and loving-kindness takes the place of jealousy
and hate." We looked round the room while
these fervid words were being triumphantly
rolled forth, and were struck with the calm
impassiveness of the listeners. There seemed to
be no partisanship either for the speaker or the
Grand. Once, when the former was more than
usually emphatic in bis denunciations, a tall pale
man, with a Shakespeare forehead, rose suddenly,
with a determined air, as if about to fiercely
interrupt; but it turned out he only wanted to
catch the waiter's eye, and this done, he pointed
silently to his empty glass, and remarked, in a
hoarse whisper, " Without sugar as before."

However strongly these thoughtful people
may have felt, they made no sign, and it was
obvious that the discipline of the society is
fairly and regularly enforced, and that, if its
debates effect no other good, they encourage a
habit of self-control. It was equally obvious
that the society has a profound belief in its own
power. The whole tenor of the debates led us
to assume that the eye of Europe was upon
us. If a Coger went wrong in argument, or
if a mis-statement were allowed to pass
uncorrected in such an assembly as this, the
consequences would, it was evident, be terrible to
the world at large and to generations still unborn.

In the course of the evening the Cogers
declared that the East-end distress would be a
thing of the past, if their own specific for
pauperism were adopted. They also held a strong
opinion that the metropolitan police arrangements
should be efficient, instead of unsatisfactory,
and laid down a clear and intelligible theory
on the subject. As for the government, " the
big-wigs," the secretaries of state, their
doorkeepers, their flunkeys, their officials, their
ways, their deeds, their talk, they were all
nowhere. The great difficulty to mere outsiders
like ourselves was the impossibility of holding
two diametrically opposite opinions at the same
time. What one eloquent Coger had made clear
as daylight, another Coger, with equal gifts of
speech, showed us to be mere hollow
rodomontade. As soon as the sentiments first
named had sunk into our souls and become
incorporated with our intellectual being, presto!
another set of sentiments were hurled at us
with so much precision and force as to leave us
prostrate and bemuddled. Thus, according to
the Cogers, Ireland was unhappy, not for the
reasons given by other Cogers, but from causes
familiar to the Cogers speaking now, and so
on through the subjects dealt with. A sub-
spicing of personality lent flavour to the
proceedings, and there could not be a doubt that
each individual Coger had the keenest delight
in hearing himself speak. We will go further,
and say that the speeches were very much above
the average of those served out by many British
senators to their constituents, and that some of
them contained passages of true eloquence,
overlaid and spoilt, it may be, by wordiness, but
appealing directly to those addressed, and showing
a fair comprehension of the subject dealt with.
To say that no one was convinced by his neighbour's
reasoning is but to repeat the stale
sarcasm of the government-whip, who never, in
all his experience, knew a speech, however
powerful, change a single vote on the division
list. There were prejudiced speeches, and a
few, not many, grossly ignorant speeches;
there were rather rabid speeches, and speeches
which were self-contradictory. But the staple
of the evening's entertainment was healthy
and sound. There was a rough-and-ready, cut-
and-thrust style about many of the remarks
which savoured of the platform, and would
be invaluable on the hustings, and a dogmatism
which would have done credit to a county
bench. But in no case did a speaker flag for
lack of words. There was none of that
painful stammering, that morbid affection of
the throat, that restless shifting from leg to
leg, that nervous fidgetiness of hands and
buttons, that deliberate dying out from
inanition, which distinguish the oratory of so
many English gentlemen. What the Cogers
have to say they say out like men. The ideas
may be sometimes feeble, but the language
never is; aspirates may be occasionally dropped,
but the thread of the discourse is always held.
It is my happiness to number many ex-members
of both universities among my friends, and to
have frequently been with them when a brief
speech has been necessary — a few words to an
expectant tenantry, an improvised address to
the schoolchildren of a parish, a resolution
to be brought forward at a public meeting,
or the proposal of a friend's health at a local
dinner; and, with scarcely one exception, the
English language has suffered terribly at their
hands. Why should this be? It is no
disparagement to the Cogers to say that the bulk
of them have not had a tithe of the educational
advantages enjoyed by the people I name. The
wooden pencil and round-topped scissors peeping
from the left side waistcoat-pocket of the
fiery young liberal who has just sat down,
proclaim him a draper's assistant; the ponderous
knuckles and creased and rather dirty hands
of the listener in hob-nails, together with his
well-worn corduroys and flannels, show that his
" 'ear, 'ear" (followed by a relishing whisper to a
neighbour, "That's right, ain't it?") proceeds
from a man engaged on manual labour; and we
judge by the dress, demeanour, and appearance
of the foxy little person who came in without
his hat, and who throughout the evening moves
upon his chair as if ready to burst forth with
indignant interruption, but who, when his turn
comes, speaks with moderation and good sense,
that he is a master-tradesman in the
neighbourhood. As for the young barristers and the
literary gentlemen, we are bound to say that
there was nothing to distinguish their oratory
from that of the rest of the room. Indeed, all
the members of the latter class were pointed
out to us as so extremely eminent that they
rather disappointed our expectations. But even
including these gentlemen in our estimate, there
is nothing to show that they are not, like the rest
of the room, self-taught orators, and that the
fluency possessed by the Cogers might not be