PETERSFIELD. — ANTI-CORN LAW LECTURE.— On Wednesday (being market-day) the notorious Mr. Sidney Smith, who is now itinerating on the borders of Sussex and Hampshire, favored Petersfield with his presence, and delivered an Anti-Corn Law lecture in the Dolphin Assembly Room. The attendance of farmers and other respectable persons was, of course, scanty, as they have no predilection for meetings at which abuse of themselves and their landlords forms the staple subject. The room was about half filled, and even then there was some interruption; but, upon the whole, the tirade was listened to with exemplary resignation. To give a detailed report of what the stump orator said would be merely to repeat the substance of the thousand and one harangues with which the agents of the League have so remorselessly deafened and disgusted the country. It consisted of the usual round of claptrap and personal invective, delivered in the ad captandum style. The speaker, at the close of his lecture, complained in a most querulous tone of the apathy of the agriculturists of Petersfield and its vicinity in not coming to hear his display, and expressed himself the more astonished and disappointed at this, as the borough had more than once done itself the credit (?) of returning a Radical to Parliament.
Hampshire Chronicle - Monday 07 August 1843
Sidney Smith, Esq. Secretary to the Metropolitan Anti-corn Law Association, delivered a lecture on Wednesday, in the Dolphin Assembly Room, Petersfield. At the close of his lecture, he complained of the apathy manifested by the farmers in not giving their attendance on the occasion.
(See also
14-Aug-1843
01-Aug-1843)