Radical placing of three troops of cavalry under leaders contented themselves for a time the orders of the magistrates; insisting, with transforming their trades' union into however, that they should not be employed a political association in alliance with that except in the case of actual necessity and at Birmingham, and inviting this central the failure of the civil force to maintain power" to call a meeting of delegates from the peace.* The magistrates, on their all the unions to deliberate on the best part, did their best to raise a sufficient means of general organization and simul- civil force for the occasion, but were taneous action." thwarted by the unwillingness shown on the part of the citizens to give their services. It was the misfortune of Bristol at that time to have as its recorder Sir Charles Wetherell, one of the most bitter opponents of the bill in the Commons, a man of undoubted learning and ability as a lawyer, staunch in his antipathies, unflinching in his opposition, and rivalling in his lan-aid when they authorized their member to The Political Unionists, on the other hand, were in action. Snatching at the excuse that they were ignorant of the intention of the government to give military promise that they would keep the peace, at the price of being permitted to insult The total number of troopers was ninety-three, of whom more than half were of the 14th Hussars, who were sent away to Keynsham, six miles from the city, by Colonel Brereton's orders. the recorder, the Council of the Union | The magistrates, however, had experience withdrew this offer and threw the whole only of the turbulence that always attended responsibility on the corporation.* This the elections; and the command of the step was followed by the issue of the following extraordinary placard :†— "It is the opinion of the Council that, if the magistrates feel themselves incompetent to preserve the public peace without being supported by the military, they should resign their offices, and suffer the civic authorities to be elected by a majority of the votes of their fellow-citizens. The Council thinks that a man clothed in the robes of magistracy ought never to be a politician; as such a magistrate cannot possess the public confidence, without which he will be incompetent to preserve the public peace. They would, therefore, recommend to the Corporation the immediate resignation of Sir C. Wetherell as recorder, such being the means best calculated to prevent riot and perhaps bloodshed." handful of military fell to Colonel Brereton, simply by reason of his being the head of the recruiting staff, a man of undoubted personal courage, but whose peaceable intentions led him into the gravest errors, and contributed so largely to the sad events that followed. The First Day of the Riots. Early on the morning of the 29th of October, the mayor and magistrates moved out of the city towards Totterdown Hill, on the Bath road, with a body of constables. Early as it was, the high banks on each side of the road were lined with persons, and, from the streets of the city crowds of the lower orders were converg. ing to the point at which the magistrates were to meet the recorder. No sooner was his carriage seen approaching, than Of the disgraceful and alarming riots the most discordant cries arose from these which so soon followed this incident, it crowds, who now pressed dangerously on seems more than probable that the origi- the constables, one and all bent on prenators and instigators were not residents venting the recorder from being transin Bristol. For several days before their ferred to the mayor's carriage. When, outbreak, strangers, idle but well-dressed, with much difficulty, this was managed, had been seen in the streets of the city, and the procession moved back towards and delegates from the north-country po- the city, the cries and yells became deaflitical associations had been visiting pop-ening, and the carriage was not unfreulous places in the counties around, and urging the inhabitants to be in Bristol on the day of the recorder's arrival. The old citizens agreed that they knew but few of the mob-leaders as inhabitants. Aware of these manœuvres, the Council of the Corporation warned the citizens that in the event of a disturbance, "they should find it their imperative duty to use all lawful means for apprehending the rioters and bringing them to punishment." The lawful means on which the magis trates could rely were nominally small, less than three hundred special constables, and a hundred cavalry. Still, in a city naturally so easily defended as Bristol, these would, probably, have sufficed, had they been well handled before the mob had dangerously increased, and before thousands, who had nothing to do with the inception of the riots, were drawn into them by idleness or predatory habits.‡ quently assailed with stones and other missiles. Thus, at last, amid noise and violence, the recorder was brought to the Guildhall, got out of his carriage, and enabled to take his seat on the bench. Through the now open doors of the court the mob rushed in, and were with difficulty reduced to sufficient silence to allow of the commission being opened, and the court adjourned to the next Monday. Whilst one section of the mob was thus employed in the Guildhall, a far more numerous one had been preparing a reception for the judge on. his leaving the court to proceed to the Mansion House, in Queen's Square. On the way, an attempt to upset the mayor's carriage happily failed, and further molestation was confined to yells and groans, until it reached the door of the Mansion House, when stones were freely thrown as the party escaped into the house. One of the most active of the mob was captured, and at once the cry arose, "To the back! to the back!" where piles of faggots were open places on the most central and commanding points. These last-named localities, though offering little obstructions to the operations of cavalry, were by some unaccountable infatuation suffered to remain, for three days, the principal scenes of destruction." |