The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-04 00:00:00

(he earortOti.

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LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4.

WHAT has Property to say to the great spectacle
of yesterday I We shall not be far wrong in re-
marking that it took many good people by sur-
prise. We have grown so unaccustomed to strong
manifestations of public opinion that the good
folks who inhabit the West-end have come to
believe that a rough-and-ready must necessarily be
a disorderly political demonstration. There has
not been for a long time anything like a healthy
feeling touching the working men of the metro-
polis. Most of the self-styled cultivated classes
figure to themselves the workman either as a
" rough " or a clodhopper ; and these were amazed
when they saw the Trades Unions tramp by rank
after rank along Pall-mall and Piccadilly. " But,"
said a Tory gentleman, " what grievances can
" men so well dressed and well fed have to com-
" plain of I" " Why," said another, " these
" men are all clean, and most of them fine hand-
" some fellows." " All I can say is," remarked
a third, " that I do not agree with them in poli-
" tics, but if they have not the suffrage they
" ought to have it." Every one of these observa-
tions were made by men who support Lord
Dsnav's Government. This naive astonishment at
the fact that Trades Unionists and Radicals were,
after all, decent looking, many of them intellec-
tual looking men, that they had the characteristic
sturdy, independent bearing of Britons—pride in
their port, and if not defituice in their eye, yet a
capability of expressing defiance—is one of the most
striking and characteristic effects of the Reform
demonstration.

And it is not surprising that the procession
should have produced this effect. The encomiums
expressed on the appearance of the men were de-
served. They were a very good average
manifestation of the British race. One
saw that there were the qualities which
have made England what she is. Many
countenances expressed only rough energy, some
quiet determination, others the youthful courage
which sees no obstacles that should daunt a brave
heart ; but among the mass were rank after rank
of men with refined intellectual faces—men who
plainly thought, and who were led there by their
convictions. " I shall never forget this sight as
" long as I live," said ono spectator, whose ten-
dency is to take a somewhat cynical view of
human nature, and who probably, a few hours
before, did not believe there was such a sight
to be seen. Then they marched along with
an easy step, and often really went
well, so that a soldier might say, and say with
truth, that three weeks' training would make them
fit to meet any foe. On the whole (there were of
course many exceptions), the physique of the pro-
cessionists was far above the average of the
British army. In temper, at least so far as we
observed them, nothing could be better. There
was no bravado, nothing theatrical, no attempt
to show off. They were natural, unaffected, and
themselves. We cannot imagine a finer lesson for
the gentlemen who first draw the picture of a work-
ing man from the depths of their moral conscious-
ness, and then denounce him, than that promenade
of labour.
There was a curious absence of anything artistic,
not to say showy, in this procession. There was
nothing artificial. The banners were compara-
tively rare--some handsome, some old, but few
showed any straining after effect. It was
the intense reality of the procession—the evident
fact that to the host so engaged this promenade
had a clear and decisive meaning, and was not
idle show, or mere acting that made it pro-
duce such a profound impression on thoughtful
and often hostile observers. One would like to
see, for the mere sake of pleasing the artistic
sense, something more varied and picturesque in
the " properties " of so great a demonstration.
But that may well be dispensed with when we
know that it is not the true nature of Englishmen
to be artistic in their public parades, and that in
this case the real demonstration consisted of the
men who were there, and not of their clothes and
external adornments. It was, in fact, a purely
moral manifestation, owing nothing at all to the
property-man or the artist.
The numbers who marched through the great
thoroughfares of the West-end yesterday may not
have been so large as some of the Tories appeared
to fear they would be, and in this respect it is
open to them to say that the demonstration was a
failure. Perhaps we shall see that line taken by
those upon whom numbers alone can make any
impression. To those who look deeper it will
matter little whether there were 40,000 or
100,000. Upon them the moral effect of the
orderly march of this fine representative body of
British working men will not be lost, but will sink