took place was of the most tremendous character, and the hall, in every available part, became filled to overflowing, in a few minutes. But, notwithstanding this, no perceptible diminution was made in the crowd outside, and, at half-past six, there were thousands of well-dressed persons struggling to get in, despite the placards exhibited, announcing the hall to be "quite full."

The policemen and hall-keepers were powerless to contend against this immense crowd, who ultimately filled the spacious corridors and staircases leading to the hall, still leaving a prodigious multitude both in the Strand and Burleigh street. At ten minutes before seven o'clock, Mr. Scott, the city chamberlain, and the chairman of the meeting, accompanied by a large body of the committee of the Emancipation Society, arrived, but were unable to make their way through the crowd, and a messenger was dispatched to the Bow street police station, for an extra body of police. About thirty of the reserve men were immediately sent, and these, aided by the men already on duty, at last succeeded in forcing a passage for the chairman and his friends. Mr. Beecher at this time arrived, but was himself unable to gain admittance to the hall until a quarter of an hour after the time appointed for the commencement of his address. The reverend gentleman bore his detention in the crowd with great good humor, and was received. with a perfect ovation, the crowd pressing forward in all directions to shake hands with him. He was at last fairly carried into the hall on the shoulders of the policemen, and the doors of the hall were at once closed and guarded by a body of police, who distinctly announced that no more persons would be admitted, whether holding tickets or not. This had the effect of thinning to some extent the throng outside, but thousands yet remained there, eager to seize any chance for admission that arose.

At a quarter-past seven o'clock, a tremendous burst of cheering from within the building, plainly proclaimed that Mr.

Beecher had made his appearance on the platform. The cheering was taken up by the outsiders, and re-echoed again and again. The bulk of the crowd had now congregated in Burleigh street, which was completely filled, and loud cries were raised for some members of the emancipation committee to address them, but the call was not responded to. Several impromptu speakers, mounted upon the shoulders of some workingmen and addressed the people in favor of the policy of the federal government, their remarks being received with loud cheering from the large majority of those present.

One or two speakers raised their voices in opposition to the views which had been advocated by Mr. Beecher, but they were speedily dislodged from their position by the mass of the crowd, whose sympathies were thus unmistakably exhibited. Every burst of cheering that resounded from within the hall was taken up and as heartily responded to by those outside. This scene continued without intermission, until the close of the meeting. When Mr. Beecher and his friends issued from the hall, they were again received with loud cheers; and, a call being made for a cheer for Abraham Lincoln, a response went up from thousands of voices, like the noise of many waters, deep answering unto deep. A strong body of police were sta tioned in the Strand and Burleigh street, but no breach of the peace occurred calling for their interference.

In this London speech, Mr. Beecher gave a passing résumé of his discussions of the American question during the last few weeks: At Manchester, he attempted to give the history of the external political movements for fifty years past, so far as was necessary to elucidate the fact that the war was only an overt form of the contest between liberty and slavery which had been going on politically for half a century. At Glasgow, he undertook to show that the condition of work and labor necessitated by any profitable system of slavery was, that it brought labor into contempt, affixing to it the badge of deg

radation, and that the struggle to extend servile labor across the American continent interested every free workingman on the face of the globe-the southern cause being the natural enemy of free labor and the laborer all over the world. In Edinburgh, he endeavored to sketch how, out of separate colonies and states, intensely jealous of their individual sovereignty, there grew up a nation, and how in that nation of the United States there grew up two distinct and antagonistic systems of development, striving for the possession of government and for the control of the national policy, in which the north gained the control, and that the south joined the Union simply and only because it believed the government would be in the hands of men who would give their whole influence against the cause of freedom. In Liverpool, he labored to show that slavery was, in the long run, hostile to commerce and manufactures all the world over, as it was to every other interest of human society; that a slave nation must be a poor customer, buying the smallest quantity and the poorest goods, at the lowest profit, and that the interest of every manufacturing nation was to promote freedom, intelligence, and wealth, among all nations; and that the attempt to cover the fairest portion of the earth with a slave population which buys nothing, and a degraded white population which buys next to nothing, should array every political economist, every far-seeing manufacturer, against it, as striking at the vital interest of the manufacturer, not by want of cotton, but by want of customers.

From beginning to ending, the orator's address was a clear, forcible, and thoroughly earnest exposition of the principles underlying the great conflict, the course of policy that led to it, and the tremendous issues at stake in its decision. Many of the points specially dwelt upon-such as the legal position of slavery in the South under the constitution, as a state and not a Union question, a matter of local jurisdiction, with which the national government had nothing to do-were presented

by Mr. Beecher with such happy illustrations, accurate logic, and fervent zeal, as to render them more broadly intelligible to the popular mind than ever they had been made before, and showed the orator to be not only a practiced and powerful speaker, but remarkably skilled in the management of large audiences, so that, by a happy mixture of sterling sense, good humor, and downright earnestness, combined with a rare talent for effective retort, he succeeded in carrying his entire audience, foes as well as friends, along with him.

As an instance of the speaker's last named faculty, nothing could be more apposite than his plump and dexterous retort to an indignation cry from some one in the audience about the fêting of the Russian naval officers at New York,-Mr. Beecher's sarcasm at the attentions paid by the English to Mr. Mason, the southern commissioner, being in his best vein. "A gentleman asks me," said Mr. Beecher, "to say a word about the Russians. [Hear, hear.] Well, what about the Russians in New York harbor? [Cheers.] The fact is, that that is a little piece of coquetry. Don't you know that when a woman thinks her suitor is not attentive enough, she picks out another, and flirts with him in her lover's face? Well, New York is in the same way flirting with Russia at this moment, but she has her eye on Russia, you may depend. [Hear.] When I hear men say, this is a piece of national folly, which is not becoming in a people reputed wise and under the solemn circumstances in which America is now placed; when I hear it said, that while Russia is actually crgaged in treading down the liberties of Poland-[Hear, hear,]-it is not even decent of a free country like the Northern States of America to make believe to flirt with her [Hear, hear, and "That is true,"]well, I think so too, and now you know how we felt when you flirted with Mason at your Lord Mayor's banquet!"

Mr. Beecher's justification of the president's proclamation of emancipation, as at once a war necessity and a philanthropic

cussion of the whole round of points in American affairs which the British found it most difficult to understand. That the address excited a prodigious degree of attention in Great Britain was evident on all sides. Its great effectiveness consisted in its being an American's presentation of the American question, and never before did an orator make such triumphant use of his opportunity. There had been symptoms of an attempt to pack the meeting-if possible to fill the hall with an opposition which should prevent a hearing for the speaker, or at least disturb

him by unmannerly interruptions as at Liverpool. To this end, the walls of the city were placarded with enormous posters, designed to excite ill feeling against Mr. Beecher, and hand-bills of a similar character were distributed to all who entered the hall. But all such effort to disparage the speaker with his audience was entirely overwhelmed, chiefly by the hearty enthusiasm with which he was greeted by the great majority, while his good nature, fine tact, resoluteness, and easy address, quite conquered the remaining malcontents and reduced them to silence.