ABSTRACT
With the prospect of a wet autumn, and a deficient harvest, or wheat inferior in quality, requiring an admixture of foreign-grown, not admissable but at heavy duties, it seemed likely that a lecturer would find audiences. There was a certain Dr. Birnie, who, about the end of July, announced a lecture on the Corn Laws in the Bolton Theatre. There was a good attendance, and the lecturer was well received; but he had provided himself with a great bundle of papers, and he could not readily find those to which he wished to refer. When he did find them he read them badly, his connecting observations were not understandable, and, the meeting expressing its impatience; he came to a complete stand still. In one of the boxes sat several gentlemen with Mr. Abraham Walter Paulton, a young medical student. Mr. Thomas Thomasson said: “Do Paulton get on the stage and say something, and don’t let such a meeting be lost.” The young man rushed round to the stage, and asked the meeting to hear him for a few minutes. The people had come to hear, and they called “hear, hear,” and “go on.” He did go on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, and created a wish that he should be heard more at length; and it was arranged that he should deliver a lecture there on Monday, August 6th. The theatre on that night was crowded, and the young lecturer not only showed that he had carefully studied the question, but that he had, in his earnestness and energy, and mastery of appropriate language, and combination of argument, with appeals to high moral principle, the power of deeply interesting an audience.
