eight o'clock
Market Square had even become too common for any but the inferior meetings of the two leading political parties . Only the Workingmen 's League held to the old tradition that a political meeting of the first rank could be properly held nowhere but in the natural assembling place of the people -- their market . So , their first great rally of the campaign was billed for Market Square . And at eight o'clock , headed by a large and vigorous drum corps , the Victor Dorn cohorts at their full strength marched into the centre of the Square , where one of the stands had been transformed with flags , bunting and torches into a speaker 's platform . A crowd of many thousands accompanied and followed the procession . Workingmen 's League meetings were popular , even among those who believed their interests lay elsewhere . At League meetings one heard the plain truth , sometimes extremely startling plain truth .