United States or Ireland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There seems to have come over the man a great change about the time of the Louis Phillippe revolution. I well remember that in the spring of 1848 I saw him parading one of the streets of London, arm-in-arm with a son of Sir Robert Peel, both sworn in as special constables to put down the chartists should they attempt a riot.
This eastward return-wave of Celts upon the Teuton has leavened the whole mass; if you look at the leaders of Radicalism in England you will find they bear, almost without exception, true Celtic surnames. Chartists and Socialists of the first generation were marshalled by men of Cymric descent, like Ernest Jones and Robert Owen, or by pure-blooded Irishmen like Fergus O'Connor.
This affair in the midst of the Jamaica hitch would have been fatal to us." "These chartists evidently act upon a system," said Mr Egerton. "You see they were perfectly quiet till the National Petition was presented and debated; and now, almost simultaneously with our refusing to consider their petition, we have news of this outbreak."
And I know both co-operators and Chartists who were loud-mouthed for social and political reform, who now care no more for it than a Whig government; and decline to attend a public meeting on a fine night, while they would crawl like the serpent in Eden, through a gutter in a storm, after a good security. They have tasted land, and the gravel has got into their souls."
Few thought at this time that the movement awakening in the working centres of the North and Midlands was destined to spread with the strange rapidity of popular passion to spread and live for a decade. Few of the Chartists expected to see the fulfilment of half of their desires. Yet, to-day, a moiety of the People's Charter has been granted.
This longing became so strong as the crisis in April approached, that he came to London to see what could be done, and to get help from Mr. Maurice, and those whom he had been used to meet at his house. He found them a divided body. The majority were sworn in as special constables, and several had openly sided with the Chartists; while he himself, with Mr. Maurice and Mr.
The Chartists, as they called themselves, had advocates even in Parliament, who presented their petitions to the House of Commons, and tried, though unsuccessfully, to give them importance by the appointment of a committee to investigate the character of the reforms which they demanded.
Wordsworth received him and said to him: "You Chartists are right: you have a right to votes, only you take the wrong way to obtain them. You must avoid physical violence." Referring to the conversation, Mr. Dicey comments: At the age of seventy-six the spirit of the old revolutionist and of the friend of the Girondins was still alive.
Under this harassing and unhandsome treatment the Prime Minister was beginning to show age; and the coming session gave no promise that his cares in other respects would be less heavy than before; the Women Chartists were threatening a bigger outbreak in the near future, and Labor was now claiming to be freely supported from the rates either when out of work or when on strike.
But gradually, even among them, and especially in the factory districts, where contact with the more intelligent operatives could not fail of its effect, there arose a spirit of opposition to the shameless oppression of the "coal kings." The men began to form Unions and strike from time to time. In civilised districts they joined the Chartists body and soul.
Word Of The Day