The great mass-meeting at Exeter Hall, January 29, 1863, was described by the correspondent of an American paper as largely deriving its strength from the universal dissatisfaction of the lower orders of the English people with their existing conditions under the Crown: "The descendants of the Roundhead commoners, chafing under the limitations of the franchise, burdensome taxation, the contempt with which they are regarded by the lords of the soil, the grievous effects of the laws of entail and primogeniture, whereby they are kept poor and rendered liable to starvation and pauperism--these have looked to America as the model democracy which proves the poor man's capacity for self-government." The meeting was called for seven o'clock but at half after five the hall was filled, and at six crowded.

A second hall was filled and outdoor meetings of two thousand people organized in Exeter Street.

"All working-class England was up in arms, not so much against slavery as against British oligarchy[1361]." The correspondent further reported rumours that this meeting had caused anxious consideration to the managers of the _Times_, and the decision to step more warily.

No doubt this was exaggeration of the political character and effect of the meeting, but certain it is that the political element was present joining hands with anti-slavery enthusiasm.

Also it is noteworthy that the last confident and vigorous expression of the "failure" of democracy, from sources professedly neutral, appeared immediately after the St.James' Hall meeting, but was necessarily written before that meeting took place.