The scenes that followed were remarkably impressive and unparalleled.
The people began to arrive at Westminster at 2 o'clock in the morning.
The line formed was continually augmented by all classes of
people,--peers, peeresses, cabinet members, members of the House of
Commons, military and naval officers, clergymen, costermongers, old and
young, until 6 o'clock, when the doors were opened and the procession
commenced to stream into the Hall, and passed the catafalque.
This long procession of mourners continued all day Thursday and Friday.
Two hundred thousand people, at least, paid homage to the dead
statesman. On Friday evening, after the crowd had departed, large
delegations, representing Liberal organizations from all parts of the
kingdom, visited the Hall, by special arrangement, and fifteen hundred
of them paid respect to the memory of their late leader.
Saturday morning, May 28, thousands of people assembled in the square
outside to witness the passage of the funeral cortege from Westminster
Hall, where it was formed, to the Abbey, to find sepulchre in the tomb
of kings. The procession passed through two lines of policemen. It was
not a military parade, with all its pomp, but a ceremony made glorious
by the homage of the people, among them the greatest of the nation.
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