John Morrison Davidson

“ In the third place, it is not the part of a good Radical, as Mr. Mundella seems to think, implicitly to follow the multitude, even if the multitude consist of one's constituents. There is a following of the multitude to do evil which the true Radical will resist, when necessary, at all hazards, in the interest of the people themselves. When great principles are at stake, the genuine Radical must ever be ready to go out into the wilderness, if need be, alone. ”

“ No sooner was the Nottingham method of settling trade disputes by arbitration recognized as feasible, than Mr. Mundella, as its author, was invited by many towns, and, among others, by Sheffield, to give popular expositions of his system. Sheffield had suffered many things at the hands of Broadhead and his infamous crew; and so pleased was the cream of the working-men with the prospect of escape from the vicious circle in which they were involved, that, in 1868, they invited the chairman of the Nottingham board to come forward as their candidate. ”

“ Mundella climbed the ladder steadily and skilfully, and it cannot be said of him that when he got to the summnit he forgot the condition of the less fortunate toilers whom he left below. On the contrary, no working-man in England has striven more earnestly or intelligently for the elevation of the mass than the member from Sheffield, as a bare enumeration of his political and legislative res gestæ will readily show. ”

“ Add to this that his energy is irrepressible; that he is not afflicted, to put it mildly, with mock modesty; that he represents, on pure principles, a constituency which is pre-eminently the most rascally in England; that he is, withal, fundamentally an able and honest politician, justly regarded by the working-class as one of its greatest benefactors, and it will readily be admitted that first impressions of such a man are apt to be erroneous. ”

“ Cooper, in his interesting "Autobiography," published in 1872, gives us a vivid glimpse of the adolescent representative of Sheffield: "I had been appealing strongly one evening to the patriotic feelings of young Englishmen, mentioning the names of Hampden, Sydney, and Marvell, and eulogizing the grand spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice which characterized so many of our brave forerunners, when a handsome young man sprang upon our little platform, and declared himself on the people's side, and desired to be enrolled as a Chartist. ”

“ Mundella may be known by the surest of all tests,—by his "fruits." I shall merely premise, before recounting the leading facts of his career, that it would have, perhaps, been better to classify' the member for Sheffield as an eminent Democrat rather than as an eminent Radical. He is emphatically a man of the people, rightly or wrongly feeling as they feel, thinking as they think ”

“ Mundella has likewise a curious disposition to adorn his conversation with quite unnecessary allusions to the opinions of "lords" and other great people of his acquaintance, who are intellectually greatly his inferiors. In aristocracy -ridden England this is nearly always a marked trait of the self-made man. ”

“ The presidency of the United States costs fifty thousand dollars a year; and no impartial observer has ever yet affirmed that the simple courtesies and hospitalities of the White House compare unfavorably with the ridiculous tomfooleries of the Court of St. ”