attempt to sell the sites of "rookeries" for as much as they cost. Verily, wisdom is justified of her children.
In conclusion, it may be said, that in no progressive movement, national or municipal, since 1848, has Beal failed to play a manly and singularly disinterested part. In 1851, when Joseph Hume and Sir Joshua Walmsley endeavored to revive public interest in parliamentary reform, Beal "stumped" London for them, and materially helped to convince Earl Russell of the inexpediency of adhering to his "finality" policy. He had his reward in the legislation of 1867.
Nor have Mr. Beal's sympathies been confined to London or England exclusively. He was a determined partisan of the North during the American civil war; and, at a public meeting held in London in the interest of the Confederates, he tore down the "palmetto flag" from the wall, and trampled it under foot at the risk of serious personal violence.
When Garibaldi was wounded at Aspromonte, he raised a fund of five thousand dollars to send out Professor Partridge, to give the noble general the benefit of first-rate surgical skill.
Indeed, as I have said, it is impossible to mention almost any good pie for thirty years past in which this indefatigable friend of humanity has not had a finger. One stands simply amazed at the multitude of his good deeds, which have no smack of self-consciousness. It would be impossible to imagine a reformer with less cant or nonsense about him than Beal. He has no "unction" of any kind,—a hearty, sharp, decisive man, ordained to be a Radical and pioneer of progress from the foundations of the world, "Wha does his best," said Burns, "will whiles do mair." James Beal, me thinks, has oft done mair.
