CHAPTER IV.



All sorts and conditions of men and women elbowed and crowded each other
under the dim gaslight at the three entrances to the Boston Music Hall.
The snow was thick on the ground outside, and it had been thawing all the
afternoon. The great booby sleighs slid and slipped and rocked through the
wet stuff, the policemen vociferated, the horse-car drivers on Tremont
Street rang their bells furiously, and a great crowd of pedestrians
stumbled and tumbled about in the mud and slush and snow of the crossings,
all bent on getting inside the Music Hall in time for the beginning of the
lecture.

The affair was called a "lecture" in accordance with the time-honored
custom of Boston, and unless it were termed an oration, it would be hard
to find a better name for it. A "meeting" implies a number of orators, or
at least a well-filled row of chairs upon the platform. A "lecture," on
the other hand, does not convey to the ordinary mind the idea of a
political speech, and critical persons with a taste for etymology say that
the word means something which is read.

John Harrington had determined to speak in public on certain subjects
connected with modern politics, and had caused the fact to be extensively
made known. His name alone would have sufficed to draw a large audience,
but the great attention he had attracted by his doings for some time past,