ing together the greater crowd of
Monday afternoons. It must not be supposed that the mob was composed
wholly or principally of what are called the working classes. When
an hon. member rose in the House of Commons, and complained of the
inconvenience occasioned to legislators by the "Tichborne crowd,"
another member observed that, relative numbers considered, the House
of Commons contributed as much to swell the throng as any other
section of the people. During the last months of the trial, if any
class predominated it was that which came from the provinces. The
Claimant was undoubtedly one of the sights of London and before his
greater attraction the traditional Monument which elsewhere--

"Lifts its tall head and like a bully lies,"

sank into absolute insignificance. Not to have seen the Claimant,
argued the London of the period unknown. Fashionably dressed ladies
and exquisitely attired gentlemen battled for front places upon the
pavement with sturdy agriculturists who had brought their wives and
daughters to see "Sir Roger," and who had not the slightest
intention of going back till they had accomplished their desire.

It came to pass that there were some two hundred faces in the crowd
familiar to the police as daily attendants at the four o'clock
festival in Palace Yard. Day after day, they came to feast their
eyes on the portly figure of "Sir Roger," and, having gazed their
fill, went away, to return again on the morrow. There was one aged
gentleman whose grey gaiters, long-tailed coat, and massive umbrella
were as familiar in Palace Yard as are the features on the clock-face
in the tower. He came up from somewhere in the country in the days
when Kenealy commenced his first speech, and, being a hale old man,
he survived long enough to be in the neighbourhood when the learned
gentleman had finished his second. At the outset, he was wont to
fight gallantly for a place of vantage in the ranks near the arch-way
of the Hall. Then, before the advances of younger and stouter
newcomers, he faded away into the background. Towards the end, he
wandered about outside the railings in Bridge Street, and, as the
clock struck four, got the umbrella as near as its natural
obstructiveness would permit to the carriage-gate whence the
Claimant's brougham was presently to issue.

At first the police authorities dealt with the assembly in the
ordinary manner, a more or less sufficient force being told off for
the duty of keepin