16 FEBRUARY 1867, Page 11

MONDAY'S PROCESSION.

THE " Demonstration " of the 11th inst. was, as a demonstra- tion, a failure, but the procession afforded some curious illustrations of the competence and incompetence of Englishmen for getting scenic effect out of crowds. The first requisite for an imposing procession is that it shall march well, and military critics will tell you this is the one thing a crowd can never do. It can. Every observer who has recorded his impressions of the proces- sion of Monday has remarked how steady the ranks were, how swift the march, how easily every mistake was rectified, and to the writer, watching the procession as it swept along Portland Place, this was the feature of the scene. Portland Place is one of the broadest thoroughfares in London, and most of the Leaguers had already marched many miles. Yet they swept along at an extraordinary pace without allowing the line to swerve, going as straight as if between barricades. This was the more re- markable, because a procession only six broad looks in so wide a street too thin, a mere ribbon, which one expects every moment to away from side to side. The regularity, too, was not of the military kind. The mass of feet did not come all to the ground together, nor was there that we could see an attempt at maintain- ing equal length of step throughout the ranks. The march of the people was to the march of soldiers as the odd run which ladies' horses are sometimes taught is to a good hack's trot, but it was quick, free from confusion, and obviously easy to those who were marching, many of whom, we must add, had not the slightest assistance from music, and were advancing under a stiff breeze, -which almost blew the banners out of their ensigns' hands. Three weeks' steady drill would have made those men into fifteen very affective regiments. Discipline in the sense of obedience, too, was very perfect. A few farriers acting as orderlies transmitted all the orders required. English travellers in America often notice how readily Americans bear with assumption from the nominees they have just raised to office, and that spirit is, we suspect, latent in the English masses also. Great surprise has been expressed at the quietness with which the crowd in Trafal- gar Square took a sharp dose of bullying from somebody in a scarf, but the feeling of the crowd was that his proper business just than was to bully. What else bad they given him a scarf for ? Watch the officers at a Foresters' fete, or the stewards, or whatever they are called, at a Trades' celebration, or the gang- masters on a job of earthwork, and you will see why it was possi- ble to extemporize an American Army. There is, we suspect, somewhere a latent capacity for organization among us, which the middle class cannot elicit, but which may yet produce results pleasant and unpleasant. Those fifteen thousand men could have been got into or out of Hyde Park—the Duke's pons asinorum for General officers—at the double, and without the smallest difficulty, as easily as drilled Frenchmen.

On the other hand, the Leaguers, with all their speed, and re- gularity, and obedience, contrived not to be imposing. A French crowd organized up to marching point would have been in its way a dangerous looking object, but this crowd never looked, or could have looked, dangerous at all. There was a comic element in it, not to be laughed at, but to be laughed with. The English trick of concealing all feeling under a clumsy joke came out strongly,*

more especially in the "banners." For scenic effect, when the effect wanted is solemnity, banners as Englishmen understand them, hideous oblongs of red, blue, or yellow silk, stretched between poles too heavy for them and their bearers, are always blunders, but banners with semi-comic or punning mottoes are ruinous.

They create a laugh, and tempt the outsiders into a cross fire of chaff, which washes away at once any semblance of meaning from the procession. The comedy in itself was bad, never rising beyond a pun on Mr. Bright's name or Mr. Lowe's, but if it had been good it would have been out of place. Fifteen thousand well built men, marching in silence rapidly to any given point, will always produce an effect which banners, and serio-comic threats, and absurdities like the Adullamite cab with a telescope on the top of it, only serve to destroy. An Italian would, we think, have perceived that, but the workmen's leaders in London did not, and the half earnest humour natural to all Teutons had: full play. So had pipes. It is quite possible, of course, for a man with a pipe in his mouth to be intensely in earnest, but it is quite impossible to look so, and the object of a demon- stration is not to be, but to look. Certainly a fourth of the Leaguers in Portland Place had pipes in their mouths, and if they had been marching to take a Bastille they could not have looked determined. As it was, they looked simply good-tempered. There was no levity and no particular seriousness, the prevailing, expression being that of men who are doing a bit of work which they quite intend to do, but which they do not dislike. The only flash of anger we saw was caused by a coachman who attempted to cross the line of march in the teeth of a policeman's warning, and managed to attract the attention of the marching men. A sort of growl not pleasant to hear warned him to desist, but the next moment the men who gave it were patting a huge dog, who walked up to the edge of the living ribbon with the most

palpable and comic expression of intense curiosity. On reflec- tion he did not approve the procession, but did not see his way clearly to stop it, and lay down, watching it vigilantly about a yard off, in the attitude of Landseer's lions, with his'

upper lip drawn a little back, an incarnate middle-class. The procession rolled on without minding him, and did not, so far as we could hear or see, cheer the American Embassy. The hint, or order, or counsel to do so, said to have emanated from the Com- mittee of the League, was another instance of their stupid indiffer- ence to effect. Who but an Englishman would ever have dreamed, while trying to impress the nation with a sense alike of his wants and his power, of wantonly rousing the pride alike of country and of caste ? The total absence of any patriotic emblem amidst the scores carried along was also noteworthy. A Frenchman would have had France everywhere, and an American would have waved Stars and Stripes till you wished he was in one or enduring the other, but the League had nothing to say about the country, not even clap-trap. We shall be told that all the arrangements were spontaneous, each group choosing its own banners ; but then

what is all this organization for? Without arrangement effect is nearly impossible, and the meaning and use of demonstrations is effect. Those who manage them in London seem to think that they have a meaning in themselves, and look far more to the arrangements which affect the marchers than to the arrangements which affect the public. Silence, for example, is useful, but we suspect a hymn could be well rolled out by an English procession, and there is a perfect repertory of available hymns in Ebenezer Elliott's repertory. Why on earth circulate such twopenny- halfpenny rubbish as was distributed at the Agricultural Hall, when there is this to use? We quote it from memory, as we once heard it sung on Muswell Hill, having mislaid Elliott's poems, which, by the way, want and deserve a reprint :— " When wilt Thou save Thy people, Lord,

Oh ! God of Mercy, when ? Not kings and thrones, but nations, Not priests and lords, but men ; Flowers of Thy heart, 0 God ! are they ; Let them not pass like weeds away, Their heritage a sunless day. God save the people !

"Shall crime breed crime for ever, Strength aiding still the strong, Is it Thy will, 0 Father !

That man should suffer wrong ?

No say Thy mountains, no ! Thy skies, Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise, And songs be heard where now are sighs God save the people !"

No amount of sympathy with the popular cause can stand such rubbish as the parodies on the Queen's Anthem, which in itself is

only good because it is old, and represents an idea still living and operative among Englishmen.

We trust we have seen the last of these processions for some time, but if the Trades' Unions ever want to organize another, let them remember that their object is always either scenic effect or the display of their numbers, and both are most easily secured by extreme simplicity. The swift marching of large bodies of men can never be otherwise than impressive, if only the effect is not broken by the intrusion of other and less imposing ideas, mottoes, emblems, and contrivances, which either rouse the criticizing faculty, or laughter, or contempt, —in England most frequently the latter, the English being of all races of earth the least tolerant of symbolism. We trust, too, they will, by making some dis- tinctive mark obligatory on every man in the procession, dis- tinguish their followers effectually from the roughs. We must not, we suppose, venture to recommend the most perfectly distinc- tive workman's symbol, the paper cap, for fear of rousing the pride of caste ; but they may rely on it they will never devise a head- dress at once so cheap, congruous, and handsome. Its effect to the eye is nearly as good as the turban, as every artist knows, and Punch never represents the typical workman, when he wants to flatter him, without the paper cap. The cap and jacket together make a uniform as much superior to the regular black coat in appearance as it is in meaning. And finally, let us beseech them either to march without music, or march to vocal music— they have hundreds of trained voices—or lick their bands into something like harmony and order. What on earth can be the result of a band leading teetotallers, to the tune of "Champagne Charley," except inextinguishable laughter ?