“A Hand to Shake.”

THERE is nothing more unpardonable, as a general rule, than a spirit of egotism. There are, however, occasions when a man may be excused if he ventures to talk a little about himself. When the town in which he lives has been ringing for three weeks with the most clamorous invectives against him, when the vocabulary of hard names has been exhausted in speaking of him; when public dinner tables have resounded with vituperation respecting him; when he has been the theme of reviling in the Exchange, in the club-room, in the warehouse, and in public places of resort; when anonymous inuendos have been cast at him in many of the numbers of the daily press; when the weekly papers have sought to enlarge their very limited circulation by falsely trading with his name; when the walls and print-shop doors are garnished with hand-bills, in

which his name is used to draw attention, to coarse and unworthy libels; when that name again is hooted out by every shrillvoiced brat upon the railway platform who hawks the pennyworth of Billingsgate up and down; when it is bawled out by dirty ragamuffins into the omnibuses as they stand at the Exchange, or halt at the corners of the streets; when it is carried about upon a yellow bill hung before the apron of the old gentleman who sells the newspapers at the corner of Brownstreet, like a poor man's plaister; when, in short, he has been the subject of oaths from every exquisite in town, and of haughty abuse from the presidental chair of gymnastic meetings; when each post brings to him some fresh tirade of menace reviling, and when ignorant scribblers, from "Junius" up to an "F.R.A.S." from Rochdale, are busy with their " permanent pamphlets," and their temporary "exposures,"I say when a man has been dragged forth into such notoriety as this, he may well be excused if he should go out of his way to say a word or two about himself, when occasion is afforded.

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It is not my intention, however, to-day unduly to avail myself of this opportunity. My object is conciliation without concession. I have nothing to retract, nothing to contradict, nothing of which I am ashamed. But I want to hold out to my revilers a hand to shake; and I think I can show good grounds wherefore they should take it. It has been a complaint against me that I have employed strong language, and made false statements, concerning the rifle movement. That language and those statements I am prepared to vindicate elsewhere, and at another time. But, admitting, for the time being, the whole charge against me, allowing every word I spoke to be unjustifiable, and every statement I made to be a falsehood, I submit that it is high time I and my revilers shook hands, since for every stone I threw I have received a shower of mire in return, and for every misstatement I might have made concerning the volunteers, a dozen falsehoods have been volunteered about me.

The account between us, therefore,

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might reasonably be regarded as settled, and in all fairness we may cry quits." I think every true gentleman will see at once that as far as these lectures are concerned, it would be beside the mark for me to attempt to enter into an elaborate self-defence, and that my proposal to shake hands is neither an unkind nor an unjust one. In what I have said about a movement, I have said nothing personal to any particular individual, while all that has been said upon the other side has necessarily been of a personal nature. It is an easy thing to attack the nation, as every radical reformer knows; and it may generally be done with impunity, because the nation seldom deems it worth while to retaliate. I, however, have reckoned without my host. I thought to attack the nation with impunity, but I have raised the nation up in arms against me. nation, as represented by the Manchester Guardian, the Courier, the Advertiser, Junius, and Mr. Mellor, F. R. A. S., of Bamford, near Rochdale, have said some very hard as well as some very soft things about me. They have sought to rifle me of my good name, in order to "put money in their purse." Well, they are welcome. The nation is welcome to get rich at my expense. And I am very anxious to make friends with the nation; so I cordially offer it "a hand to shake." I should be delighted to be introduced to Mr. Mellor, F. R. A. S., of Bamford, near Rochdale, and I would try to convince him that I understand Lindley Murray as well as he does, and that my grammar, which he criticises so severely, is perfectly accurate. I don't suppose anybody knows Junius, or ever will. He was always a mysterious personage, and always remarkable for having no rival until he attacked a parson, and met his match in the person of the Rev. J. H. Tooke. But as most probably "Junius Junior" has never read a line of Junius Senior, and possibly does not know him from an auctioneer or a cheap jack, it is only falling into the wasteful expenditure of the man who cast pearls before swine to make any allusions (as far as the Junior Junius is concerned) to the

Great Unknown whose illustrious incognito he adopts. Still I am anxious to stretch out a hand to Junius Junior. I can wash my own after having fraternised with him. A little soap and water would soon sweeten the palm thus contaminated. I am also anxious (sincerely and truly anxious) to extend a hand to the members of the Rifle Volunteer Corps, a corps which I know includes within it many of the most highly respectable men of our city,-a corps which enrols many brave and truehearted gentlemen upon its list of members. To those gentlemen I distinctly say, I would be the last to cast any unseemly insinuations upon them. I have never intentionally spoken one word calculated to reflect upon them. A true gentleman is too great a rarity in this plebeian age-this age of upstarts and puppies-to be treated with indignity or gratuitously to be insulted; and I am certain that no ingenuity-apart from wilful malice-can interpret anything I have spoken or written into an attack upon them. The head and front of my offending appears to be that I have boldly stated that I do not like the spirit in which the rifle movement was originally carried out ; and the exclusive favouritism which was shewn; and, in spite of Captain Callender's public contradiction, I intend, when time and place suit, publicly to substantiate what I said. Then I am accused of applying such terms as "spaniels," "puppies," and "poltroons" to members of the Rifle Corps. This is said to be language unworthy of a Christian minister, and unworthy to be spoken on the Sabbath day. This is a very easy and convenient way of assailing facts. I do not consider the truth at all unworthy of a minister; and if he can state that truth in language which will leave its impress, so much the better. I say again that no language is too strong to apply to the cowardly and un-English spirit shewn by many of these men of whom I speak towards myself. The conduct of many of the Volunteers, the kindly and conciliatory way in which they have spoken both to myself and to my friends concerning me, does indeed make me regret, to some extent, that I did not

more carefully discriminate between the class of men to whom my expletives applied. I have been disarmed far more by conciliation than by opposition; and I am sincerely sorry if one true gentleman has felt aggrieved by anything I may have said. But I have received abundant proofs within the last three weeks that when I spoke of some of these uniformed fellows whom we see swaggering about our streets, and reeling against the warehouse walls upon a Saturday afternoon a few hours after drill, as poodles and spaniels, and all the rest of it, I did not misapply the language. I would ask the respectable portion of the Rifle Corps whether such terms are inappropriate to men who insult gentlemen in the public street? I would ask, does it accord with the manly and soldierly spirit of a British Volunteer to coarsely offer outrage to the feelings of a lady, by abusing the companion with whom she happened to be associated ? Is not that man a poltroon who so far forgets what is due to common decency as to offer a mean and contemptible affront to a gentleman in a public dining room? Yet to all these outrages I have been subjected, from men avowing themselves members of the Rifle Corps of Manchester. I have received manly letters about pulling of noses, and horsewhippings, and kickings, and every other piece of brutal resentment to which the coarsest blackguard could resort. I have been insulted in letters, I have been insulted in the streets, I have been insulted in dining rooms. Yes, members of the Manchester Volunteers, and these base insults have come from men wearing your uniform! And for what? For daring to tell the truth concerning many of I have told you that a lady was subjected to such insult also, by one of these brave defenders of their country. But as that lady was under my protection at the time, I can assure you that the outrage was not unresented. There are creatures even amongst the noble volunteers, who are not too mean to vent their threats of violence upon me because they think my profession will protect them from retaliation; but only let

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