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LIFE OF COBDEN, fomar:

1843. gone from words to blows, as the American slaveholder®
ar. 89. afterwards did when their peculiar institution was touched:
One reason why ine shock, when it came, was accepted
without disorder, was that the League had succeeded it
thoroughly loosening, if not in overthrowing, the prejudices of
those who expected to be immediately ruined by the change
The discussion was usually conducted in a fair and manly
spirit on both sides. The speakers for the League told their
hearers that they did not wish to say anything personally
offensive to anybody ; that they were simply anxious that what
was true on the subject of protection should be discovered;
and that they gave the gentlemen in the opposition waggo?
credit for anxiety to do the same thing. As a rule, thing?
were conducted with order and good temper. Land agents
valuers, and auctioneers were angrier disputants than either
farmers or squires. At Dorchester there was an attempt
fo storm the hustings, but the Leaguers were prepared, and
a stout party of their friends, aided by the labourers, repulsed
the attack. At Canterbury, where the canse of protection
was advocated oddly enough by Mr. G. P. R. James, the
renowned novelist, one or two corn-factors insulted Cobden
and Mr. Bright, and there was some uplifting of sticks:
There were occasional threats of violence, tossing in 2
blanket, and so forth, beforehand. But when the time came:
all passed off peaceably.
Farmers who were afraid of attending meetings in their
own immediate district, used to travel thirty or forty miles
to places where they could listen to the speakers without
being known. Enemies came to the meetings, and begat
bo take notes in a very confident spirit, but as the arguments
became too strong for them, the pencil was laid aside. and

3 When a visit from Mr. Bright was announced at Alnwick, the Newcastl
Journal had & most brutal paragraph to the effect that some stalwsvt
yeoman should take the matter into his hada,