The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-01
CHAPTER I.

he paused and looked upward 1t seemed to many that a light of justice shone up- on his haggard fare while the tears rolled unwiped down his ragged jerkin. His lank, unkempt hair. caught by the draught from the open doors at the far end of the hall, streamed behind him in grotesque profusion. His hands were clenched and his lips compressed. That which he had told to the sea of ques- tionlng faces below him the story of his life. The name which he had ut tered with an oath upon his lips was the name of the man who had deprived him of riches and of liberty. When he es- saved to add a woman's name and to speak of the wrongs which had been done her, the power of utterance left him Tn an instant and he stood there gaspiug. his eyes toward the light which none but he could see; a prayer of gratitude upon his lips because he had found the man and would repay.
 Look down upon this audience and you shall see a heterogeneous assembly such as London alone of the cities can show you. The hall Is a crazy building enough, not a hundred yards from the Commercial road at Whitechapel. The time is the spring of the year 1903-the hour is 8 o'clock at night. Ostensibly meeting to discuss the news which had come that day from the chiefs of the revoutionaries in Warsaw, the discussion had been diverted, as such discussions in yarIably are, to a recital of personal wrongs and of individual resolutions even to mad talk of the conquest of the world and the crowning of King An archy And to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with rare murmurs and odd contortions or limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.
 mans confession, if it be honest must ever be a profoundly interesting docu- ment Boriskoff, the Pole, did not hold these people spellbound by the vigor or his denunciation the rylthmic chant of his anger. He had begun in a qulet voice, welcoming the news from warsaw and the account of the assassination or the deputy governor, Lebinsky. From that he passed to the old question, why does authority remain in any city at 1ll2 This London that sleeps so securely, does fl ever awake to remember the unnum- bered hosts which pitch their tents in the courts and alleys of Whitechapel. Put rifles into the hands of hundred tnou- sand men who can be found tonight he had said, "and where is your British gov ernment tomorrow? The police-they would be but as dead leaves under the feet of a mighty multitude. The soldiers' Friends he put it to them, do you ever ask yourselves how many soldiers there are in the barracks of London to- night and what would happen to them If the people were armed? I say to you that the house would fall as a house of cards; the rich would flee; the poor would reign And you who know this for truth what do you answer to me? Ihat London harbors you, that London feeds vou-aye. with the food of swine in the Eopne1a If the dogs
 Men nodded their headg to this and some of the women Uttered behind their ragged shawls. They had heard 1t all go often-the grand assault by numpers' the rifle shots ringing ut in the sleeping streets by Piccadly; the sack or PafH Iane the flight of the government; the downfall of what is and the establishment of what might be. If they believed t possible, they had sence enough to re- member that a sacked city of amnesty would be the poorest tribute to their own jsagaclty At least London did not hog them. Their wives and sisters were not here dragged to the police stations to be brutally lashed at the command or any underlng they had offended. Applause for Boriskoff and his sound ana tuIy might be interpreted as a concession to their vanity we could do all thls' thev seemed to say; If we forbear. let London be grateful" As for Boriskoh, he had talked so many times In such q strain that sudden change in voice ana matter surprised them beyond worus' What had happened to him, then? W as the copper mines and the oays or sidNei5 he had spent thereinE
 A hush fell upon the hall when the demagogue struck this unaccustoliieu note; rude gas flares shed an ugly vel low glow upon faces which everywhere asked an unspoken question. what had copper mines to do with the news rom Warsaw. and what had they to do with th,s assembly,? Presently. however It came to the people that they were hs- tening to the story of a wrong that the pages of a human drama were De- ing lnfolded before them. In glowing words the speaker painted the miner life and that of the stokers who kept the furnaces. What living hell that labor had been. There were six opera tons in refining the copper, he said, ana he had served years of apprenticeship To each of them. Hungry and faint ana weary he had kept watch half the night at the furnaces door and returned to his home at dawn to see white races half buried in the ragged beds or his house or to hear the child he loved cry Ing for the food he could not bring. And in those night watches the great ldea had come to him.
 .Friends," he said "the first concep- ton of the Meltka furnace was mine. The white heat of the night gave it to me. child'S cry, thou art my Iatner and thou wilt save me- was my inspir- stion. Somehow you will have heard that there are smelting works today where the sulphurous acid, which copper py- rites supplies when 1t is roasted, is used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. That was my discovery. Many have claimed it since, but the Meltka furnace was mine-as God is in heaven it was mine Why, then, do I stand among you wanting bread, I who should own the riches of kings? My friends, I will tell you A devil stole my secret from me and has traded it in the markets of the world. I trusted him. l was poor and he was rich. Sell for me and share my gains I said His honor would be my protection, I thought, his knowledge my security. An, God, what reward had I? He named me to the police and their lashes cut the flesh from my body. lay three years in the prison at Irkutsk and five at Saghalin The white faces were turned to the earth they sprang from, my son was heard at the foot of Gods throne when they bade me go and set my foot in Poland no more. This knew even in that island of blood and death Letters had come to from my dear wife: the committee had kept me informed even there at the end of the earth. I knew that my home had per- ished; that of all my family. my daugh- fer Lois alone remained to me; I knew that the days of the tyranny were num- ho-ad that even l. might vet