Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/26

  were called upon for high self-denial and strength of will. None the less, the movement grew, and it was fortified by the support of a number of medical men, who added scientific physiological arguments to the crusaders' moral and religious pleas.

It was a teetotal doctor who brought Cassell in. He "signed the pledge" at a meeting held by Mr. Thomas Swindlehurst, to whose son he related the story in a letter long after:

"17th July, 1861.

"The circumstances under which I identified myself with the Temperance movement were, that I was attracted to the Tabernacle, Stevenson Square, Manchester, by a course of lectures which were given by Dr. Grindrod. I was fully convinced of the truth and importance of the question under Dr. Grindrod's lectures, and I did not sign any declaration until your father came and delivered a lecture in the same building as that in which I heard Dr. Grindrod."

Livesey's reminiscences give us a glimpse of the John Cassell of eighteen. Livesey first saw him listening to one of his lectures at Oak Street Chapel, Manchester. He well remembered Cassell " standing on the right, just below or on the steps of the platform, with fustian jacket and a white apron on." Thomas Whittaker adds features to the portrait. Cassell, he says, was " a marvellous man, young, bony, big, and exceedingly uncultivated. ... I was his model man as an orator; and, as he subsequently told me ... it was his desire to be like me that determined him to take to the road and the platform. He never let go the desire to be somebody and to do something from that moment."

The total abstinence movement it was, undoubtedly, that awoke John Cassell's latent powers. He was about eighteen when he became involved in it. From that time onward he closely observed the habits and conditions of the industrial mass. He perceived its blank ignorance. Its grey life moved his sympathy and anger. He had already resolved to emancipate himself. He now