The Exeter Flying Post of 13th January 1869 reported how the Mayor of Exeter called a meeting of his fellow-citizens "under the roof of our ancient Guildhall" to "concert measures for employing the poor and destitute children of the city during the winter evenings."
The Dean of Exeter, no less, had said that the city streets were "positively infested by a great number of unemployed, idle and excessively ill-conducted boys and girls." and something needed to be done about it. The Flying Post did not doubt the citizens of Exeter would be able to deal with the problem. Englishness had something to do with it:
"The gathering itself was peculiarly English. Its spirit was English. Its composition was English....All political, all religious differences are forgotten, and thinking only of the purpose of the hour, we meet together under the leadership of the Mayor to accomplish, by our own energy, an object that in every other country in Europe would be left, with a shrug of the shoulders, to the Government. This is the prerogative of an Englishman - the characteristic mark of an imperial race, - a race intended to govern and fit to govern - to do for ourselves what races of an inferior strength and of inferior intelligence, in their helplessness, leave to the Government."
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