Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/227

 once were, straggling weary and footsore along the dusty highway of human progress, which all must tread. If they fall among thieves, it is ours to play the part of the good Samaritan, and lift them out of the ditch into which the footpads have cast them. But we, alas! are the footpads. I shall not speedily forget the righteous indignation with which Mr. Beesly recently spoke to me of the Zulu war. He felt the misdeeds of our representatives as a stain on his personal honor. The name of Frere, even more than that of Eyre, ought to go down with infamy to the latest posterity.

The mentioning of Eyre recalls to my mind an incident in Mr. Beesly's career which brought down on his head an extraordinary torrent of journalistic and other invective. At a public meeting held in connection with the Broadhead murders in 18G7, he somewhat infelicitously observed that Eyre "had committed his crime in the interest of employers, just as Broadhead had committed his crime in the interest of workmen." The wealthy class, he argued, had approved, while the working-class had condemned, murder. This was enough: he was declared to have "apologized" for Broadhead's crimes, and even to have converted him "into a hero." So far was this from being the fact, that it was subsequently proved that Mr. Beesly had, on the first intimation of the atrocities, gone out of his way to urge the unions to "ferret out any member guilty of a breach of the law. and drag him to justice." This was, however, not enough. A victim was wanted, and for a time the vials of class calumny continued to be poured out on the professor's devoted head. Had he been a weak man, he would have succumbed to the violence of the storm. As it was, he stood erect and