The Lord of the Sea | Page 7

whose fist struck with a regular, heavy emphasis. After ten minutes, when he began to be heard, he was saying:
"...Sir Bennett Beaumont! Is he the sort of man you'd send to represent you? (Cries of: "Yes!") What is he?--ask yourselves the question: a fossilized Tory, a man who's about as much idea of progress as a mummy--people actually say he's got a collection of mummies in his grand fashionable mansion at Aylesham, and it's only what we should expect of him. (Cheers, and cries of: "Oh, oh!") And what has he ever done for East Norfolk? Gentlemen, you may say as you like about Jews--Jews this, and Jews that--and every man has a right to his opinion in this land of glorious Saxon liberty--but no one can deny that it's Jews who know how to make the money. (Cheers and hisses.) They know how to make it for themselves (hisses)--and, yes, they know how to make it for the nation! (Loud triumph of cheers.) That's_ the point--_that touches the spot! (Cries of: "Oh, oh!") Righteousness, it is said, exalteth a nation: well, so do Jews--"
"That is false", said a voice--Hogarth, who had stood up.
The words were the signal for a shower of cheers swept by gusts of hisses; and immediately one region of the pit was seen to be a scrimmage of fisticuffs, mixed with policemen, sticks, savage faces, and bent backs; while the two galleries, craning to see, bellowed like Bashan.
Moses Max was leaning wildly, gesticulating, with shouts; while Loveday, who had turned pale on Hogarth's rising, touched Hogarth's coat-tail, whereupon Hogarth, stooping to his ear, shouted: "We will have some fun..."
"The paid agents of Beaumont!" now shouted Moses Max; "sent to disturb our meeting! Englishmen! will you submit to this? The nation shall hear--"
At that point Moses Max, in his gesticulation, happening to touch a switch in the platform-rail, out glowered into darkness every light at that end of the hall: at which thing the audience was thrown into a state of boisterous lawlessness, a tumult reigning in the gloom like the constant voice of Niagara, until suddenly the platform was again lit up, and the uproar lulled.
And now again Moses Max was prone to speak, with lifted fist; but before ever he could utter one single word, a voice was ringing through the Assembly Rooms:
"Where was Moses when the light went out?"
This again was Hogarth; and it ended Moses Max for that night.
Hogarth had not sat since he had called out "That is false": his tall figure was recognized; and, with that electric spontaneity of crowds, he was straightway the leader of the meeting, men darting from their seats with waving hats, sticks, arms, and vociferous mouth, the chairman half standing, with a shivering finger directed upon Hogarth, shrieking to the police: but too late--Hogarth had brushed past Loveday's knees--was dashing for the crowded platformsteps --was picking his way, stumbling, darting up them.
Crumpled in his hand was a Pearson's Weekly.
Now he is to the front--near Frankl.
"Friends! I have ventured to take the place of our friend, Moses, here--no ill-will to him--for with respect to the question before us, whether we elect Beaumont or Max, I care, I confess, little. I'm rather an Anti-Jew myself (hissing and cheers), but it strikes me that the Jews are the least of our trouble. To a man who said to me that the cause of all our evil days is the inability of England to feed these few million Jews I'd answer: "I don't know how you can be so silly!" Why, the whole human race, friends, can find room on the Isle of Wight--the earth laughs at the insignificant drawings upon her made by the small infantry called Man. Then, why do we suffer, friends? We do suffer, I suppose? I was once at Paris, and at a place called 'the Morgue' I saw exposed young men with wounded temples, and girls with dead mouths twisted, and innocent old women drowned; and there must be a biggish cry, you know, rising each night from the universal earth, accusing some hoary fault in the way men live together! What is the fault? If you ask me, I answer that I am only a common smith: _I_ don't know: but I know this about the fault, that it is something simple, commonplace, yet deep-seated, or we should all see it; but it is hidden from us by its very?ordinariness, like the sun which men seldom look at. It must be so. And shall we never find the time to think of it? Or will never some grand man, mighty as a garrison, owning eyes that know the glances of Truth, arise to see for us? Friends! but, lacking him, what shall we do to be saved?--for truly this 'civilization' of ours is