Thorne Guy
The Great Acceptance: The Life Story of F. N. Charrington
"On one occasion, Mr. Charles Herrendeen, of Chicago, with his wife and son, came to the hall. He is a well-known millionaire and philanthropist. They sat upon the platform during the entire service! A handful of gold was afterwards found in the collection plate, which was rather unusual. He was a personal friend of mine, having been trustee of a church of which I was pastor in Chicago. He was perfectly amazed with the enormity of the work, and said that he believed that 'God was nearer to the work of the Great Assembly Hall than any portion of His work throughout the kingdom.'
"Another time, J. L. Campbell, another famous preacher, visited the hall during the evening of the day on which King Edward was crowned, and listened to the discourse that was delivered by his friend. He sat upon the platform with his face beaming with joy. He said as he left, that he believed 'God Almighty smiled as much upon that service as He did upon that which was held in Westminster Abbey at the coronation of the king.'
"At another time, Mr. Brown, the great wholesale bootmaker, who resides in St. Louis, became greatly interested in the whole work, and particularly with the boy Jack Cook, who held several missions in the great hall. He adopted him and sent him to a school, and generally fitted him out for his life's work. When he had attended his first service and listened to all the enthusiasm that emanated from the lips of Mr. Charrington and the boy preacher of the evening, he said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place. Surely this is the gate of Heaven!'
"I remember one night that a man, who was a great drunkard, came in at the request of Mr. Charrington, and promised that he would come back again the next night, which he did. Finally, after his conversion, through his zeal and eagerness he became one of the leading officials of the mission, and chairman of the Board of Deacons. He bore the testimony that it was not anything that he had heard at that meeting that made the profound impression upon him, but the extraordinary personality of Mr. Charrington, who took him by the hand, and led him to the place of worship, and to the Saviour of the world. He said, 'I shall never forget the handshake of the great man of God, who invited me to prayer with him.'
"Another millionaire from America, in attending service at the Great Assembly Hall recently, said, 'We have most of the biggest things in the world in America, but we have got no place anywhere in our country for the benefit of humanity like this.'
"Yet another American visited the hall when I was conducting my yearly mission, and took the march through the streets, and witnessed the seven hundred poor enjoying a bountiful meal, and remained to the evening service. Upon leaving, he said, 'I have travelled into different parts of the world, and I confess I have never seen anything like this at home, or abroad. It is a great need handled in a Christly way.'
"And I myself have for twelve successive summers preached during the month of August, and I have no hesitation in saying that this is the greatest field I know of on earth for sociological study, and for Christian service. Here sin is rampant, and here Grace is having the victory, 'For where sin abounds, Grace doth much more abound.'"
There have been very many preachers, of course, during the long life of the Great Assembly Hall. It would be almost impossible to mention them by name, and perhaps invidious also. But Mr. Charrington has been, especially of late years, much indebted to the Evangelisation Society, who have sent him many of their most powerful preachers.
All these preachers have given due testimony in their time and place, not only to the good that they are able to do to others by their mission under Mr. Charrington's direction, but also to the spiritual good that has resulted to themselves, and to that feeling of "home," that sense of companionship and union, which will never leave them when they think of the vast building, and those who worked there so nobly and so long.
It is absolutely impossible, and it is outside the scope of this book, to go into any details of the thousands and thousands of people, living and dead, who have been led from a life of wretchedness and sin to happiness and peace. Of the thousands and thousands of people who have been materially assisted, I can only speak, generally, a little later on. These facts, however, are evident in every line of this biography. What I have not hitherto insisted upon, but which, nevertheless, is a curious and interesting fact, is that the Tower Hamlets Mission, which centres in the Great Assembly Hall, has always been an aristocratic Mission.
Charrington himself has never sought publicity. He has lived a very humble and quiet life, scarcely known personally outside the East End of London, and even during late years, since the beautiful island of Osea has passed into his possession and he has a noble country house there, he has by no means lived constantly upon the Island. He is firm as ever in his devotion to the East End, and his visits to Osea are only occasional. And yet, though Mr. Charrington is so little personally known, his institution of "The Great Assembly Hall" is known the world over. He is known by his works, "his works do follow him." He has never gone beyond his work.
This is an undoubted fact. And yet, throughout his whole labours, he has been supported by some of the leading people of the country. Except in cases of very rare and intimate friendship, such as that with the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, and the Earl of Kintore, his father – with a few others – Mr. Charrington has always refused to enter into the social life of the great people who have shared his Christian life and helped in his Christian work. One memorable visit to "Broadlands," the seat of Lord Mount Temple near Romsey, deserves mention. Among the guests were the great Lord Shaftesbury and the late Mr. Wyndham Portal, then Chairman of the South Eastern Railway. Mr. Portal told Mr. Charrington that he had often played billiards with Lord Palmerston, who on returning from the House of Lords – generally at a very late hour – always played a game.
The billiard room at "Broadlands" was preserved exactly as Lord Palmerston had left it when he played his last game there. This, of course, was a private visit, but Mr. Charrington afterwards attended a religious conference held at the house. Men of all shades of opinion were present, and Mr. Charrington spoke on the same day as Canon Body.
He is not unsocial, however – you have a pen-picture of the man as he is in the last chapter of this book. It is simply that he cannot, will not, spare a minute from active good works in the East End. Yet it would be wrong of me, as his biographer, if I did not draw attention to the support he has had, and this is a fitting place in which to do it.
I certainly ought to mention the late Lady Ashburton. This lady, famous in her lifetime for her good deeds, was always a patron of Mr. Charrington's work. In 1881 she paid the whole expense of taking two thousand five hundred members and friends of the Great Assembly Hall to Southend-on-Sea, and at the time of the Battle of the Music Halls she bore all the expense of the Rescue Home for Girls, besides giving large donations to the work.
It was when present at the opening of a beautiful hall which Lady Ashburton built at Canning Town, that Mr. Charrington first met the late Duchess of Teck. After the proceedings, the Duchess turned to the Marquis of Northampton, and said, in that breezy and genial way, for which she was so well known, "But where is Mr. Charrington? No one has introduced me to Mr. Charrington! I must see Mr. Charrington. Please bring him to me."
Mr. Charrington had the honour of being presented to the Duchess, who was accompanied by the then Princess May, now Queen of England, and had a most interesting conversation with the royal couple.
Subsequently the Duchess and the Princess visited the Great Assembly Hall, accompanied by Lord Dorchester, and were shown over that noble building.
It is interesting to note that our beloved Queen Mary has herself stood in that great East End centre of sweetness and life. It is more interesting still to record that King George himself gave the first of those regular "feedings of the hungry," which have continued without intermission every Sunday for so many years, and have literally saved people from actual starvation, time after time.
A good deal has been said in this book about the late Earl of Shaftesbury – the good Earl, as he was known to every one. The present Earl of Shaftesbury, Chamberlain to the Queen, has continued his predecessor's interest in the work of the Great Assembly Hall. As many people know, Lord Shaftesbury has a very beautiful voice – indeed, an enterprising American syndicate once offered him a thousand pounds a night to go to the United States and sing in public!! It is needless to say that this offer was refused, but in interesting contrast to it is the fact that Lord Shaftesbury one night came to the Great Assembly Hall from the West End during a furious tempest which would have deterred nine men out of ten, and sang "The Star of Bethlehem," and an excerpt from "Elijah," to the poor people who were being fed at the time.
I wish I could recount the innumerable incidents which have occurred when great or famous people have visited the hall. It is impossible to do so, however, for they in themselves would make another book. But, as showing the extent of the help Mr. Charrington has been able to command, I will at least give a list of famous names – a list for which I recently wrote to the secretary of the Mission, Mr. Edwin H. Kerwin.
Such names as these have a definite weight, which is the sole reason why I give them.
H.R.H. Princess Mary, Duchess of Teck; H.R.H. Princess May, Duchess of York (now Queen Mary); The Duchess of Bedford, The Duchess of Sutherland, The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Shaftesbury; Louisa, Lady Ashburton; Lord Radstock, Lady Radstock, The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, Lady Hobart, Hon. Hamilton Tollemache, The Earl of Kintore, Hon. Granville Waldegrave, Lady Beauchamp, Lady Blanche Keith-Falconer, Sir R. Beauchamp, The Earl of Aberdeen, Lady Rosslyn, The Hon. E. Waldegrave, Princess Lina and Olga Galitzin, The Countess of Warwick, Lady Eva Grenville, Hon. A. Ayrton, Count A. Bernstorff (Berlin), Princess Alexander Paschkoff, The Duke and Duchess of Westminster, Prince Oscar of Sweden and Norway, The Baroness Burdett-Coutts, The Countess of Seafield (Georgina), Lady Henry Somerset, Baroness Langenan, Lord Esme Gordon, Prince Galitzin, Lady Hope, Lord and Lady Carrington, The Earl of Westmoreland, Hon. G. Kinnaird, Hon. Emily Kinnaird, Hon. Elizabeth Kinnaird, Lord Kinnaird, Hon. Mary Waldegrave, Sir Arthur Blackwood, The Earl and the Countess of Dudley, The Countess Amherst, The Countess of Portsmouth, Sir George Williams, Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox, The Marchioness of Ripon, Lady Gray, Sir George Cooper, Bart., Julia, Marchioness of Tweedale, Dowager Countess of Warwick, The Hon. Harry Lawson, Lady Cooper, Lady Rookwood, Lady Brownlow Cecil, The Viscountess Dupplin, The Hon. Randolph Adderley, Lord Brabazon, Lord Rosebery, K.G., Lady Macnaughton, Lady Warren, Lord Rothschild, Lord Beresford, Lord Coleridge, Q.C.; Lady Pullar, Lady Ernestine Bruce, Lady Mary Lawson, Count Paschoff (Berlin), Sir James Whitehead, Bart., Sir Wilfred Lawson, Bart., Sir James Anderson, Bart.; The Hon. Montagu Waldegrave, The Hon. F. Bridgeman, M.P.; Sir John Pullar, Major-Lieut. Sir Charles Warren, Rev. Canon Wilberforce.
I will also add that one of the most munificent of Mr. Charrington's millionaire supporters was the late Mr. John Cory. He gave Mr. Charrington two hundred a year as a regular thing. In addition to that, from time to time he bestowed large sums upon the Mission entirely independent of his yearly subscription. Shortly before his death he sent Mr. Charrington a cheque for a thousand pounds to cover the expense of the village hall on Osea Island, and, when recently staying with Sir Clifford Cory, Bart., Mr. Charrington ascertained from him the fact that his father gave away in charity nearly a thousand pounds each week!
Yet Mr. Charrington has found that the millionaires of to-day are not nearly so ready with their cheques as those of the past. The great growth of material comfort, the increasing love of magnificence and splendour, seems indeed to have deafened the ears of the very rich to the piteous cry of the starving poor in the East End. If only this book awakens some of those so abundantly blessed with riches to what has been done, and is being done, by Mr. Charrington, then its publication will indeed be blessed.
Did not the late Lord Shaftesbury say – and is it not true to-day? – "This is a great and mighty work. I can only say that I rejoice to think that such a work as this is to be extended, and well does our friend Charrington deserve it. No man living, in my estimation, is more worthy of success for the devotion of his heart, the perseverance of his character, the magnificence of his object, and the way in which he has laboured, by day and night, until he has completed this great issue."
I went, a few weeks ago, during the time of the great dock strike of this year – 1912 – to see the actual feeding of the hungry in Mr. Charrington's hall. I wish I could have taken with me a dozen of the richest men in England. I defy the most flinty-hearted Dives in existence to see what I saw, and remain untouched.
And, remember, that what I saw has gone on regularly for a long space of time.
I arrived at the Great Assembly Hall just after lunch upon a Sunday. Outside the hall a uniformed band was gathering, and by it stood a large, portable hoarding, mounted upon a handcart, bearing the words, "The Great Assembly Hall," and inviting all and sundry to visit the hall that evening and attend the service.
Even at that early hour – the "feeding" was not to take place till two hours later – along the railings which border the small ornamental garden which forms an oasis in the roaring Mile End Road, and are immediately in front of the hall, a crowd of patient, silent men had formed a queue, extending for many yards, and shepherded by a couple of watching policemen. There they stood in line, men of all ages, from the very old to the mere lad, the faces of each one of them pinched and gashed with hunger. The eyes had a dull, hopeless stare, the weary figures in their rags expressed the utmost dejection in every curve.
The band started a stirring march, Mr. Charrington and I at its head, together with various other workers of the Mission, who distributed handbills of the evening service as we went along.
We marched a little way down the Mile End Road, and then we turned into some of the narrowest and most dreadful slums of London. In some of these slums the policemen have to patrol in couples for fear of aggression. At every door, at every window of these rookeries, were dozens upon dozens of faces, with the marks of drink and deep poverty upon them. Children swarmed everywhere like bees in a hive. And yet, among all that misery and destitution, it was most pathetic to see how many of them – the little girls especially – were as neatly dressed as their parents could manage, and how their shining hair was brushed and tied up with odds and ends of ribbons.
We passed a large group of young men openly gambling upon the pavement. We passed a little house where, not so very long before, two young men had entered at seven o'clock in the morning, and murdered an old woman who lived there for the sake of a few shillings. We passed innumerable drunken men, some of them fighting and quarrelling among themselves, and more than one drunken woman leaned, leering and nodding, against the wall of her house.
And yet, not a word was said against us. In no single instance, during that two hours' progress, was even an insult hurled at Mr. Charrington or his friends. On the contrary, people waved cheerily to him from upper windows, and he brandished the inevitable umbrella, which he carries as a sort of baton upon these occasions, with a merry greeting. The little children ran to him and hung to the tails of his frock-coat, proud to hold his hand, and to march with him at the head of the music. In streets where at least half of the population were known to the police, and were of the definitely criminal classes, there was nothing but welcome for the evangelist and his music. There was no preaching whatever. Now and again, where two or three foul, dark streets converged, the band stopped and played, very touchingly and sweetly, for it is composed of first-class instrumentalists, that beautiful hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light." That was all, though on all hands the eager helpers were distributing handbills and inviting everyone to come to the Great Hall in the evening.
We had started upon the last part of our march, after one of these halts, when a very drunken man came up to me, and thrust his arm through mine. He had not lost the power of his legs – at any rate with my assistance – and for half an hour or more he insisted on walking thus with me, by Mr. Charrington's side and at the head of the band, pouring out praises of the evangelist in a thick, but sufficiently intelligible voice! It was a curious experience – to me, at least – but it did not seem anything out of the way to my new friends. Suddenly the head of an old man protruded from an upper window, and a voice hailed Mr. Charrington in loud and friendly greeting.
"Who's your friend?" I asked, and when the answer came I looked with added interest, for every one who reads newspapers has heard of the old gentleman known as "Bill Onions," – that writer of curious doggerel verse, who has been imprisoned something like 480 times for drunkenness, and who, for many years now, has been a convinced teetotaler, and every year attends at the police court of his last conviction to receive the congratulations of the magistrate!
When we got back to the Great Assembly Hall the crowd of the hungry had enormously increased, as also had the attendant policemen. The gates leading into the smaller hall, where the feeding takes place, were opened, and the men filed in, shepherded by the policemen, and delivered their cards of admission.
I stood outside and watched, and it was explained to me that only a certain number of men – and women, in another hall which I did not see on this occasion – were able to feed each Sunday. I think the number is somewhat over seven hundred. But it always happens that a certain number of the tickets which have been distributed on the previous Sunday are not used. There are generally about twenty. The recipients may have got work, may have left London in search of it, or may, alas, have succumbed to their privations, and be where hunger can tear them no more, as was the case with one poor woman who came to the hall on a Sunday, and had her first meal for that day. On the following Monday and Tuesday it was afterwards ascertained that she had nothing whatever, and she died on the Wednesday.
This is known, and, in consequence, a large number of poor outcasts join the queue in the hope that there will be room for them.
When all the regular ticket-holders had been admitted, the tickets were counted, and, upon this occasion, it was found that some seventeen more invitations were available.
Seventeen men were counted off from the queue, their faces brightening with an inexpressible relief as they marched into the hall. But I never saw, in all my life, anything like the hopeless despair that came upon the faces of the large number of men who were left, who had waited for hours upon this single chance of a meal, and who must now disperse unsatisfied. It touched the very spring of tears, and stabbed the heart with a pain that cannot be forgotten. It was my first experience of anything of the sort, and it was at that moment that I began to realise – though only dimly, then – what Mr. Charrington was doing, and had been doing, for forty long years. The excellent lunch I had just had at my club in the West End seemed to turn to stone within me.
I have little space to devote to the actual meal. I shared it – it was good and sufficient. I sat upon the platform and saw the ravenous eagerness with which these poor men ate what they could. Many of them saved a crust or two and wrapped it in their handkerchiefs to make another meal later on. At the conclusion of the tea, a very short speech was made by a gentleman connected with the Mission, who had, in the past, nearly ruined himself with drink, but is now a happy and prosperous Christian, helping to uplift others. It was not a sensational speech, the emotions of the hungry were not worked up by rhetoric. It was a simple, heartfelt statement.
At the conclusion, more than twenty men of their own accord walked up to a little side table and signed the pledge. This goes on day by day in the Great Assembly Hall, and the percentage of those who keep their promise has been investigated! It is well over fifty per cent.!
Upon the evening of the next Sunday I attended the service in the great hall itself.
The enormous place was packed with people. The upper gallery of all was absolutely crowded by men, many of them in the last stages of destitution, all of them quiet, reverent, and attentive. I was told that a large number of them admitted, to use their own words, that they had "done time." Of the service itself I will say little. I have already quoted other opinions of such services. But, to me personally, who had never been present in my life at anything of the sort, the impression was wholly satisfying. The music was perfect. The singing was by a vast trained choir, the finest that can be heard in the East End of London. The enormous organ was assisted by a band as well as the singers. There was absolutely nothing sensational, nothing bizarre, nothing vulgar or in bad taste.
The gospel and the gospel only was preached. Any shibboleths would – personally – have repelled me. Nothing but the story of Jesus and His love for humanity was told. Mr. Charrington himself presided.
The preacher was my friend Mr. James B. Wookey, whose testimony to the work accomplished by the evangelist's powers is given in another part of this book.
I was sitting just behind him upon the high platform, surrounded by the Deacons and Choir. I could not see the preacher's face, but his voice, which went pealing out into the great Hall before me, reached my mind as well as my ears with every inflection and change of note. It was an occasion which I shall not easily forget. Here was a man preaching to an enormous number of people in the first place. No ordinary church would hold such a concourse. In the second place the congregation was unique. There were well-dressed and prosperous people not only upon the platform, but in the body of the Hall and first gallery, and stretching right away to the roof were hundreds upon hundreds of outcasts, the men and women for whom Society has no place – the down-trodden and despised.
To these Mr. Wookey addressed an appeal, couched in very simple language, yet it was his use of English which drove home in an extraordinary way.
If we think of it, the greatest effect in all appeals to the heart have been got by the use and arrangement of simple words. If one takes that triumph of the English language, Milton's Lycidas, it is extraordinary to notice how in the most tender and most beautiful lines the monosyllable predominates.
It was just that fact which the preacher of this night thoroughly understood. It was strong nervous English, capable of being comprehended by the meanest individual in the Hall, and yet it was tensely living English also. I confess to extreme surprise. In a minute or two, however, my point of view was changed. I was touched, and deeply touched by the intense pathos of an appeal such as I have seldom heard. I was caught up, as many other members of the congregation were also, by the almost painful driving force, the tremendous earnestness behind the words. I watched the faces in the gallery, row after row; I saw the tense and almost breathless interest upon every one of them. Nobody moved or stirred. The congregation was frozen into attention.
The subject of the sermon was simple enough. We were asked to give up our sins, we were entreated almost with tears to give up strong drink, and come to Jesus. Not simply in the hope of personal happiness and future salvation – though this was, of course, implied – but because every evil act we commit gives personal pain to the Saviour who died for us. It was an intensely moving sermon, and it must have knocked at the hearts of very many of us. There was a dead silence, and in tones faltering with emotion, the preacher concluded by quoting the well-known couplets —
"He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to Heaven,
Saved by His Precious Blood."
Afterwards, in a large room under the hall, I saw many fallen men and women kneeling quietly with one or other of the helpers and confessing all their sin and troubles to Him who alone can heal and pardon.
Strange experiences have been the lot of Mr. Charrington during this part of the work. On one occasion a young man was about to commit suicide, and had a bottle of poison in his pocket. Mr. Charrington wrestled with him upon the floor of the room and took the bottle from him by force, thus saving his life.
So much for my own experiences. Let me conclude this necessarily circumscribed account of the living, burning activities of the Great Assembly Hall at this day, by telling my readers that upon Lord Mayor's Day, when the Chief Magistrate of London holds his Civic State in the grand old hall in the city, two or three thousand of the very poorest are also entertained at the Great Assembly Hall by Mr. Charrington and his co-workers, on behalf of the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the City Companies.
The poor have enjoyed this banquet for twenty-six years in succession, and I take a typical account of one of these feasts from the columns of a daily paper published in 1902.
"There was a pleasing though pathetic scene witnessed last night in the Great Assembly Hall, Mile End Road, when a large number of London's destitute poor were entertained to supper. As the people of all ages trooped in to take their seats at the long benches laden with good things, many a wan face brightened, as it had probably never brightened before, at the prospect of a good and nourishing meal. For the most part the people came with freshly washed faces, and nicely combed hair, and to one who did not know the vast metropolis and its slums, it would be impossible to believe that these were the people – or at least, many of them – who practically lived in the streets, and helped to augment their own and their parents' incomes by selling matches, flowers, and other articles along the kerbside. There were about two thousand guests, and when they once 'fell to' there was almost a silence. This gradually increased into a murmur, then into a general clatter of tongues as the good fare began to warm them. Then, here and there, came a merry peal of laughter. By the time the meal was finished, every one was gay and happy; each was in a veritable fairyland, and quite oblivious of the life of the morrow. But even such a momentary ray of sunshine into the lives of toil and trouble may help to fashion a character and teach not a few of them what can be done by kindness and well-dispensed generosity, while those who were responsible for the feast were amply recompensed.
"This annual gathering was begun in the year 1887, when three to four hundred people were fed, and from that time onward, owing to the flow of contributions, for which the Lord Mayors of London and their Sheriffs have been in a large degree responsible, the number of people provided for at this annual gathering has reached upwards of two thousand. The task of finding out the most deserving has been left to the clergymen, ministers, mission workers, city missionaries and others. No distinction of sect is made. Each recipient received a meat pie, a cake, two apples, and a loaf, while tea was plentifully supplied. At the conclusion of the meal, a very amusing entertainment was provided. The following telegram was sent to the Lord Mayor: 'Two thousand guests send greetings and thanks to Lord Mayor, Lady Mayoress, and Sheriffs.'"
The reply came speedily, and was as follows —
"Lord Mayor, Lady Mayoress, Sheriffs, and Ladies, greet the guests at Assembly Hall, and thank them for telegram which will be read by Lord Mayor to company at Guildhall. Lord Mayor hopes guests are spending pleasant evening, and regrets he cannot personally greet them.
"Lord Mayor."
"Shortly after nine o'clock these happy people for a while went out into the Mile End Road and sought their squalid homes, after threading their way through London's murky streets on a typical November night. Who is responsible? What is responsible? How shall the sufferings of the poor of the East End of London be alleviated?"
The following appeared in the Daily Graphic, November 11, 1902 —
The Other Banquet
"In the East End, when people speak of the Lord Mayor's Banquet, they do not refer to the affair at the Guildhall, but to the meal which has now been provided at the Assembly Hall, Mile End Road, on sixteen consecutive Lord Mayor's Days. Mr. Charrington is responsible for the organisation of this treat to the East End poor – a treat which is doled out to any who are deserving of it and need it, irrespective of their nationality or religious belief. Two thousand invitations were issued for the banquet held last night. The tickets were given for distribution to any responsible men and women who applied for them. All the two thousand invitations were accepted, but, in addition to these, a very few guests were invited at very short notice; in fact, they came to the doors – hundreds of them – and clamoured for admission. They had but one excuse to offer for their behaviour – they were hungry. Some of them were brought inside the gates and as many as could be fed, were fed, but there were hundreds who had to be persuaded by the police to go away. They came back to the doors again – and again – and again. For what? A cup or two of hot tea, and a paper bag containing a pork pie, a pound cake, a roll, and two apples. After the meal there was some music by the students' orchestral band, a few speeches, and a display of animated photographs given by Mr. Luscombe Toms. The guests were welcomed by Mr. Charrington, in the name of the Lord Mayor, and a telegram of thanks and congratulation was sent to the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs. The Lord Mayor had contributed twenty guineas towards the expenses, the Sheriffs ten guineas each, Sir Horace Marshall twenty guineas, and donations had also been received from several City Companies, and members of the Common Council. When the banquet and entertainment were over, all the paper bags had gone, and the urns, which had contained three hundred and fifty gallons of tea, were empty. Outside there was a hungry, envious crowd."
There has always been a great Banquet at Christmas also, in addition to that provided by the Lord Mayor upon his day.
