The Lord Mayor who presided over the gathering endeavored in his introductory remarks to soften the bitterness of the protest for the benefit of official Russia.
As I hear--he said--the Emperor of Russia is a good husband and a tender father, and I cannot but think that such a man must necessarily be kindly disposed to all his subjects.

On his Majesty the Emperor of Russia the hopes of the Russian Jews are at the present moment fixed.

He can by one stroke of his pen annul those laws which now press so grievously upon them and he can thus give a happy life to those Jewish subjects of his who now can hardly be said to live at all.
In conclusion, the Lord Mayor expressed the wish that Alexander III.

may become the "emancipator" of the Russian Jews, just as his father Alexander II.

had been the emancipator of the Russian serfs.
Cardinal Manning, the warm-hearted champion of Jewish emancipation, who was prevented by illness from being present, sent a long letter which was read to the meeting.