Vice-President Wilcox took the
chair, and all was comparatively quiet until Colonel Bloomsbury, the
Honorary Secretary in Marston's absence, commenced to read Belfast's
dispatch. Then the scene, according to the account given in the next
day's _Sun_, from whose columns we condense our report, actually
"beggared description." Roars, yells, cheers, counter-cheers, clappings,
hissings, stampings, squallings, whistlings, barkings, mewings, cock
crowings, all of the most fearful and demoniacal character, turned the
immense hall into a regular pandemonium. In vain did President Wilcox
fire off his detonating bell, with a report on ordinary occasions as
loud as the roar of a small piece of ordnance. In the dreadful noise
then prevailing it was no more heard than the fizz of a lucifer match.
Some cries, however, made themselves occasionally heard in the pauses of
the din. "Read! Read!" "Dry up!" "Sit down!" "Give him an egg!" "Fair
play!" "Hurrah for Barbican!" "Down with his enemies!" "Free Speech!"
"Belfast won't bite you!" "He'd like to bite Barbican, but his teeth
aren't sharp enough!" "Barbican's a martyr to science, let's hear his
fate!" "Martyr be hanged; the Old Man is to the good yet!" "Belfast is
the grandest name in Science!" "Groans for the grandest name!" (Awful
groans.
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