orters in
both Houses of Parliament.

The voice of the City sounding far and wide from its ancient Guildhall
has similarly supported the great causes of Catholic Emancipation, the
removal of Jewish Disabilities, and the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In
modern times the character of the gatherings at the Guildhall has been
still more varied. Foreign sovereigns have been entertained: the allied
monarchs in 1814, the Emperor and Empress of the French (1855), the
Sultan of Turkey (1867), the Shah of Persia (1889), Alexander II., Czar
of Russia (1875), the King of the Hellenes (1881); indeed, almost every
crowned head in Europe and the civilised world has been sumptuously
received at Guildhall. In 1886, the year of the Colonial and Indian
Exhibition, the representatives of our Colonies were warmly welcomed.
Then followed the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, and the Diamond
Jubilee in 1897, each occasion being celebrated by entertainments of a
memorable character.

The two great windows in the Guildhall have also memories of the deepest
interest. That at the west end was placed there by the Corporation in
1869 to recall the many virtues and the "high and spotless character" of
the Prince Consort. The window at the east end was subscribed for by the
Lancashire operatives in 1868 in gratitude for the help extended to them
during the distress occasioned by the Cotton Famine. Of unique interest
was the Jubilee Anniversary of Penny Postage, celebrated on the 16th
May, 1890, at Guildhall, when the scene within its ancient walls
resembled a huge post-office and telegraph-office combined.

Among its many services to humanity at large the Guildhall has voiced,
more than once, the outcry against Jewish persecution in Russia. A
working-classes industrial exhibition, bazaars and concerts for
charitable objects, International congresses of scientific and social
bodies, Christmas entertainments to poor and crippled children: these
are some of the present-day uses of the Guildhall. It only remains to
add the furtherance of religious effort which it has afforded by
welcoming such gatherings as those of the Sunday School Centenary, the
mission of Canon Aitken, and the yearly meeting of the British and
Foreign Bible Society, when one of the youngest collectors present (some
small personage of four or five years) cuts the Society's birthday cake
after some hearty words of welcome from the Lord Mayor, as the genial
host of the City's Guildh