Seventy years ago a boy was born in Rochdale, England, who was destined
to fill a great place in the world. His parents were Jacob and Martha
Bright--people of good old Quaker stock--and they called their eldest
boy simply John.
Jacob Bright was a cotton manufacturer, and both he and his wife were
beloved for their charitable deeds. One Sunday Mrs. Bright and little
John were walking out, and the boy wore his pair of long trousers for
the first time. Of course he felt proud of them. But soon they met a
poor woman with her little boy, and _he_ was clothed in rags. Mrs.
Bright stopped them, and the result of a few minutes' conversation was
that the poor woman and her ragged son returned home with them, and
Master John had to strip off his new suit and let the other boy put it
on in place of his rags. Mrs. Bright's charity was very thorough.
At school young John was quick and industrious, but his father thought
business more important than book-learning; so at fifteen the boy was
placed in his father's cotton mill. Fortunately for himself and the
world he did not give up learning from books when he left school, or he
would not have been the great man he is.
As a boy and a young man he was a good cricketer, and all his life he
has been very fond of fishing, having caught minnows and other small
fish in the river that ran by his home, and salmon of forty pounds
weight in Scotland and in Norway. At twenty-two years of age he began
training himself in public speaking in a literary society of which he
was one of the founders, and doubtless it is to this early training that
he owes the honor of being the greatest of living English orators.
Mr. Bright was first elected a member of Parliament in 1843, and
fourteen years later he was chosen to represent the great manufacturing
town of Birmingham, which seat he still occupies.
Mr. Bright's public life has been a busy and a useful one. No man has
done more for the benefit of the working classes than he, and he has
never hesitated in the pursuit of the course which he felt to be the
right one.
In this country the name of John Bright is justly honored, for he was
the only English statesman who supported the Union without wavering
during the late war between the North and the South. Six weeks ago
(November 16), Mr. Bright celebrated his seventieth birthday.