Of course the resolutions proposedandcarried in this open-air meet- ing
were only formal, and the speaking was reserved for the even- ing in the Town Hall, which is large enough to hold 6,000 people, and was surrounded during the meeting by a much greater crowd. Mr. Bright's, speech was, as usual, eloquent and passionate invec- tive. He compared the Derby Government to Christy's Minstrels, on the ground that these gentlemen, being really white, are arti- ficially blackened for the sake of dramatic effect, while the new Administration, being politically black, are artificially whitened for the same reason. " The Derby Minstrels profess to be Liberal and white, but if you examine them closely you will find them to be just as black and curly as the Tories have ever been. I do not know, and will not pretend to say, which of them it is that plays the banjo." If the banjo is, as we dimly conceive, the negro equivalent for the guitar, no doubt it is Mr. Disraeli, for there has always been something of the troubadour about the author of Alroy ; and perhaps Lord Cranborne, who has a cynical taste for the more
