Poster text:
An evening at the George.
To the Sensible Inhabitants of the town of Northampton
My Friends,
A Performance took place on Tuesday Evening, at the George Hotel, in this Town, an Outline of which I proceed to lay before you, and to take your opinion on the same.
A vagabond Frenchman, who was lately kicked out of Aylesbury, and who has been for some weeks past parading his Mustachios in this Town, finding he could not deceive me by his impostures, has taken refuge under the wing of a Baptist Minister, with whom he is, I believe, at present picking up his crumbs; and to satisfy his own spite, and gratify his new friends, he thought well, on Tuesday Evening, to procure an Exhibition of Father Gavazzi, an Italian Priest, whom he brought down form London, to inveigh against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome, at Northampton.
A meeting having been duly called, the Mayor of the Town took the Chair; Gavazzi, with a Stranger or two, some preachers of the Town, and a Little Frenchman, appeared on the platform; and the room was filled with a large number of decently dressed Men and Women of the Town and Neighbourhood. The Performance commenced by a Person reading, in English, an outline of what was going to be done; when the Father rose, and with stentorian lungs, and violent gesticulations, poured forth a torrent of eloquent but unintelligible Italian. That the gaping audience might know when to express their approbation, a man in a distant part of the Room acted as Fugleman; and when he gave the signal, they stamped and clapped. After an hour and a half of most furious harangue, one whole sentence of which was not understood by one in fifty of the audience, a vote of thanks to the pious Father was proposed and seconded; and the Assembly broke up, highly delighted, edified, and instructed by what they had seen; and having spent a very agreeable evening at the George, returned to their homes, quite determined to hate and protest against Papists and Popery more than ever.
Such was the scene enacted in this Town, on Tuesday Evening, sanctioned by the presence of the Mayor, and a goodly muster of Clergy of most Denominations in the Town and Neighbourhood; --- a scene, I hesitate not to say, as ludicrous as any exhibited last week, on Boughton Green. A hash of the sane Dainty Dish may very likely be served up to the public, in the Mercury and Herald. On Saturday Morning; and every Pulpit in the Town will no doubt be made to ring, on Sunday, with a repetition (more or less effective) of the calumnious invectives of the pious Father.
But--- Men of Northampton, are these scenes to be repeated? Are the amenities of life, and the comfort of society, to be destroyed amongst us, be every Foreign Harlequin, brought here by Bigots, to make this Town a hot-bed of Intolerance, and to sow Discord and Religious Hate among Brethren? I believe and trust that you will answer, NO!
I am, your Friend and Fellow-Townsman +Wm. Wareing
Northampton, July 4th 1851
![Bishop Wareing - Poster - "An Evening at the George" [Gavazzi and anti-Popery]](/uploads/r/rc-diocese-of-east-anglia-achive/0/5/0/050719e055fe449b526d27b27bfb6b8cbdd8744b5a84bbccd2b455df0c3e1fb3/DEA-09-03001-2-12_Poster_142.jpg)