for you. (Applause.) The time is now come when we must no longer look upon this infamous law as a mistake on the part of the aristocracy and the landowners, it was no mistake of the law-makers, it was no accident, chance had nothing to do with it,—it was a crime, a crime of the deepest dye against the rights of industry and against the well-being of the British people, and—
'Not all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay,
Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.'
(Loud cheers.) The League is feared by the parties upon whom rests the guilt of this crime, and it is hated with unmitigated malignity. They do not greatly fear or hate a man who is a scion of their own order, they tolerate a set speech on a popular subject once in a session, and look upon this species of agitation as an amiable weakness in those who take a part in it: but they know they have cause to fear when men engaged in trade step out from the ranks and proclaim the injuries which aristocratic misrule is inflicting upon their countrymen, and by the most persevering exertions, by sacrifices of time and labour, and money and health, show their unalterable resolution to gather together the elements of an enlightened public opinion, and to overturn the foul usurpations which they can no longer bear. They know that much as a peer of the realm may value his order, we value our order at least as highly, that we have no longing for honours for ourselves, and no disposition to suffer tamely the wrongs inflicted by the class upon whom honours are now bestowed. To the landed aristocracy, to the monopolist and bankrupt portion of them we say—we do not ask you to repeal Corn Law, and to loose your grasp from the subsistence of this most industrious and meritorious, and yet most trampled population,—we do not ask it from your sense of justice and from your love of right, for had you possessed either the one or the other this infamous law had never been enacted,—but we appeal to what is more honest and more virtuous, we appeal to the millions of our countrymen who are awakening to the wrongs they have so long and so patiently endured, and to the consciousness that it is you who have inflicted them,—we appeal to the honesty and intelligence of the middle classes of this empire, in the full confidence that the hour is at hand when their united voices shall be heard above the roar of the party, and shall decree the immediate and the utter and everlasting extinction of this odious and inhuman and most unnatural law."
At the conclusion of Mr. Blight's speech, the whole company rose and gave repeated shouts of applause, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs, and the assemblage pre-
