Page "William Ewart Gladstone" Paragraph 55

When Mr Gladstone visited the North, you well remember when word passed from the newspaper to the workman that it circulated through mines and mills, factories and workshops, and they came out to greet the only British minister who ever gave the English people a right because it was just they should have it ... and when he went down the Tyne, all the country heard how twenty miles of banks were lined with people who came to greet him.

Men stood in the blaze of chimneys ; the roofs of factories were crowded ; colliers came up from the mines ; women held up their children on the banks that it might be said in after life that they had seen the Chancellor of the People go by.

The river was covered like the land.

Every man who could ply an oar pulled up to give Mr Gladstone a cheer.

When Lord Palmerston went to Bradford the streets were still, and working men imposed silence upon themselves.

When Mr Gladstone appeared on the Tyne he heard cheer no other English minister ever heard ... the people were grateful to him, and rough pitmen who never approached a public man before, pressed round his carriage by thousands ... and thousands of arms were stretched out at once, to shake hands with Mr Gladstone as one of themselves.