Explore "A Prince of Sinners" by E. Phillips Oppenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The bomb was thrown. Some ten thousand people crowded together in the market-place at Medchester, under what seemed to be one huge canopy of dripping umbrellas, heard for the first time for many years a bold and vigorous attack upon the principles which had come to be considered a part of the commercial ritual of the country. Henslow made the best of a great opportunity. He spoke temperately, but without hesitation, and concluded with a biting and powerful onslaught upon that class of Englishmen who wilfully closed their eyes to the prevailing industrial depression, and endeavoured to lure themselves and others into a sense of false security as to the well-being of the country by means of illusive statistics. In his appreciation of dramatic effect, and the small means by which an audience can be touched, Henslow was a past master.
Early in his speech he had waved aside the umbrella which a supporter was holding over him, and regardless of the rain, he stood out in the full glare of the reflected gaslight, a ponderous, powerful figure.