Here and there in London by James Ewing Ritchie

Lord Macaulay has made all the world familiar with the bray of Exeter Hall. Exeter Hall, when it does bray, does so to some purpose. It is in vain fighting Exeter Hall. It is the parliament of the middle classes. It has an influence for good or bad no legislator can overlook -- to which often the assembly in St. Stephen's is compelled to bow. I have seen a Prince Consort presiding at a public meeting in Exeter Hall; on its platform I have heard our greatest orators and statesmen declaim. In England who can over estimate the influence of woman? and in Exeter Hall, in the season, nine benches out of ten are filled with women. The oratory of Exeter Hall is not parliamentary. A man may shine before a legal tribunal -- may shine on the floor of the House of Commons -- may be great among the Lords -- and yet utterly fail in Exeter Hall. He may even be a popular preacher, and yet not move the masses that crowd the Strand, when a public meeting, chiefly religious, occasionally philanthropic, never political, is being held.

On your right-hand side, as you pass along the Strand, you see a lofty door, evidently leading to some immense building within. It is called Exeter Hall, for it stands where in old times stood Exeter Change, and still has its live lions, which are very numerous, especially in the months of May and June. You enter the door and ascend a long and ample staircase, which conducts you to one of the finest public rooms in the metropolis. What popular passions have I not seen here! What contradictory utterances have I not heard here! High Church -- Low Church -- Methodism -- Dissent -- have all appealed from that platform to those benches crowded with living souls. From that platform, accompanying that organ, seven hundred voices join often in Handel's majestic strains. Underneath me are the offices of the various societies whose aims are among the noblest that can be proposed to man. Westminster Hall is a fine hall, but this in which I am is eight feet wider than that -- 131 feet long, 76 feet wide, and 45 feet high, and will contain with comfort more than 3,000 persons. On the night of which I now write it was well filled by an audience, such as a few years back could not have been collected for love or money, but which now can be got together with the greatest ease, not merely in London, but in Manchester, in Birmingham, in Liverpool, in all our great seats of industry, of intelligence, and life. I mean an audience of men and women who have come to see intemperance to be the great curse of this our age and land, and who have resolved to abstain themselves from all intoxicating drink, and to encourage others to do so as well.