fury, of his method of attack—so different from that of the professional scribe—arrests, and is bound to arrest, attention by its very novelty, if for no better reason.
Mr. Beal's business training was in every way more fortunate than his educational. He commenced as clerk in a solicitor's office; and before he had completed his sixteenth year he had mastered Blackstone, and acquired a general knowledge of legal forms and principles which could not fail to be of the greatest use to him as a man of business in after-life. About this time he had fortunately few companions except his books; and these he read with avidity, storing up much valuable information, which he shortly found most serviceable. One of his few friends happily possessed a large and well-selected library; and Beal, having the run of it, did not neglect the opportunity to make up for the shortcomings of his school-training.
Subsequently Mr. Beal entered the office of an upholsterer; but before he was twenty-one he found himself a partner in the extensive auctioneer and land-agency business of which he has now for many years been the principal. This Radical of the Radicals has bought and sold more real estate, let and hired more aristocratic mansions, than perhaps any land-agent in England. Such a fact, so antecedently improbable, speaks volumes for the integrity and capacity of the man.
In 1848 Mr. Beal began to apply his mind to politics "in earnest;" that is to say, he became a confirmed and immovable Radical. He had previously induced his father, much to the old man's subsequent astonishment, to record his vote for Cochrane, then Radical
