MRS BESANT.

Otago Witness, Issue 1355, 17 November 1877, Page 21

MRS BESANT.

Mrs Besant, the secularist lecturer/ who figured lately in a prosecution for publishing an obscene book/ is a greatorator, it appears. The London correspondent of an American paper, who had an opportunity of attending one of the lady's lectures, thus refers to her :— " Mrs Besant was the young and talented wife of a Church of England clergyman,! who found herself all at once troubled by.' ' views,' embarrassed by her position, and held to the strictest accountability by a rigid husband of no insight and limited j mental calibre. She endured her life for a few years, but finally separated herself from it, having more excuse than is found in the majority of such cases, and endea 7 voured to earn her living as a writer of stories and fugitive articles for the Press. Her bent was so strongly political and radical, however, that she could not be suppressed, and she has really become a power in spite of herself, and almost without her own volition. Associated, however, with the most ultra-radical wing of the Republican party here, she quite equals in force its most renowned leader, Mr Charles Bradlaugh. Still young, handsome, and even distinguished in personal appearance, a natural orator, with a cultivated manner and a perfect mastery of expression, she quite takes her audience off their feet, and inspires them with the most rapturous enthusiasm. The hall in which she spoke was so densely crowded that it was difficult to obtain entrance or exit. Jfc was an audience composed of working, people, but very respectable looking, and com-, posed of at least one-third ladies. The average of women speakers here does not strike me as being quite equal to that of America, but we have no woman who equals Annie Besant in force, genius, and culture combined."