Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-05-17
LOVE AN ARGUMENT
EngIishmen Fond of Discuss
ing Questions.
HALTING, BUT PERSISTENT
"Spouters" of Trafalgar Square and
Regents Park.
AN EVENING WITH COGERS
Society Organized in 1855 With the
Object Of Promoting Personal
Liberty and Loyalty.
STAFF Correspondence Of Tho Star.

STAFF Correspondence Of The Star
LONDON. MAY :. 1911.
Englishmen dearly love argument They
are not. as a rule. good takers in the
evolutionary sense. They possess a Ger
tain hating style of utterance a dispo-
sltion To stammer. and TO strew their
speech with what Oliver Wendell Holmes
called those dreadful ur's" Neverthe-
less. all Englishmen are fond of the
forum. and they lose no chance TO nego-
tiate R debate.
witness the traditional "spouters' OF
Trafalgar Square and REGENTS Park. who
proclaim all manner OF doctrines and at
TACK all sorts of institutions and beliefs
THESE men-and women-are never de-
TERED by rain or cold. They are not dis
couraged by lack of appreciation or by
criticism They will hold forth quite as
eloouently to an audience composed of
three idlers and a tarrying messenger boy
as TO crowd of two or three hundred.
The other afternoon found two spouters
hard at their self-appointed tasks near
the Marble Arch. in Regents Park. within
a rev rods of the spot where .'Tyburn
tree stood for centuries and straddled
Its tree sprawling legs over the many
scores OF victims left dangling when Jack
ketch and his fellows and successors
drove their carts of and left them with
out support.
Commentary on Changed Conditions
BY the way. it is a singular common
tary upon the wide difference In English
conditions that here. in what would be
the shadow Of the old gaiows. II IL were
still standing. the gallows where free
thinkers were executed for heresy-when
they were not burned at Smithfield. where
now stands London's great meat market
is what is probably the freest debating
arena in the world, where any proposition
can be advanced with impunity. where
kings, pOpeS. church. state, anybody and
everything can be denounced I'm safety
and any fanatical notion advocated in the
most impassioned and unrestrained
speech. SO long as il does not actually
become profane or indecent.
On this occasion these two were hard
at work. a man Of middle age and a
handsome young woman. The former was
explaining Why | am against woman
suffrage" The latter was telling her
auditors why women should have the
vote. 1t was raining hard enough Il
have driven under cover the half hun
dred people who constituted the two al
most intermngling audiences. But these
save as now and then they were heck
led by their hearers.
1t is the law of the land, insurmount-
able though unwritten, that any one wht
rupted ad libitum. Every .'spouter'
must protect himself. and it is rare to
find one who cannot do so in clever
style. The park speaker who. under
stress Of Interruptions. loses his temper
may gather a large crowd. but he has
10 a
spectacle. And these people take them
selves very seriously. They are in
tensely in earnest. Some of them are
self-appointed champions of causes OF
organizations.
An Old Debating Club.
This love of the forum is not a new de-
velopment in England by any means.
There have been debating clubs in Lon
don from time immemorial and remind
ers of the good old days of coffee-house
oratory are still to be found in out-of
one Of these relics of the ancient custom
of tavern discussion the other night in
unusual circumstances. Having been
told of a quaint gathering of takers IN
the large back room of a certain old
pub" In backwater court off Fleet
street. l started OFF on Saturday night &c
find 1t. 1t had been described to me a.
the ''Cogers Society" and as the sur
viving representative of very old or
ganization On the way down Fleet
street to the designated place my eye
was caught BY a printed placard hang
ing at the entrance into a dark entry
way. a tunnel-like gap in the gloomy
wall. II announced that the Ancient
Society of Cogers was TO meet in Cliff
ford's Inn hall that evening at 7:4s
o'clock. Visitors were welcome. IL was
then near O'Clock. but ventured 10 ex-
pore the forbidding passage and man
aged after some fumbling about in the
dark to find a doorway in the court that
led into d small hall. high ceilinged
vaulted. where about a hundred men
were assembled.
A Historic Hall.
1t was in this hall that Sir Matthew
Hale and seventeen other judges SAT after
the great fire of September 3-6. 1866. tc
adjudcate upon the complex and trouble
some claims of the landlords and tenants
in the burned area There were many los
eFs, the total destruction having been es-
timated at about el1,0OO0O0. an
enormous sum. considering the greater
values of today Yet SO satisfactorily did
the eighteen judges perform their difficult
task that their portraits were painted and
hung in the Guildhail. in honor OF their
patience and their justice.
So II was into venerable and historic
atmosphere that | had come, quite I'M
knowingly, and il was pleasing TO md
the "Cogers' to be fit representatives OF
the old spirit of contention without rancor
and debate. without personal feeling
which that remarkable judgment of Sir
Matthew Hale and his associates so hap
PLY manifested.
The debaters were seated in the usual
English fashion. in TWO confronting ranks.
with the chair at the head of the aisle
thus formed across the room. The debate
was then we'll in progress and proceeded
until 10:45, when il came 10 an end upon
the expiration of the regularly allotted
time.
This society. as IL was later explained