Forty years' recollections : literary and political

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FOETY YEARS'
RECOLLECTIONS.

LONDON :
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,

ST. John's square.

FOETY YEAES'

EECOLLECTIONS

LITERARY AND POLITICAL.

BT

THOMAS FROST,

AXriHOB OF " THB SKCRBT SOCIETIK8 OP THE B^TBOPKAN HEVOtrTIOIT," "tHE LIFE
OP THOMAS, lOBD LTTTKLTOir," ETC.

Hontton :
SAMPSON LOW, MAESTOX, SEAELE, AND EIVINGTON,

CROW>'^ BUILDINGS, 18S, FLEET STREET.
1880.

lAll rights reserved.J

CONTEXTS.

CHAPTER I.

FA6K

Fifty Years Ago . 1

CHAPTER II.
The Owenian Socialist Movement .... 13

CHAPTER III.
The Axti-Cobn-Law League and the Chartists . 26

CHAPTER IV.
The CoNCOKDitJM 4<>

CHAPTER V.
The Communist Propaganda .... 53

CHAPTER YI.
PopriAR Litbbatcbe Forty Years Ago . . 77

vi Contents.

CHAPTER VII.

PAGB

The Chaetist Movement 96

CHAPTER VIII.
The Gbeat Petition 118

CHAPTER IX.
The New Oeganization 143

CHAPTER X.

O'CONNOE AND THE " NoETHEEN StaE " . . . 169

CHAPTER XI.
Papees foe the People 186

CHAPTER XII.
A New Phase of the Refoem Movement . . 197

CHAPTER XIII.
Mission Woek in Bethnal Geeen .... 210

CHAPTER XIV.
John Cassell and his Literaey Staff . . . 226

CHAPTER XV.

Peovincial Jouenalism and Jouenalists . . 239

Contents. vii

CHAPTER XVI.

PAGB

Tbe Hyde Paek Riots 256

CHAPTER XVII.
The Last Yeaes of Palmebston's Dictatobship . 275

CHAPTER XVIII.
The Dawn of a New Eba 289

CHAPTER XIX.
The Stobt of the Hyde Paek Railings . . 303

CHAPTER XX.

The Popclae Litebatuee of the Pbesent Day . 317

CHAPTER XXI.
The Fall of the Gladstone Ministey . . . 331

FOETY YEAES'
EECOLLECTIONS.

CHAPTER I.

nFTT YEARS AGO.

Fifty years are not a very long period in the history
of a nation, much less in that of the world, yet what
mighty events may be crowded into them — what
vast changes made in the social, political, and educa-
tional condition of a people ! Looking back, for
instance, upon the England of half a centurv ao-o,
we have a retrospect which presents as strong a
contrast to the present time as the infancy of an
individual affords to the same person's mature years .
So rapid has been the progress of the nation in
mental development and political enfranchisement
that men not yet old may look back upon the days
of their boyhood as curiously and as wonderingly as
their fathers did upon the age of the Tudors. Men
who are yet but in the autumn of their days have

B

2 Forty Years Recollections.

seen the first rail laid of that mighty network of iron
roads that now extends over the whole country ; the
first gas-lamp lighted in their native town; the first
popular 'periodical, and the first penny newspaper;
the first mechanics' institute ; and the first Quaker
and the first Jew admitted into Parliament. The
generation that has attained manhood during the
period which has been blessed with all these elements
of a high degree of civilization, and many more, can
form only a faint and inadequate conception of the
times when gas and steam were known only as
philosophical experiments ; when popular periodicals
were non-existent ; and no newspaper was published
at a lower price than eightpence.

Such was the state of things in this country when
— now nearly sixty years ago — I first saw the light
in the old, and then rather dull, town of Croydon,
which, however, was a fair example of the towns of
its class, urban centres of agricultural districts, be-
fore railways had connected them with the metro-
polis, or gas lighted their streets. I see it now, in my
mind's eye, as it was then ; with Whitgift's Hospital,
dating from the reign of Elizabeth, and affectionately
and reverently styled by my fellow- townsmen " the
College," forming its most conspicuous architectural
feature at the point at which it was then entered by
the high road from London ; and the bent old men
and women sunning themselves in the prim little

Fifty Yea7's Ago. 3

courtyard— a glimpse of which is obtained through
the archway by which it is entered from the street.
From that comer the long, narrow High Street
stretched southward, dull rather than quiet, with
here a slow grey- tilted carrier's cart, and there a
Brighton stage-coach, stopping to change horses,
with the scarlet-coated guard on the back seat,
equipped with post-horn and blunderbuss.

The grey tower of the old church — then the only
one in the parish — was seen over the roofs on the
right, across a street leading to the slams of the
Old Town ; and, looking after the coach as it dashes
off again to the sound of horn, the royal arms over
the entrance of a substantial edifice of very red
bricks, with a sign-board swinging from a beam
across the street, proclaimed the principal inn — from
the windows of which the Tory candidates for the
representation of the county were wont to address
their supporters. On the opposite side of the narrow
street was the old butter market (now converted
into a printing office) to which farmers' wives
brought butter, eggs, and poultry, in that golden
age of Tory- Radical politicians of Cobbett's school,
when farmers wore linen gaberdines, as their fore-
fathers had done since the days of Egbert, and their
wives did not disdain to milk the cows, make the
butter, feed the poultry, and collect the eggs. A
little farther on, with the best of the sleepy shops
B 2

4 Foriy Years' Recollections.

on the right and the left, and over the way, was the
local Capitol, where farmers stood on market-days
behind their samples of corn on the ground floor,
while above them the justices sat to hear charges of
poaching and other rural oflFences, and the Court of
Requests to adjudicate upon claims for small debts.

What could a country town want more ?

In those days nothing ; so at least thought the
Croydonians of that period, who were eminently
Conservative and unprogressive. There was little
communication with the metropolis, and less with
the neighbouring towns ; and so much did the
tradesmen confine their dealings to the town, that I
remember hearing an old shopkeeper assert that,
owing to the predominance of credit transactions,
you might go from one end of the High Street to
the other, and fail to get change for a sovereign.
Coaches ran through the town daily, and the goods-
traffic was conducted partly by carriers, and partly
by means of a branch of the Surrey Canal, which
had its junction with the Thames at Deptford.
There were persons then living, however, who re-
membered the time when pack-horses were used, a
mode of conveyance availed of even during the first
quarter of the present century by smugglers, who
travelled by night, through green lanes and wood-
land paths, from the coast to obscure nooks on the
outskirts of the metropolis.

*IN

Fifty Years Ago. 5

The police an*angements belonged equally to those
*' good old times," which every general ioQ laments,
but refers to a different period. The modern con-
stable in uniform had not superseded by day the
honest tradesman who, when his services were re-
quired, had to be sought (but was not always found)
behind his counter or in his workshop, and by night
the decrepid old man to whom the parish authorities
entrusted the guardianship of life and property
during the still hours of darkness, in order to keep
him out of the poor-house, and whose many-caped
coats and hom-lantems used to afford such fun
to juveniles when, in the Christmas pantomime,
" Charlie " was upset in his sentry-box by the
clown.

Gras and steam were discoveries which had been
heard of only to be ridiculed. Many a chuckle I
have heard over the absurdity of the idea of lighting
the town with "smoke." Steam was a later inno-
vation than gas, and yet found the inhabitants of
the sleepy old town no better disposed to receive
new ideas, for I remember a caricature in which
men were represented as riding upon tea-kettles,
with the steam pufl5ng from the spout. The appli-
cation to Parliament for the authorization of the
railway which now connects the town with the
metropolis and the coast was the signal for a
general chorus of consternation and despair. Every-

6 Forty Years' Recollections.

body, it was said, would go to London to procure
the articles whicli they had hitherto purchased in
the town, and the local shopkeepers would be
ruined. All the villages below Croydon would send
fruit and vegetables to London, and the market-
gardeners would be ruined. The coaches and the
carriers' carts would be driven off the roads, and
horses would not be worth an old song.

Of course there was no local newspaper in those
days, and the high price of the stamped journals of
the metropolis precluded the possibility of their
being very widely read. Penny publications were
not yet in existence, and literary institutes and book
clubs were equally unknown in that dull old town,
where a man who could read and write was regarded
as a scholar. The literature of the people consisted
in those days of sixpenny books, in paper covers, in
which were related the lives of famous highwaymen,
or such stories as those of George Barnwell and
Arden of Feversham, embellished with brilliantly-
coloured folding plates. Until the first penny serial
was issued by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, the only books I ever saw in my father's
house, besides the bible and a few old school books,
used by my eldest sister, were some odd numbers
of Cobbett's Register, with the famous gridiron
surmounting the first page, and a few pamphlets,
amongst which I can remember reports of the trial

Fifty Years Ago. 7

of the Cato Street conspirators, and that of Sir
Robert Wilson and others for aiding the escape of
Lavalette from the Conciergerie.

Education was discouraged in those days by the up-
per classes, and scarcely appreciated by the middle and
lower grades of society. When William and Robert
Chambers began the issue of their popular and still
existing periodical, which was closely followed by
the first penny venture of the Useful Knowledge
Society, and the National and British School
Societies began to dot the darkened land with
schools, a large proportion of the upper and middle
classes regarded the eftbrts then being made to
educate the masses with extreme disfavour. Elderly
gentlemen shook their heads gravely, and expressed
fears that, if the working classes were taught to
read and write, it would soon be impossible to obtain
servants. All the boys would desire to be clerks,
and all the girls governesses, and the silver spoon
classes would be able to find no one to clean their
boots and make their beds. The first locomotive
was not viewed with more fear and distrust than the
first elementary school and the first penny periodical.

But the feelinofs with which the circulation among
the masses of the driblets of knowledge supplied by
the early popular serials was regarded by Tory
squires and parsons were mild in comparison with
the horror with which they viewed the newspapers

8 Forty Years Recollections.

which, because the working classes could not afford
to buy journals bearing a threepenny stamp, appeared
without it. No term of opprobrium was too strong
to be applied to the unstamped newspapers, which
comprised all the representatives of the working
classes, and naturally were Radical in their general
tone, and in their treatment of the leading questions
of the day. Prosecution after prosecution, resulting
in heavy fines and long imprisonments,* failed to
suppress these pioneers of the penny press, which
were printed and published with the greatest secrecy,
distributed by a variety of devices, and sought by
working men with an avidity that increased with
the supply of the aliment and the risks that attended
the procuring of it.

In such conditions little mental activity was to be
expected in the smaller provincial towns, especially
in the agricultural districts, where men^s intellects
are unsharpened by friction with their fellows as in
the larger towns of the midland and northern
counties. The thinking powers of that generation

' Henry Hetherington, with whom T was acquainted more
than, thirty years ago, and who was the proprietor and
editor of the Voor Man's Guardian, estimated the ntimher
of persons sentenced to imprisonment for selling unstamped
newspapers at five hundred; but Mr. Hey wood, a Man-
chester bookseller, in a paper read before the Literary Club
of that town, stated that the number was seven hundred
and fifty.

Fifty Years A^o. 9

were stagnant. In the towns and villages of the
south men^s minds seemed to be slumbering, until
the puff of the steam-engine should awaken them.
Political opinions scarcely existed. There was a
great display of party feeling at elections, but the
colour of a rosette, rather than difference of prin-
ciples, distinguished one party from the other.
Men called themselves Blues or Yellows, as the
case might be; and the less they knew of the
principles which the colours symbolized the more
ready they were to fight for them.

I remember being roused from sleep one night,
about fifty years ago, by the uproar created by the
ceremony of " chairing " the successful candidates,
who, of course, were Tories ; for the single Whig
candidate was in those days nearly always defeated
in Surrey. Getting out of my bed, and flattening
my nose against the window, I saw a long line of
carriages, escorted by a dense mob, hoarse with
shouting, in whose midst floated, at intervals, yel-
low flags and banners, their staves carried at every
angle, and waving from side to side in a curiously
serpentine manner, as their bearers described a line
of beauty along the muddy street. It was the era
of the agitation against the removal of the civil
disabilities of persons of the Romish communion,
and every dead wall and hoarding was scrawled
with the motto, " No Popery."

lo Forty Yeat's" Recollections.

But, tiiougli they grew excited over the fortunes
of the Blues and the Yellows at election times, the
Croydonians of that period did not ordinarily interest
themselves much in the political questions of the
day. When the contest at the hustings and the
polling-booths had ended, as it usually did, in the
return of a brace of Tory squires, they subsided
into an apathy which had in it much of the selfish-
ness evinced by a local coal and potato dealer, who,
being questioned as to his political sympathies,
replied, '' I am for them that buy potatoes of me/*
I believe that the publication most read in the
town in those days was a scurrilous little sheet of
the Vaul Pry class, issued by a printer named
Tickle, whose office was a miserable wooden house
at the corner of Middle Street and Bell Hill, since
converted into a lodging-house for tramps.

There was, however, a little knot of Radicals in
the town, who, abused, ridiculed, pointed at, de-
nounced as dangerous characters, as they were then,
formed the nucleus of the local Liberal party of the
future. The most active members of this much-
abused band were Charles Thompson, a clerk in the
service of a brewer named Harman; a journeyman
tailor named Washford, who was the pioneer of the
much-needed movement for reforming the manage-
ment of the Whitgift charities ; and my father, who
then carried on the business of a tailor in the High

Fifty Years Ago. 1 1

Street. These men worked quietly, but with con-
siderable success, for the dissemination of their
principles; and the political ferment of 1831, to
which the French revolution of the preceding year
contributed in no small degree, found a large
number of the working classes prepared to join in
the agitation for "the Bill, the whole Bill, and
nothing but the Bill," namely, the Reform Bill
introduced that year by the administration of which
Earl Grey was the chief, and Earl (then Lord John)
Russell the leading exponent in the House of
Commons.

Like all masses of men who have just awakened
to a dim consciousness of their rights, but have not
yet learned even the rudiments of politics, the
" great unwashed '' — their descendants will pardon
a term borrowed from Cobbett — were prone to
noise and violence ; and, even if the Radicals of
the smaller towns, such as Croydon, had not been,
in that respect, far in the rear of Birmingham and
Manchester, they could not be expected to prove
an exception to the rule. The rejection of the
Reform Bill by the House of Lords excited them
to such a degree of fury that, when the Archbishop
of Canterburv, who had voted acrainst the Bill,
visited the town shortly afterwards for the purpose
of consecrating St. James's church, they received
him with howling and hooting, mobbed him at the

12 Forty Years' Recollections.

church, and pursued him with reviling and menaces
on his departure.

As I was, at that time, only in my tenth year, I
can record of that period, and the events of the
few preceding years, only such imperfect recol-
lections as my memory retained in after-life. It
was not until ten years later that I became con-
nected with the Press, or with any political organi-
zation ; and I shall, therefore, commence my
recollections of the Socialist and Chartist move-
ments of forty years ago with a new chapter.

CHAPTER II.

THE OWEXIAN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.

Forty years ago the minds of vast numbers of the
thinking portion of the working classes throughout
the most highly-civilized countries of the world
were filled with ideas of the perfectibility of human
nature and the reconstruction of society upon the
basis of universal liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Ever toiling for a mere subsistence — seeing every-
where around them poverty, ^'ice, and misery, in
startling contrast with wealth and luxury, excluded
from the rights of citizenship, smarting under the
inequaUties and anomalies of the laws enacted by
the representatives of a small minority of the people,
without hope of relief from any action of the
governing classes — they embraced with ardour the
theories of moral and social regeneration which
were at that time in course of active promulgation,
in England by Robert Owen, in France by Cabet,
Proudhon, and Constant, and the disciples of those
elder revivers of the day-dreams of the Illuminatists,

14 Fo7'ty Years' Recollections.

St. Simon and Fourier, in Germany by Weitling
and Albrecht.

I was about sixteen years of age, and knew
nothing of the Owenian ethics and social economy,
when I was attracted to a gathering of Owen^s
South London disciples at the Tivoli Gardens, a
respectably-conducted place of recreation at Nor-
wood, partly by curiosity as to what Socialists were
like, and partly by the announcement of a brilliant
display of fireworks. The Socialists proved to be
persons whose appearance and manners did not
render them in the slightest degree remarkable,
and their founder a little, benevolent-looking,
quiet-mannered gentleman in an ordinary suit of
black. A short address was delivered by the
philanthropist, and then dancing on the lawn com-
menced, concluding when darkness began to settle
upon the pleasant scene, and gave the necessary
background for the pyrotechnic display, the cul-
minating effect of which was the motto, in letters
of fire, " Each for all, and all for each."

I had just been reading Coleridge's " Religious
Musings," and the brief address in which the
philosopher of New Lanark had set forth the
principles of his new constitution of society sent me
to the poem again. The scheme of the philosopher
seemed to be the due respouse to the aspirations of
the poet. At that time, however, it interested me

The Owenian Socialist Movement. 1 7

t ration that would be accessible to all classes of tbe
communitr. That such a law and such a tribunal
was needed in the interests of morality and social
order was known to every one who was aware of the
sin and misery engendered by the legal indissolu-
bility of marriage, especially amongst the working
classes ; and it was not contended, even by those
who were opposed to the principle of dissolubility,
that the power of obtaining a divorce should depend
upon the ability of the wronged individual to expend
from 500/. to lOOOZ., which was the cost of a private
Act, then the only means by which a divorce was
obtainable.

Parliament has since conceded, in principle at
least, all that Owen ever demanded, and for his
advocacy of which he was denounced by the late
Bishop of Exeter, in his place in the House of Lords,
and by the then Bishop of Norwich, and many of
the clergy, from their pulpits, as the promulgator
of the detestable system of promiscuous intercourse.
There is not one line of Owen's works which affords
the slio^htest foundation for this charge, which his
clerical calumniators would have known to be false
if they had been half as earnest in endeavouring to
ascertain the truth as they were zealous in striving
to blacken the philanthropist's reputation.

There was just as little ground for branding the
Socialists as a body with the stigma of atheism.

c

1 8 Forty Years Recollections.

So completely was perfect freedom of religion iden-
tified with the system propounded by Owen that
several of the residents at Harmony Hall were
regular worshippers at the neighbouring parish
church ; and the governess of the infant school of
that community was a member of the Society of
Friends. But nothing was too bad to be believed
of Owen and his disciples ; and so eager were the
newspaper editors who desired to be regarded as
supporters of religion^ morality, and social order to
circulate rumours tending to discredit Socialism and
its founder, that a false and libellous paragraph,
which appeared in a periodical publication entitled,
Tlxe Antidote to Socialism and Infidelity, edited by a
person named Brindley, was copied, without inquiry,
into almost every newspaper in the three kingdoms.
It stated that the operations in Hampshire had been
suspended, and that Owen had fled from Harmony
Hall, taking with him 15,000Z., which he had
obtained by false representations from two elderly
spinsters. The whole story was a malicious inven-
tion, which the libellers were made to retract by
threats of legal proceedings. Harmony Hall was
then rapidly approaching completion, and Owen had
just gone to reside there, having previously lived in
London.

Great was the outcry raised when Lord Melbourne
introduced Owen to the Queen, and the venerable

The OiVetdaii Socialist Afove??teiii. 19

philanthropist placed in the sovereign's hands a
copy of his "Book of the Xew Moral World."
Who can tell the extent to which that unwarranted
clamour influenced the minds of those who believed
the minister guilty of the deviation from virtue
attributed to him by the promoters of the action in
which Grantley Norton was the plaintiflf. Probably
there were many thousands of persons who con-
scientiously believed Socialism to be what it was
proclaimed in the press and the pulpit, a system
behind which all took refuge who wished to cast otf
the restraints of society, and make free with their
neighbours' wives and chattels. Few persons who
were not Socialists read the New Maral World, and
there was no corrective, therefore, to the falsehoods
and misrepresentations which were sown broadcast
by the press.

Does the reader remember the course adopted by
the conductors of a certain exponent of middle-class
Eadicalism, then boasting the largest circulation
among all the weekly newspapers, to create a
" public opinion " hostile to the Poor Law Amend-
ment Act? If not, a few words will explain it.
There appeared, every week, a column headed
" Horrors of the New Poor Law," and under this
head were collected all the cases of suicide, infanti-
cide, and death from privation, which had occurred
during the week. Very similar to this was the
c 2

20 Forty Years' Recollections.

course pursued by that and other newspapers in
dealing with Socialism. It was a very common
device for complainants and witnesses to say of a
person charged with larceny, wife desertion, or
almost any other offence, "He is a Socialist;" and
reports of all such cases had the side-head, '^ Effect
of Owenism," while the term " Socialist Marriage''
was commonly applied to connexions unsanctioned
by law and religion.

The press took no notice of Socialism so long as
there was no opportunity of vilifying its professors,
therein acting in the same manner as then and
subsequently with regard to the Chartist movement.
So far as any information could have been gleaned
from any newspaper, the Harmony Hall experiment
could not have been supposed to be in progress. A
significant contrast to this silence was afforded by the
alacrity with which, when the building operations
were partially suspended, for want of funds, in the
summer of 1 842, almost the entire metropolitan and
provincial press, without distinction of party, copied
the false statement of an evening journal, that the
Socialist establishment in Hampshire was finally
broken up, after an expenditure of 37,000/., that
the workmen were all discharged, and that Owen had
left the place. This was not enough to satisfy the
self- constituted guardians of moral and social order,
and hence the calumnies of Brindley.

The Owe7iian Socialist Movement. 2 1

All this clamour was excited bj an endeavour to
improve the moral and material condition of the
people bj the application of the co-operative prin-
ciple to the erection of dwellings in which all the
social and domestic arrangements, aided by all the
resources of science and art, should be directed to
that end. Owen contended that the character of
each individual is formed by the circumstances by
which he is surrounded, and that therefore the
provision of the best conditions was the necessary
prelude to the formation of the best type of charac-
ter. Actuated himself by the purest philanthropy,
he thought that he had only to show what he desig-
nated the rational system of society in actual and
successful operation to inspire all the statesmen of
the civilized world to adopt it, and to enlist in its
favour the governing classes everywhere. To that
end he sacrificed a large private fortune, and
devoted the best portion of a long and useful
life, reaping in return only calumny and disap-
pointment.

The Hampshire experiment interested me very
much. The communitive life seemed to me the
perfection of political, social, and domestic economy,
and to present equally the best conditions for a truly
Christian life, and the realization of that state of
which so many sages and poets have dreamed in all
ages, in which sin and sorrow should be no more.

22 Forty Years'' Recollections.

ignorance and want be unknown. I longed for
association with kindred spirits in community, cor-
responded with Owen and others, sought admission
to Harmony Hall ; but it was not to be. There
were thousands of others as eager as myself to
make trial of the communitive life as presented
in Owen^s system, and whose claims had precedence
of mine. The experiment eventually collapsed —
not, I believe, through defects inherent in the
system, but owing to the difficulty which those
who attempted to reduce it to practice experienced
in adapting themselves to its requirements. Upon
this point I shall have a few observations to make
in relation to some similar experiments upon a
smaller scale.

Forty years have elapsed since that time. The
Rational Society has long ceased to exist ; its
founder has passed away from this world, and expe-
rienced, I trust, that '^ beautiful surprise '^ which a
Christian lady of considerable literary attainments
anticipated for Harriet Martineau ; the system
which he advocated has no longer an exponent,
either in the press or in the lecture-hall. Yet, in
pra<5tice, and without the name. Socialism flourishes
more widely and strongly than ever. Though we
never hear of it, the results of its teaching are
everywhere around us, and its fundamental tenet,
" man is the creature of circumstances,'' may be

The Owenian Socialist Movement. 23

recognized in all the legislation of the last quarter
of a century. This state of things is the more
remarkable from the fact that it has been brought
about without any conscioustiess on the part of those
who have created it that they were acting upon the
principles which called forth such furious hostility
forty years ago.

The aflfiliation of the co-operative factories and
workshops of Lancashire and Yorkshire is indis-
putable; but no one suspects of Socialism the
promoters of public baths and wash-houses, improved
dwellings for the working classes, reformatory and
industrial schools for juvenile offenders, district and
separate schools for the children of paupers. Lord
Shaftesbury, the denouncer of Owen in 1840, is
one of the most active and influential promoters of
these ameliorations; and assuredly his lordship is
no Socialist, Owenian, or of any school. A little
consideration must satisfy every impartial mind,
however, that the institutions mentioned have
sprung directly from the conviction that man is the
creature of circumstances, and that by them his
character is formed.

So numerous have been the reforms of this kind
during the last twenty or thirty years, that they
can be ascribed only to the gradual awakening of
society to the conviction that there was much more
in Socialism than its critics were willing to acknow-

24 Forty Years Recollections.

ledge while its advocacy was associated in the
public mind with atheism and immorality. Repu-
diating it as a system, social reformers have availed
of its teachings, and sought to improve the minds
and morals of their fellow-creatures by ameliorating
the conditions amidst which they are placed. But,
as none of these reforms have been effected by
Owen and his disciples, the connexion between the
thought and the work has escaped recognition by
society.

In one solitary instance alone has Robert Owen
been publicly acknowledged by a person not hold-
ing his views as the originator of any one of the
many reforms which he indicated or inaugurated.
About twenty years ago, when a petition was pre-
sented to the House of Lords on behalf of a gentle-
man named Wilderspin, on the ground that he was
the founder of infant schools. Lord Brougham rose
to correct the statement, informing the House that
the first infant school was devised and established
by Robert Owen for the children of the workers
employed in his extensive cotton-spinning establish-
ment at New Lanark.

But, whether the obligations of society to • Owen
are acknowledged or not, the fact remains that
statesmen have been acting for more than a quarter
of a century upon the fundamental tenet of
Socialism, and drawing, in all their plans for the

The Owe7tia7i Socialist Movement. 25

amelioration of the condition of the people, upon
the foreshadowings of one whom they formerly
regarded as an impracticable ideologist or a dan-
gerous anarchist. '

26 Fo7'ty Years" Recollections,

CHAPTER III.

THE ANTI-COEN-LAW LEAGUE AND THE CHARTISTS.

It was while working in a printing office in
Croydon, and with ideas of the reconstruction of
society and the perfectionation of human nature
working in my mind, that I met, for the first time,
two men, each remarkable in his way, though one
never emerged from the obscurity of his humble
position as a shoemaker, and the other set his mark
upon the age, and died with the reputation of a
statesman.

In the autumn of 1842, a period of serious com-
mercial depression and of severe distress amongst
the working classes, the late Hichard Cobden made
a tour through the agricultural districts, accom-
panied by Thompson, Villiers, and other notabilities
of the Anti-Corn-Law League, for the purpose of
converting the farmers to his views of the policy of
free-trade in corn. In carrying out this purpose he
was met by the difficulty that the farmers could be
addressed only in the market towns, and that the

Anti-Corn- Law Leagtie and Chartists. 27

urban working classes were, as a rule, opposed to
the aims of tlie League. Though none had better
reasons for desiring cheap bread than the artisan
and the labourer, there was a wide-spread impi'es-
sion that low quotations on the Corn Exchange
meant low rates in the labour market ; while among
the Chartists the view taken of the free-trade move-
ment was, that the agitation required for the attain-
ment of free-trade in corn would suffice for the suc-
cess of the movement for parliamentary reform,
which would then enable them to obtain the repeal
of the Com Laws, the enactment of the Ten Hours
Bill, and every other measure requisite for their
well-being, without the agitation that would other-
wise be the necessary preliminary to every reform in
which they were interested.

There was sound sense in this view, but it did not
move the Leaguers, who were interested in only one
of the many ameliorations desired by the masses.
As a consequence of its adoption by the industrial
classes, however, the Leaguers were opposed at
several of the towns which they visited with a resolu-
tion, moved and seconded by working men, affirming
the repeal of the Corn Laws to be a reform which
could easily be obtained when the majority of the
people possessed the franchise, and the free -trade
movement to be one which should, therefore, be sub-
ordinated to the agitation for parliamentary reform.

28 Forty Years Recollections.

Croydon exhibited at this time evidence of social
progress and intellectual vitality which had not been
visible twenty years before. Since the railway had
been made, so far from being ruined, it had grown
rapidly in every direction, and mental progress had
advanced in the same ratio as commercial activity.
There was a flourishing Literary Institution, a Book
Club, and other indications of more active intellectual
life than had characterized the inhabitants in the
days of oil lamps, stage coaches, and rampant
Toryism. Newspapers were found in every place of
public resort, and there was a large and increasing
demand for the numerous low-priced publications
which had sprung into existence during the last ten
years.

The Radical party was represented by a branch
of the National Charter Association, an organization
which had been in existence about five years. The
members enrolled in Croydon were not very
numerous, but they were thoroughly imbued with
democratic ideas, and active and earnest in their
dissemination. The men who openly and actively
take part in any political movement are always a few
compared with those who hold the same views, but
do not declare themselves; and Eadicalism had
progressed in the town in the ratio of the intellectual
progress which had been achieved in the ten years
preceding Cobden^s visit.

Anti-Corn- Law League and Chartists. 29

The gathering on the open space behind the Corn
Market on that occasion was the first demonstration
of the kind at which I assisted. It was market-
day, and I found the broad area dotted with groups
of farmers of various grades, from the holder of a
thousand acres down to the brown-faced men in
gaberdines who brought poultry, butter, and eggs
to the market. The shopkeepers of the town were
too busily employed behind their counters to attend
the meeting, and the hour being an inconvenient
one for the working classes, not then liberated by
the early closing movement, the townsmen were
represented chiefly by the few artisans who either
had nothing to do, or deemed it their duty to lose
half a day^s earnings for the sake of supporting
their principles.

The Leaguers had just ascended the waggon
which had been drawn up against a corn warehouse
to serve as a platform, when the dark clouds which
had lowered ominously since noon began to dis-
charge their aqueous contents, and umbrellas went
up like a sudden growth of gigantic mushrooms, as
well on the waggon as over the heads of the crowd
below. A consultation seemed to be held by the
Leaguers as to the course to be pursued under these
adverse conditions; but there were no symptoms of
retreat on the part of the crowd, and the indecision
was ended by General Thompson stepping forward.

30 Forty Years' Recollections.

and saying, as lie extended one hand towards tlie
throng below, " If it doesn^t rain there, it doesn't
rain here." Loud applause greeted the remark, and
the proceedings were commenced.

Cobden's address was listened to with great
attention, and though there were some expressions
of dissent when he had concluded, applause greatly-
predominated. When the resolution in favour of
free-trade had been moved and seconded, the
waggon was mounted by a man with a black linen
apron twisted round his waist, and another wearing
a fustian jacket and corduroy trousers.

" Name ! " cried several voices in the throng, on
its becoming evident that the man with the black
apron intended to address the meeting.

" Blackaby ! James Blackaby ! " was called out in
stentorian tones by the man in the fustian jacket,
who, as I learned from a mechanic standing near
me, was a sawyer named Hodges, the secretary of
the local branch of the Chartist organization.

Whether Jem Blackaby, as I heard him familiarly
called by a knot of working men near the waggon,
was a good orator or an indifferent one I am unable
to say. I have heard many terribly eloquent
orations from working men, and listened to many
very poor speeches in the House of Commons. I
am bound to record that the man with the black
apron made a fair start, but he had not delivered

Anti-Corn- Laiu Leaz^te and Chartists.

i>

himself of more than a dozen lines when Cobden
interrupted him with a petulant assertion that " this
man," who had *^put an apron on that he might
look like a working man," was a hired agitator, who
had followed him all through the country for the
purpose of disturbing the meetings which he
addressed.

" No, no ! We know him," was shouted from
below ; and the man with the black apron raised his
voice, protesting that he had not slept a night out
of the town during the last two years, and denouncing
the interruption as illiberal and unfair.

Cobden persisted in his statement, however,
asserting that he had seen ''the man" at every
meeting he had addressed, always with the black
apron round his waist, and always with an amend-
ment in favour of the famous " six points." In this
he was certainly mistaken ; and it is to be regretted,
for his fame's sake, that he should have persisted in
an assertion which, if it had concerned an individual
in his own sphere, he would either not have made,
or have retracted on its inaccuracy being affirmed
by those present. His persistence had the desired
eflFect. Blackaby was known only to a few of the
crowd around the waggon, and the representatives
of the agricultural interest, whatever they may have
thought of free trade, were not disposed to support
a Chartist — a desisrnation which in those davs was

32 Forty Years' Recollectio7ts.

regarded by the middle classes as a synonym for
anarchist. The latter had so much the advantage
of numbers over those who supported him that
Blackaby was soon overpowered by clamour, and,
after a vain endeavour to obtain a hearing, he con-
tented himself with reading his amendment. It was
seconded by the sawyer, but, on being put to the
meeting, was supported only by the knot of working
men near the waggon.

The rain abated during the uproar, and before
sunset it had ceased. I was passing, in the even-
ing, a beerhouse in the outskirts of the town, when
I heard one of a group of mechanics, who were
smoking their pipes at the door, inform his com-
panions that Jem Blackaby was in the parlour.
The movement that was made in the direction indi-
cated convinced me that Jem was a local celebrity
in his own sphere, and I followed the men into an
apartment filled with a blue haze of tobacco smoke,
through which I recognized the man of the black
apron. Having got through the arguments which
he had not been allowed to advance at the meeting,
he was now engaged in an animated discussion on
the merits of the system of society propounded by
Robert Owen.

Seated opposite to him, I was able to observe
Blackaby with more attention than I had bestowed
upon him in the afternoon. He was a spare man.

Anti-Corn- Law League and Chartists.

00

about tte middle height, with a slight stoop at the
shoulders, contracted probably by constantly bend-
ing over his work of boot-making, which might also
be chargeable with a marked narrowness of the
chest. His face was one of those strongly-marked
countenances which, once seen, are never forgotten.
He was very far from being even ordinarily good-
looking, and yet both his aspect and his manners
were prepossessing. Dark hair — the habit of which
" shocky " describes more accurately than " curly *' —
hung in elf-like locks about a furrowed forehead, the
height and breadth of which did not exceed the
average, though the facial angle was almost perfect.
Beneath his dusky locks, which he often put back
with his hand while speaking, shone a pair of fine
dark eyes, full of expression, and constituting the
Bole redeeming feature of a sallow countenance,
thickly pitted with the traces of small-pox, and
almost destitute of whiskers.

Taking part in the discussion myself, I soon dis-
covered that he was very fairly acquainted with
Owen^s system, which he debated, from his own
point of view, with rare impartiality, and with a
fluency of expression, a command of language, and
a degree of argumentative ability, not often met
with even amongst those who have enjoyed the
highest educational advantages. We became ac-
quainted that evening, and, in the course of many

D

34 Forty Years' Recollections.

subsequent years, I passed many an agreeable half-
liour in the shoemaker's garret, talking by turns of
politics and poetry. He might have been the proto-
type of Alton Locke, for he was a poet as well as a
politician, and I shall have something to say con-
cerning his poetical productions in another chapter.

His poetical proclivities came out one day through
a diversion which he made from a conversation on
the land question by observing that his pronuncia-
tion of the word " contrary " differed from mine,
and asking me, with the air of a man desirous of
learning, whether there was any other authority
than custom for making it short, with the accent on
the first syllable. He reminded me that both Shake-
speare and Milton made it long, with the emphasis
on the second syllable, and quoted passages from
" Henry IV.'' and " Samson Agonistes " in illustra-
tion.

I thought of Bloomfield and Gifford, and won-
dered whether I had found another budding poet in
a son of Crispin. Remarking that his occupation
must be favourable to mental cultivation, I men-
tioned the Suffolk tailor's son and the Cornish cabin-
boy — examples which elicited the confession that he
also had, in bis leisure, cultivated the acquaintance of
the Muses, though he did not anticipate that his
name would ever be inscribed on the muster-roll of
fame. He had never, he said, had an opinion of

Anti-Corn- La-jj League and Chartists. 35

anytliing that he had written that would have war-
ranted an endeavour to obtain publicity for it, but
he would be glad to hear my opinion. He then
produced some stanzas, written upon a sheet of
foolscap, which, though they could scarcely have
been put in competition with the poems of the better
known bards who have combined the making of
verses with the making of boots, had the true ring
in them, and a hundred years previously might have
caused the author's name to be inscribed amongst
British poets. But poems and essays which sufficed
to make their authors' fame, in the last century are
now so numerous that they are read only to be
forgotten.

The circumstances under which I first met
Blackaby — the antagonism of the wealthy Leaguer
and the poor Chartist, the successful endeavour of
one of the privileged order to prevent one of the
unenfranchised from obtaining a hearing — were a
fitting prelude to the unfortunate strike and out-
break of 1842, which followed close upon the inci-
dent I have related. Throughout the autumn, mills
were closed, mines empty, furnaces blown out.
Huno-ry men paced in thousands through the streets
of the manufacturing towns of the midland and
northern counties, and congregated by torchlight
on the dusky moors in their vicinity, to listen to
the exciting harangues of their leaders, who told
D 2

36 Forty Years Recollections.

them, in stern language, of their wrongs. Blood
was shed and property destroyed in several of the
manufacturing towns of the north. The Guards
were sent down from London to suppress a move-
ment that seemed to threaten a revolution ; but the
crowds that attended them, both on their departure
and their arrival, testified plainly that their sym-
pathies were with the insurgents.

The letters of the late Sir Charles Napier, who
commanded in the Midland Military District, have
since revealed how critical was the situation and how
great the embarrassment of the Government. There
was the greatest dread that such a conspiracy might
exist as burst harmlessly in the autumn of 1 839 ;
and while every magnate who knew himself to be
unpopular besieged the Home Ofiice with applica-
tions for military protection, a threatening demon-
stration in one place, an attack on a mill at another,
an incendiary fire at a third, harassed the authorities,
who knew not where the dreaded blow might be
struck, nor how to distribute their forces to meet it.

Though the Chartists did not suggest the suspen-
sion of labour that, beginning at Ashton-under-
Lyne, spread all through the manufacturing districts,
their movement acquired from it a considerable
impetus, the trades union delegates assembled in
conference at Manchester having adopted, by a largo
majority, a resolution approving "the extension and

Anti-Corn-Law Leagzte and CJiartists. ^y

continnance of the present struggle unti] the People^s
Charter becomes a legislative enactment/' and pledg-
ing themselves to give, on their return to their
respective localities, "a proper direction to the
people's efforts." The Government were therefore
not without grounds for their fear of a dangerous
and wide-spread revolt.

Though the rural districts exhibited none of the
excitement so strongly displayed in the midland and
northern counties, the authorities were on the alert
wherever the Chartist organization had been intro-
duced, not knowing how far the danger manifested
elsewhere might have extended. Was it not at the
little town of Newport, in Monmouthshire, that the
conspirators of 1839 fired the train that was in-
tended to produce a revolutionary explosion at Bir-
mingham, the reverberations of which should be
felt throughout the kingdom ?

In Croydon this watchful and expectant attitude
of the authorities had some ludicrous results. In
consequence of a Chartist meeting in the Old Town
having been announced by a bill headed " Men of
Croydon ! are the working classes to be goaded
into rebellion before their grievances are redressed ? "
the police were instructed to keep a sharp look-out
for seditious or inflammatory bills. Some laughter
was one day created by a short-sighted constable
rushing across the High Street to read an announce-

38 Forty Years Recollections.

ment which he fancied was headed " Chartists !
read, pause, and consider ! " The bill really an-
nounced a gathering of "teetotallers/^ and the
constable had read Chartists for Christians.

When the fears of the authorities were approach-
ing the climax, the inspector of police was led to
believe, " from information he had received," that a
case of muskets had been brought into the town by
one of the local carriers, and deposited in the house
of a gunmaker in the High Street, to be used in a
revolutionary outbreak. Inquiries made of the car-
rier elicited information which seemed to confirm
the inspector's secret intelligence. The police there-
upon made an irruption into the suspected premises,
and there found the case, but not the muskets.
The contents of the case were fowling-guns, which
had been sent to be repaired, and concerning the
ownership of which satisfactory information was
given by the consignee.

I did not at that time connect myself with the
Chartist organization. The poetry of Coleridge and
Shelley was stirring within me, and making me " a
Chartist, and something more," as the advanced
reformers of that day were wont to describe them-
selves ; but as yet I, with many more, occupied
towards Chartism the position which the professors
of that political creed held towards the Corn Law
repealers. We believed the demand for the Charter

Anti-Corn-Law League and Chartists. 39

to be a just one, but the goal of our aspirations xvas
far beyond it, and ^e were unwilling to waste our
strength in agitating for anything less than the
reconstruction of the entire fabric of society.

40 Forty Years Recollections.

CHAPTER lY.

THE CONCORDIUM.

The Socialist movement gathered new strength from
the misery and despair which prompted and followed
the strikes and tumults of 1842, which seemed a
conclusive demonstration of the irrationality of the
competitive system. Advances upon the line of
march indicated by Owen were made by seceders
from political and religious bodies which opposed
Socialism. Chartists who held republican views as
to the future of government separated from the
main body, whose aims were strictly constitutional,
and, under the nameof Charter- Socialists, advocated
a model republic on the basis of the People's Charter
and Socialist institutions. Earnest Christians — who
saw in the establishment of such institutions the
fulfilment of Hebrew prophecies, and the realization
of the Gospel proclaimed by Jesus in the synagogue
at Nazareth, yet shrank from enlisting under the
banner of an avowed materialist, as Owen then was —
organized themselves as Christian Socialists, declar-

The Concordium. 41

ing their conviction that the coramunitive system of
society was the only basis on which the precepts of
the Gospel were practicable.

Here and there individuals combined the ad-
vocacy of communitive institutions with some
crotchet of their own, and gathered around them
a few disciples — repelled from Owenism by the
materialistic teachings of its founder and most of
those who followed him, or impatient of the slow
progress which, to their sanguine minds, it seemed
to be making in the direction of practical operations.
One of these movements originated, in 1842, with
the disciples of James Pierrepont Greaves, a psycho-
logical mystic, who died at Ham, near Richmond, in
the early part of that year, when his mantle was
held to have fallen upon William Oldham, a neigh-
bour and follower.

The experiment, which was commenced at Alcott
House, on the verge of Ham Common, shortly after-
wards, was conducted on principles materially diffe-
rent to those which were being worked out at Har-
mony Hall, with the exception that both were under
that hete-noir of the Charter- Socialists, the paternal
system of government. Greaves and his disciples
maintained, in diametrical opposition to Owen's
views, that the existing generation could not be
perfected, or even appreciably improved, since no
amount of education or moral training, or any other

42 Forty Years Recollections.

external condition, could repair tlie defects of birth.
The regeneration of society could, in their view, be
brought about only individually, not by acting on
masses ; and the process must be internal, not
external — thus reversing the formula of Owen.
Holding this view as a fundamental tenet of their
faith, they adopted the communitive system only as
a means of attracting men and women of loveful
natures and cultivated minds, in order that by and
through them the mass of society might be leavened,
and a new moral world evoked out of the chaos of
old and effete institutions.

To this little group of earnest workers for the
regeneration of society my mind turned when I
found the doors of Harmony Hall practically closed
against me. I opened a correspondence with the
Pater, as William Oldham was styled by the brother-
hood, and received an invitation to dine at the
Concordium, and confer with him as to the harmony
of our views and the practicability of realizing my
wishes, while obtaining a glimpse of the life which
the Concordists were living. To this invitation
were appended the following observations, called
forth by my having intimated that I contemplated
entering the marriage state, which I did about
eight months afterwards : —

"You are not sufficiently acquainted with our
habits, diet, &c., to act in so important a 'matter

The Cojicordium. 43

without previous knowledge of all things relative to
a residence in the Concordium. It will be well, if
you think any further of it, to come and talk over
the matter, particularly as you have thought of
another still more important step, which will involve
all that concerns your future progress and destiny.
This step I hope you will defer taking, for the
present at least. If you wish well to the female
portion, or to the whole family of man, you will
pause before you entangle yourself in this oppressive
net, this dangerous, delusive, lustful engagement.
If you favour us with a call, we will talk the matter
over, and see if we cannot come to some clear idea
of its real character.

''You are some years too young for such an
engagement, and the young woman too old for
your age ; * but this is not of so serious a nature
as the unrighteous connexion itself. A pretended
union, or a supposed union, sanctioned by the
corrupt law of the land, is a complete delusion, only
to be deeply regretted in long tedious years of
repentance, when the consequences press heavily
upon mind and body, upon pocket and children,
upon wife and husband ; when sickness and disease
are multiplied by three, perhaps by ten, and

^ I was then within two months of completing my twenty-
second year, and the difference between our ages was just
nine months, the lady being the elder.

44 Forty Years' Recollections.

poverty and distress fill up tlie bitter cup of remorse
and dismay. The hoax which the priest palms
upon the deluded pair is found out but too late,
when behold ! the married couple find they have
been decoyed into a pit of misery, out of which
nothing but death can deliver them. They then
awake from the dream of ease and happiness, and
look around in vain for deliverance ; whilst nothing
but pain, crying, ugliness, filth, and discontent
respond to their call.

*^ Fearful as this may appear to your vivid fancy,
it is not nearly so appalling as the consequences of
early marriages generally. But enough for the
present. Let me see you, when we can take a view
of the best side of the question. I should not
object at all to your bringing your betrothed friend
with you, and helping you to live a happy, affec-
tionate, wise, and useful life in the Concordium,
apart from all that disgraces and disgusts the
virtuous and the good.

'^ By word of mouth we can enter more minutely
and clearly into the subject, whilst by writing we
cannot explain it at all correctly, and therefore are
very liable to misunderstand each other."

Undeterred by this extraordinary epistle, and
wishful to learn more of the singular community
from whose chief it emanated, 1 steamed up the
Thames to Richmond on a bright September

TJie dmcordium. 45

morning, and thence had a delightful walk to Ham
Coamon. Arrived at the Concordium, I was
received by a young man, clad in a chocolate-
coloured blouse, and displaying a profusion of hair
and beard, the former parted in feminine fashion —
two characteristics which I found to be common to
all the brotherhood. By him I was introduced to
the Pater, a little elderly man, of ascetic aspect ;
and then, as dinner was already on the table, sat
down to a repast, not exactly of —

" An overflowing store
Of pomegranates and citrons, fairest fruit.
Melons, and dates, and figs, and many a root
Sweet and sustaining ;"

but of rice, sago, and raisin puddings, potatoes,
carrots, and turnips — raw as well as cooked, the
Concordists not only being strict vegetarians and
water-drinkers, but believing that the process of
cooking deprived fruits and vegetables of the
etherialising properties which they attributed to
them, in accordance with an idea which may be
found in Shelley's '' Eevolt of Islam,'' in the de-
scription of the feast of the liberated nations.

After dinner I had some conversation with Oldham
on the points of difference between the Concordist
system and that of Owen, These I found to be
greater than I had been aware of, or was prepared
for. I was disconcerted by the discovery that

4-6 Forty Years Recollections.

celibacy was recommended until the nature of the
individual had become regenerated; and marriage
was then to be placed under restrictions similar to
those which prevailed among the Rappists of New
Harmony, in the United States. Self-denial and
asceticism were enjoined, as a means of rehabilitating
the fallen nature of man ; and the use of animal food
was regarded with as much horror as by the
votaries of Brahma.

^^ Would you kill? Would you shed blood?"
Oldham asked, on my expressing dissent from his
extreme vegetarianism, which extended even to the
exclusion from the table of butter, milk, and eggs.

I felt that I was not sufficiently etherialised for
fraternization with the Concordist brotherhood ; so,
after hearing an afternoon lecture from W^illiam
Galpin, who had recently seceded from the Rational
Society, and having a walk in the garden with
Colin Murray Campbell, the young man by whom I
had been received, I took my leave of them.

With Campbell I maintained for some time an
epistolary discussion on marriage, vegetarianism,
and other essentials of the Concordist philosophy;
but our correspondence resulted in the conversion
of neither. Winter proved, however, that the
regimen of the Concordium was not adapted to
extra-tropical regions. The Ham Common com-
munitarians found raw carrots and cold water

The Coiicordiwn. 47

unendurable "when the snow lay thick upon the
ground, and the thermometer was below zero.
Most of them returned to the outer world.

" Our family is getting rather small," Campbell
wrote to me in November. " This is not to be
wondered at, considering the strict discipline of the
place, and the unfit race of men to become so good
as to all at once take to such a line of action.
Then again we have not stopped short of this, that,
or any kind of food, but are trying every kind that
can simplify our living. Uncooked we shall, I
think, soon arrive at. I wish you to mark the
progress we are making. Every step towards
simplicity is good, and has Divine sanction.''

The simplicity to which he referred had at that
time become a mania with some of the sections into
which the regenerators of society were divided.
Galpin and some others, who had located themselves
on one of the five farms comprised in the Harmony
estate, on the sale of that property, not only adopted
the vegetarian and water-drinking system, but also
abandoned the use of shoes and stockings j and I
believe there were some who would have revived
the nudity of the Adamites of the middle ages, if
they could have done so without bringing them-
selves under the lash of the law.

Campbell left the Concordium soon after writing
the letter just quoted, and located himself in

48 Forty Years Recollections.

London, whence he wrote me a long letter, the fol-
lowing passage of which shows that his mind was in a
very unsettled state upon more matters than one : —

" It was the fortune of war ! Yes, the war of the
mind. I cannot call it peace. If I did, I should
lead you astray. From the facts of the case, many
were the thoughts, and hard was the struggle, that
did for some time sway my mind previous to my
coming to the determination I have ; and now it is
only half come to. The peaceful home among those
who really love you ! And then the thought of com-
ing to the old work, for little system — grumbling and
fretting the year round. The thought of remaining
in this state ! yea, the thought is distraction ! the fact
damnation, to all that can be called noble, loveful,
and free ! However, the change has been made, for
better or for worse.

'' You, my brother, may think this change hasty,
and without thought for the future. Not so;
although my mind is not yet settled upon any
immediate step, yet I think to remain in town a
short time. Then, no doubt, I shall let you know
what my thoughts are upon future operations.
Believe me, this old state will not do long for me,
and I must change. This in many things is not at
all unlikely, yet in such as this it is not so likely.
It is not the thought of a day, but the quiet thought
of vears.

TJie Concordiiim. 49

*' There are few at the Concordiam at this time.
It is expected that with the flowers the number will
increase. This is the hope with the Pater.''

Few of the commoners did return with the
flowers. Some of them subsequently emigrated to
Venezuela, under the auspices of the Tropical
Emigration Society. The Venezuelan Government
was at that time offering free grants of land, and
the society named was formed for the purpose of
colonizing a certain tract on the co-operative
system, for the development of which such grants
were thought to afford peculiar facilities. The
society had for its organ a small publication called
the Rising Sun, which advocated vegetarianism and
the communitive life, both of which advances were
deemed by the editor and his friends to be more
practicable in Venezuela than in England. It had
a very brief existence.

James Elmslie Duncan, by whom that publication
was conducted, was a young man of ardent tem-
perament, and greater aptitude for the poetic than
the practical side of the Utopia idea, and sufficiently
erratic to incur the suspicion that his mind wa^
not so well balanced as his friends could desire.
He may be remembered by many as the young man,
with long fair hair, parted like a woman's, and
shirt-collar a la Byron, who was arrested during the
Chartist agitation of 1848, for creating an obstruc-

50 Forty Years Recollections.

tion in Bishopsgate Street by reciting some verses
of his own composition ; and again on Tower Hill,
when, the excitement which he displayed causing
him to be detained, a loaded pistol was found in his
coat pocket.

After my visit to the Concordium I indulged the
idea that, by making known my views and wishes,
I might associate with myself some twelve or fifteen
persons of both sexes, holding the same views, who
might aid me in establishing a communitorium on
the basis of the ethical and economic principles
promulgated by Owen, but on a more humble scale
than Harmony Hall, of the success of which the
inadequacy of the results to the cost had caused me
to become doubtful. My idea was to lease a large
house, in some quiet and healthy locality in Surrey
or Kent, with sufficient land to produce all the
vegetables and fruit we might require ; and there to
carry on the occupations for which there would be
an internal demand, such as tailoring and shoe-
making, and to which work in the garden would
afford an agreeable and healthful change.

I found, however, that, though the believers in
social regeneration were numerous enough, few of
them were sufficiently imbued with the earnestness
of purpose, singleness of mind, and thorough
unselfishness, necessary for the reduction of Utopian
ideas to practice. With Socialism as with Chris-

The Concordhim. 51

tianity, the conviction of the intellect is more
common than the change of the heart. Coliu
Campbell wrote to me on this subject as follows : —

" Many of my social friends in London have been
speaking about you, and I was able to state my
thoughts upon the subject of such an affair as you
are about starting. Let me here remark, that many
will communicate with you who have got the money,
and who, in a monetary point of view, may be
right, but deficient in morals and intellect; for
remember, this old rotten state of society has been
brought to its present state by men, and it exists
by the joint assistance of such. And who can doubt
when such a stream of vice and wickedness has been
running for so ipany years, those that may apply will
be more or less touched and tainted by the pollution,
either in one, or two, or perhaps all the three — in-
tellect, morals, and physical nature ? This you may
depend, and it will require you to be very careful
whom you select to commune with.

" After you have got into working, you will not
be so likely to make mistakes ; but you must make
sure of good and true men and women to make the
start with, or down you will most assuredly go, and
sorrow for your pains. This might damn your
hopes for life. All should join from the purest
motives, no individual end coming before the
universal end you ought to have in view. Let your
E 2

52 Forty Years' Recollections.

little band, never mind how small, cast themselves
at once upon the Universal, and deliberate what is
best to be done. The uniting of persons in this
family way is, in my mind, very like what I should
like to see individuals in the marriage state united
by, that is, that each of the parties should have
worshipped at the Universal, and that in faith, hope,
and love, before their union could be what I would
call a true devotional marriage — that each should be
entirely independent of each other, except in those
points where love of the purest kind took posses-
sion of them. This, my friead, is the pure state of
mind that I think parties must possess before they
are fit to enter upon the list of the truly married, or
into the social family arrangements.

*' Accept this, in great haste, from one who
admires your onward march. May glorious satis-
faction of the most exalted kind be with you.'"

The announcement of my projected experiment
brought me into correspondence with several men
of cultivated minds, and great enthusiasm in the
cause of social progress, who were at that time
contemplating, or actually engaged in, similar
experiments. But divergences of aim of one kind
or another separated me from all of them, and the
dream of planting an Atlantis among the breezy
hills of Surrey was not realized.

DO

CHAPTER V.

THE COMMUNIST PKOPAGAXDA.

My interest in the great problem of the reorganiza-
tion of society continuing unabated, notwithstanding
the failure of the various attempts that had been
made in England, France, and the United States
to reduce to practice the societary systems of
Owen and Fourier, I was led by considerations of
the existing condition of the different schools and
sects of social reformers to contemplate the produc-
tion of a journal which should serve as a record of
progress for all of them, without being the special
organ of any one of them.

The Rational Society was on the verge of dissolu-
tion, owing partly to financial embarrassments, and
partly to internal dissensions, the latter arising
from the difficulty of managing the affairs of Har-
mony Hall in a manner that would reconcile the
rights claimed by the residents with the interests of
the whole body. The former considered themselves
entitled to elect their governor ; while the latter
maintained that, as they had contributed the funds

54 Forty Years' Recollediojts .

wherewith the community had been established, the
governor should be elected by their delegates, as-
sembled annually in congress. The branches were
agitated at the same time by differences about their
local government ; one section contending for the
paternal system which was favoured by Owen, and
the other standing up stoutly for democracy.

The various denominations of social reformers
were so little known to the world which they
desired to remodel, that the present generation
retains only a dim and imperfect recollection of the
Socialists, applying that designation to the disciples
of Owen, and knows nothing of any other of the
half-dozen similar organizations that existed in the
United Kingdom alone in 1845. At the time when
I conceived the idea of a general representative of
Communism in the press, there existed, in addition
to the Rational Society, which was very efficiently
represented by the 'New Moral World, the Con-
cordium, which had still a few commoners ; the
Little Bentley community, mentioned in the pre-
ceding chapter, as having been founded by William
Galpin, who had been a draper at Southampton ;
the Communist Church, organized on a pantheistic
basis by a gentleman named Barmby ; the Charter
Socialists, who deferred practical operations until
the masses should have obtained their political
rights ; the Tropical Emigration Society, by whose

The Corywiujiist Propaganda. 55

instrumentality the Communistic Paradise, idealized
by Etzler, was to be created in the wilds of Vene-
zuela; and the ^Yhite Friends, seceders from
Quakerism, who had adopted the communitive
system on religious grounds, and, with the confi-
dence of faith, and the earnestness of their sect, had
organized themselves iu two communities, one on
Usher's Quay, Dublin, the other at Newlands, a
mansion and park in the vicinity of the Irish capital,
and once the residence of the unfortunate Lord
Kil warden.

Each of these societies, with the exception of the
Little Bentley family, had had its special representa-
tive in the press, the jVeic Age being the organ of
the Concordists, the Communist Chronicle of the
Communist Church, the Model Eepuhlic of the
Charter-Socialists, the Rising Sun of the Etzlerites,
and the Progress of the Truth as it is in Jesus of the
White Friends — all of monthly issue ; and the last
decidedly unique in journalism, and worthy of pre-
servation as one of the curiosities of literature. All
these had ceased to be published in 1845, having
failed to obtain a sale that would even cover the
cost of production; and I calculated that, if the
various bodies which they had represented would
send their reports of progress, &c., to me for inser-
tion in the journal which I contemplated, there
would be a remunerative circulation to start with.

56 horty Years Recollections.

I communicated with some of the gentlemen to
whom I had become known two years previously,
when endeavouring to organize a comraunitive
experiment in Surrey, and received from them an
amount of encouragement that I thought would
justify me in incurring the risk of publication. But,
before arrangements could be made for the pro-
duction of the journal, it was necessary that I
should secure a certain amount of literary assistance.
The dead exponents of Communism had been con-
ducted by men who had originated, or taken a
prominent part in, their respective movements ; and
they were assisted in their several apostolates by
contributors and correspondents of some literary
abilit}^ Some of these I hoped to enlist, especially
Goodwyn Barmby, who, besides being a writer of
remarkable originality, was in correspondence with
Cabet, Weitling, and other leaders and directors of
the Communist propaganda on the continent, a
record of which I desired to make a leading feature
of the new journal.

I had had some correspondence with Mr. Barmby
while engaged in my endeavours to found a com-
munity in Surrey, at which time he was conducting
a similar experiment at Hanwell, called the More-
ville Commuuitorium, which, however, was not
attended with success. A gentleman by birth and
education, he had devoted his fortune and energies

T)ie Coynmunist Propaganda. 5 7

to the propagation of the Communiatic theory of
society, which he believed to be not only in harmony
with the Christian system, but its completion, the
crowning of the edifice. He had offered, some
time before, to gratuitously translate Morelly's
"Code de la Nature,^^ a work of Communistic
tendencies, for any publisher who would produce it
at his own risk ; and thinking that the translation
would constitute an attractive feature of my con-
templated publication, I proposed that he should
execute it for me.

Mr. Barmby responded by endeavouring to im-
press me heavily with a sense of the difficulty of the
work I proposed to undertake, and proposing that,
instead of venturing upon the issue of a new paper,
I should aid him in reviving the Communist
Chronicle, which might be made to serve the same
end. The question of the translation was left in
abeyance. An appointment followed, and I met
the founder of the Communist Church for the first
time. I found him a young man of gentlemanly
manners and soft persuasive voice, wearing his light
brown hair parted in the middle, after the fashion
of the Conccrdist brethren, and a collar and neck-
tie a la Byron.

In a long and interesting conversation on the
position of the Communist movement at home and
abroad, and the prospect of such a journal as I

58 Forty Years' Recollections.

contemplated attaining a remunerative circulation,
it was made clear to him that I possessed facilities
for its production which did not exist elsewhere,
and to me that he commanded certain requisites of
success in which I was deficient. He was acquainted
with Wilhelm Weitling, who was then in London ;
had correspondents in Paris, Lyons, Lausanne,
Cologne, New York, and Cincinnati ; and was con-
versant with the whole range of Utopian literature,
from Theopompos and Euhemerus, to Weitling and
Albrecht.

The religious difficulty, which was destined to be
a source of much misunderstanding, did not then
come to the surface. Perhaps, while I was calculat-
ing that my control of the paper would enable me
to secure the preponderance of my own views, my
clever chief contributor was consoling himself for
his subordinate position with the reflection that the
necessity of his coadjutorship would give him all
the influence that he could desire in the direction
of the journal, while he would have none of the
risk.

Mr. Barmby blended with the Communistic
theory of society the pantheistic views of Spinoza,
of which Shelley is in this country the best known
exponent. By clothing the pantheos idea in the
language of Christian theologians, he attracted to
him, from time to time, members of the more

The Co7nmunist Propagafida. 59

obscure sects — Swedenboi'gians, Millenarians, South-
cottians, White Quakers, and the like, the doctrines
of all being ingeniously reconciled by him with the
fundamental tenets of the Communist Church,
which he announced as the continuation and com-
pletion of Christianity, and the all-embracing or-
ganization into which all churches and societies
were ultimately to be absorbed.

I foresaw that, while these views might attract to
the Communist movement some of the more ad-
vanced minds among the sectaries whose distinctive
doctrine was the near approach of the Millennium,
the realization of the New Jerusalem, or the advent
of a Newington Shiloh, they would repel the
Owenian Socialists, to whom I was chiefly looking
for support, having regard to their enormous
numerical preponderance over all the other sections
of communitive social reformers, and in anticipation
of the dissolution of the Rational Society, then on
the verge of bankruptcy, and the cessation of the
'^e\o Moral World. The advantages to be derived
from our co-operation caused us, however, to amal-
gamate with more cordiality and unanimity than
might have been expected.

The business arrangements being entirely under
my control, I announced the revival of the journal
as a weekly, instead of a monthly, publication,
reduced in size one half, and in price from three-

6o Forty Years^ Recollections.

pence to a penny. Under the direction of Mr.
Barmby it had been published by Cousins^ whose
shop in Duke Street, Lincoln^s Inn Fields, was at
that time one of the chief emporia of the literature
of free thought. Believing that Hetherington was
more favourably disposed towards Communism than
Cousins, and knowing that he had made sacrifices
to the popular cause in the resistance to the news-
paper stamp duty, besides being one of the organ-
izers of the Working Men^s Association, which had
prepared the way for the People's Charter, of which
he was one of the authors, I transferred the publish-
ing department to him.

Instead of the " Code de la Nature," it was
decided that the leading feature of the new series
should be a translation of Weitling's '^ Evangile
des Pecheurs Pauvres," which had created in
Germany a sensation equal to that which had been
produced in France by the publication of the
^' Paroles d'un Croyant," of Lamennais. By one
of the frequent changes of mind to which Mr.
Barmby was subject, I never received this trans-
lation ; but a series of " Studies on St. Simon,
Fourier, and Owen/' from the French of Louis
Reybaud, which had been commenced in the monthly
series, was resumed, and Mr. Barmby commenced,
in an early number, an original philosophical
romance, entitled '^ The Book of Platonopolis.'''

The Communist Propaganda. 6i

This was a vision of tlie future, a dream of the
rehabilitation of the earth and of humanity ; of Com-
munisteries built of marble and porphyry, in which
the commoners dine off gold and silver plate, in
banqueting-halls furnished with luxurious couches,
adorned with the most exquisite productions of the
painter and the sculptor, and enlivened with music ;
where steam-cars convey them from one place to
another as often as they desire a change of residence,
or, if they wish to vary the mode of travelling, bal-
loons and aerial ships are ready to transport them
through the air ; where, in short, all that has been
imagined by Plato, More, Bacon, and Campanella, is
reproduced, and combined with all that modern
science has effected or essayed for lessenmg human
toil or promoting human enjoyment.

Correspondence and reports of Communist pro-
gress were important features of the new organ of
the movemeut. Reports were received every week
from the little groups of the Communist Church,
which had been formed in various metropolitan and
provincial districts, and occasional communications
from friends as yet unorganized, as well as
from the Etzlerites, the Little Bentley family, and
the White Friends. The foreign record was es-
pecially interesting, as, while at least one London
daily had its foreign correspondence written in the
Strand, we had veritable living correspondents in

62 Forty Years' Recollections.

Paris, Cologne, Lausanne, New York, and Cincinnati.
Cabet exchanged his journal, he Popidaire, with us,
and from an American editor we received the
Herald of Progress. It was in our columns that the
earliest intelligence of the revolt in Galicia appeared;
and in them alone was reported the debate in the
Swiss Diet, on the petition of the clergy and the
landowners of Yaud for the suppression of all
Communist societies, the dismissal of all public
functionaries affiliated to them, and the expulsion
from the country of all the alien members, a large
proportion of the initiated being Germans.

The dissolution of the Rational Society, consequent
upon its bankruptcy, occurred shortly after this
commencement of my journalistic career, and seemed
to me to offer the opportunity that I had anticipated
for extending the circulation of our paper. Mr.
Barmby, who was in communication with Mr.
Buxton and Mr. Isaac Ironside, two of the most
influential members of the society, appeared to
share with me this anticipation.

" From all I hear," he wrote to me, " the New
Moral World has no chance of surviving more than
two or three weeks longer. Its death will be our
gain. We shall inherit some hundreds of additional
subscribers by its demise."

All the property of the society was sold shortty
afterwards for the benefit of the creditors, aud the

The Communist Propaganda. 63

copyright and plant of the New Moral World was
purchased by Mr. James Hill, who had formerly
conducted a small publication called the Star in the
East, and designed his new venture to be the organ
of a co-operative scheme of his own devising, which,
however, came to grief. It was alleged by Mr.
Fleming, the editor, that the copyright was the
property, not of the Society, but of Robert Owen ;
and, in order that the Socialists might not be
deprived of an organ pending the settlement of the
disputed title, he brought out a journal called the
Moral World, exactly resembling in size and form
the paper with which he had ceased to be connected.
It had, however, a very brief existence.

The time had now come for us to make an
endeavour to obtain the support of the Socialists
for our journal ; but with it came also the interven-
tion of the religious difficulty. With the Socialists,
rehgion was an open question, though most of them
were deists or materialists; and the way to have
gained their support would have been, that it should
have been so regarded by us, as had been my wish
from the first. But my colleague, though naturally
desirous of increasing our circulation, aimed at
doing so by drawing the Socialists into the pale of
the Communist Church ; and this was an end very-
unlikely to be attained. Pantheism is not easily
" understanded of the people,^' and, as presented to

64 Forty Years^ Recollections.

them by Mr. Barmby, it must have puzzled them to
discover whether it was atheism in disguise, or a
new reading of the Bible which they had rejected.

With the view, however, of giving a new impetus
to the Communist movement, and thus increasing
the circulation of the journal, we announced a pro-
ject for establishing a communitorium in the little
island of Sark, to be called the Caxton Communi-
torium; and, immediately afterwards, leaving the
correspondence on this subject to be conducted by
me, my colleague commenced a propagandist tour
of the midland counties, visiting the groups, de-
livering lectures, and distributing tracts. Before
he started on this mission, I received from him a
letter, some passages of which I quote, to show the
nature of the practical operations that were then
contemplated,

^' On Saturday," he wrote, " I had an interview,
for the fourth or fifth time, with James Hill, on the
very subject thou mootest in thy letter, only with a
more favourable horizon. Since I last saw thee, as
thou hast learned from the Chronicle, a portion of
the Tropical Emigration Society has seceded from
the main body on Communist principles, and,
through their chief officer, connected itself with a
group of the Communist Church. Now this society
intends to establish a home colony, to gather its
members together previous to being draughted off

The Communist Propaganda. 65

to Venezuela. The colony to be on a scale for
twenty-four families, or about a hundred and twenty
individuals. Union being strength, as soon as I
heard of this project, I thought of uniting ours with
it. On inquiring into the matter 1 found that the
Venezuelan friends wished to locate near London ;
and, if I could join thyself and others with them, I
should, from the fact of the increased power of
associated numbers, prefer it to an immediate
Channel Island community, although I hope to
assist in organizing one there, and in a thousand
other places, before I sleep the last sleep.

"Not only in location, but in the means of
association also, was there a difference between my
project and that of the Venezuelan emigrants^ home
colony. I anticipated a community. They want
community in Venezuela ; but only economic, and,
in some respects associative, congregation here.
They looked to an old building society for their
lodging. I recommended them HilFs new one ;
and on Saturday last introduced the subject to Hill
himself. It now remains for me to see how these
two parties will work together. If they co- operate,
I shall recommend a group of the Communist Church
to form a third party in the matter in connexion
with the publication of the Communist Chronicle,
and until such a time as a more perfect community
would be organized. Indeed, if the Chronicle was

p

66 Forty Years Recollections.

there, I should probably take a room for occasional
residence in the establishment myself, and promote
the issue of a Communist paper currency, and other
matters. I must wait, however, and take no pre-
mature step in the matter.

'^With regard to other observations in thy letter,
art thou prepared to subscribe thyself a member of
the Communist Church ? Recollect that neither a
materialist nor a spiritualist can be a member of
that Sacred Future of Society. Its very name
implies the contrary. Consequently, for many,
probationary steps like the proposed union with the
Venezuelan Emigration Society — so far as their
home colony is concerned, I mean, and probably
with HilFs machinery — would be desirable. More-
over, it must not be forgotten that there are two
communities in Ireland, which approximate more
than any other yet existing to the ideal the Good
Spirit has given me to display.^'

The failure of my own attempt to organize a
community, the collapse of the Hampshire experi-
ment, and of the Fourierist phalanstei'ies in France
and the United States, to say nothing of the
Hanwell and Ham Common communities, rendered
me exceedingly anxious concerning the practical
operations that were contemplated by my colleague,
whose views on the subject appeared to be vague
and indefinite, and of whose means of realizing them

The Communist Propaganda. 67

I knew only that he had inherited a small estate at
Yoxford, in Suffolk. The projected community
seemed to be receding from view, like the illusory
water of the African deserts, while the divergence
of his views from mine was becoming more and
more obvious in the contents of the journal.

There are no dat«s to any of his letters, but the
epistle from which the following passages are
extracted appears to have been written shortly after
the one last quoted, and in answer to my expressions
of anxiety concerning the Sark project : — " Others
in connexion with me were not prepared sufficiently
to embrace the perfect communion of the Communist
church, but might have taken rooms, and congre-
gated in one of Hill's groups. Consequently, it
appeared good to me that these imperfect elements
should be united, even npon a transitionary plan,
connecting themselves, but in no wise preventing
ulterior arrangements among more perfect Com-
munists. These latter could find a more congenial
home, either in the Irish communities, or in those
that, through various means, I elsewhere hope to be
instrumental in constructing.

"Among these I have proposed a community of
printing and agriculture in the Channel Islands, to
be commenced next spring, provided, of course, I
can find before that time the proper materials to
compose it. If, however, a congregation of approxi-
F 2

68 Forty Years Recollections,

mate Communists took apartments in Hill's group^,
whether the Channel Island community was esta-
blished or not, I should probably take a room for
occasional residence in that establishment. In that
establishment I should of course be an individual
rentpr, or rather lodger, in common with the other
members, no community or local government that I
know of being understood in the case — HilFs plan
being, as far as I understand, a plan for simply
furnishing apartments in a united habitation to
individuals for a certain payment, based upon the
scale of life annuities, and ineligible to be conveyed
in community. Of course the residents in such a
habitation might work in common, and share pro-
ducts in common ; but the house and land would not
be the property in common of themselves, but that
of the National Land and Building Association ; and
should any of our members die, their places might
be filled up by that Association with individualists.
Consequently, congregation, but not communion, is
its proper mission. Nor did I consider it — except
for the purposes of the former, in which light I
thought and Huntington looked at it — in pre-
ference to the Communist Church."

Mr. Barmby was, in this matter, more practical
than I usually found him, and expressed his views
more clearly than he had ever done before. But he
was mistaken with regard to my estimation of Hill's

The Cotnmtmist Propaganda. 69

association ; and on the higher question touched in
these letters, he was as cloudy as ever. There
would have been no difficulty in understanding his
reminder, " that neither a materialist nor a spiritua-
list can be a member of that Sacred Future of
Society" the Communist Church, if the sentence
had stood alone. Had he not given the world a
paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, in which God was
addressed as the great Creative Power, which " as
Spirit does father us, and as Matter does mother
ns ? *' But how does this idea harmonize with the
statement in the same letter that the communities
of the White Friends — disciples of Fox, plus white
garments and the communion of goods — approxi-
mated more nearly to his ideal than to any other yet
existing ?

Of course, as he observed in the second letter, of
the accordance in degi'ee of the Irish Communists
with his own views he was the best able to judge ; but
others than himself had the right to receive a full
and clear exposition of those views. It was the
misfortune of those who accepted him for their
leader, that they never knew the goal to which he
was leading them. Viewing his erratic flights in
the past by the light afforded by his career in later
years, it would seem that, while endeavouring to
found a church which should be " the Sacred Future
of Society," he was really still groping towards the

70 Forty Years Recollections.

light, and seeking for something which eluded his
search.

This is not an uncommon state of mind with
earnest inquirers after truth. It was my own for
some years, both before and after the period of
which I am writing ; but there was this difference
between Goodwyn Barmby and myself, that I rested
at the end of every stage, while he hurried on, with
a zigzag course, in a manner which made it ever
doubtful whether he would be found at the point
where he had been heard of last.
V The prospect was thus dubious, overcast with
perpetually shifting clouds, and mists that dispersed
only to gather again, when my colleague commenced
the propagandist tour that was to result in the
planting of groups of the Communist Church in all
the towns of the midlands and the north. His
reports were at first very encouraging. From
Coventry, where he commenced the propaganda, he
wrote : — " The work goes on bravely. The Bedworth
lecture-hall was literally crammed. I am happy to
say that I have united around our work here the
remnants of the Christian Co-operators and the
Socialists. The Communist Chronicle will more
than quadruple its circulation in future in Coventry."
From Birmingham he reported, about a fortnight
afterwards, — "1 am likely to become a popular
preacher here. It is therefore my duty to remain

The Co7mmuiist Propa^ajida. 71

at least a fortnight longer. I am already engaged
for two lectures and two sermons."

Crowded lecture-halls and pleasant tea-parties
brought no increase of circulation, however, not-
withstanding the reported accession of numerical
strength in every place that was visited. In the
meantime, the Channel Islands project made no
progress,, and the divergence of our views became
every week more evident. Neither in politics nor
in religion were we in accord. He advocated the
"paternal system of government, I the democratic.
" Neither democracy nor aristocracy," he wrote,
*' have anything to do with Communism. They are
party terms of the present. In the future, govern-
mental politics will be succeeded by industrial
administration." In the present, however, it was
not clear to me that men, even in small bodies,
would submit to autocratic rule, however sugar-coated
with a paternal aspect.

That danger loomed in the future. The more
immediate evil was the doubting and misunderstand-
ing created by Mr. Barmby's expression of the
ideas of Spinoza and Shelley in language that would
not have been inappropriate in a parish church,
though it would assuredly have passed over the
heads of a large proportion of the congregation. In
arranging for him to continue to edit the paper, I
had not intended that it should remain the special

72 Forty Years Recollections.

organ of the Communist Church. I wished it to be
conducted on broad unsectarian principles, and
would therefore not have objected to the exposition
of Communist views on the basis of Pantheism, if
Mr. Barmby had not chosen to present them, so
based, in language calculated to mislead the majority
ot those to whom they were addressed.

Before deciding whether I would abandon the
propaganda altogether, or conduct the paper in-
dependently, I communicated with some of the chief
promoters of the movement, with the double aini
of obtaining a clearer view of its position and
prospects, and of ascertaining the extent to which
the teaching of my colleague was appreciated by
our readers. In the latter object I did not succeed,
and the responses upon the former point were far
from encouraging. Mr, Henry Hoy, the reporter
of the Poplar group, wrote as follows : —

*' I regret that there should not have been a
proper understanding in reference to the Communist
Chronicle, as I am of opinion with thyself that it
might have been made to pay its expenses, and the
breaking up of the Rational Society might perhaps
have been made to have aided the same, had proper
steps been taken. It does not appear that works
of its character have ever been made to be very
profitable. They are in advance of the age as far
as their tendency goes, though the want of sucb

The Communist Propaganda. "j^,

as a medium by which to convey to all parts of the
globe the sentiments that animate us is felt to be a
real want."

In a second letter from the same gentleman, a
wish was expressed that an arrangement could be
made by Goodwyn Barmby and myself for the con-
tinuance of the publication, "^ because," said the
writer, " I believe that it would bear more evidence
of being a love-labour than any other that we have
at the present day; for, unfortunately, they are all
more or less intent upon making it a profitable
affair. Not that I object to a publication being
self-supporting or paying \ such I believe it ought
to be. Thy labour-love-offering is an acceptable
sacrifice, and I hope that arrangements will be
made to give the public the benefit of it. I regret
that I am not in a position to incur the responsi-
bility of making such arrangements, but will do
what I can to bring it about, as I am quite certain
that nothing can be more moderate than the re-
muneration thou namesc, and think that steps
should be taken for securing such a valuable co-
operator in the cause of Progress as thyself."

Though the majority of the replies that I received
had a discouraging tendency, I still cherished the
idea of enlisting the support of the Socialists. The
Beasojier, then recently commenced by Mr. Holy-
oake, was occupied chiefly with the diffusion of

74 Forty Years Recollections.

Secularism; and the National Reformer, which,
under the direction of James Bronterre O'Brien,
had been for some time a vehicle for the expression
of advanced views on political and social questions,
had lately ceased to appear. I knew that the Com-
munist Chronicle would also become extinct when
I ceased to bear the cost of production, and I could
not conceive the idea that there were not Com-
munists enough in the United Kingdom, Owenian
or otherwise, to support a single exponent of their
views and record of their progress,

I determined therefore to proceed, and gave Mr.
Barm by notice of my intention to terminate the
arrangement under which the paper had been re-
vived, at the same time announcing the immediate
appearance of the Communist Journal, as a monthly
advocate of the Communitive life and record of
Communist progress at home and abroad. Mr.
Barmby informed me that he regarded the title
which I had chosen as an infringement of his copy-
right, and forbade me its use in a highly charac-
teristic document, sealed with a seal of portentous
size, engraved with masonic symbols, in green wax,
green being the sacred colour of the Communist
Church.

Disregarding this interdict, I issued my first
number at the date on which it had been announced
to appear; and, in the hope of gaining some support

TJie Communist Propaganda. 75

from the disciples of my late colleague, as well as
from the Socialists, I gave a prominent position
to an article in which were set forth the grounds
of the difference between us, his various pubhcations
being quoted to show that he had promulgated
inconsistent views of the Divine nature, and that
the tendencies of his recent articles in the Chronicle
were contrary to the tenets of the Communist
Church, as expounded by him elsewhere. Hence a
schism, and increased antagonism on the part of
Mr. Barmby, resulting in the cessation of the
Journal after the second issue.

Mr. Barmby^s efforts to continue the publication
of the Chronicle without my co-operation were
equally unsuccessful, only two or three numbers
being issued, and those at irregular intervals, after
the rupture. " Much as an organ in the press is
wanted by the Communist Church," he wrote to me
some time afterwards, " it wants one only that shall
be directly and supremely, I do not say exclusively,
its organ, and under the control of its administra-
tion." This it never obtained, and in a very few
years it had passed into the category of extinct
Utopias. The religious views of its founder subse-
quently underwent a further development, and he
is now a minister of the Unitarian Church at
Wakefield.

Communism died out in England very rapidly.

76 Forty Years Recollections.

We are not a gregarious people, and there are very-
few of us wlio would not prefer a cottage and a
garden in individual possession^ to a dormitory and
common rights in the most splendid communistery
or phalanstery that has ever been imagined. The
Co-operative movement, with its various applications
of the principle upon which it was based, drew into
it all the more practical and less imaginative of the
thousands over whose minds Communism had for
a time exercised a potent charm. The comparative
prosperity resulting from the development of free
trade converted those whom Communism attracted
only by the glowing prospect of material ameliora-
tion which it offered, and who formed the residuum
of the movement.

The fewer thinkers and dreamers retained their
faith in Utopia perhaps, but they abandoned the
distinctive characteristics of their respective sects
and schools, ceased to expect the realization of their
day-dreams of the future in the present century,
and directed their powers to the accomplishment of
more practicable, and therefore more immediately
useful reforms, if less lofty in aim, than the re-
generation of humanity and the reconstruction of
the social fabric. .

n

CHAPTER VI.

POPULAR LITERATURE FORTY YEARS AGO.

At the time when I finally withdrew from the Com-
manist propaganda, the taste of the masses with
regard to mental aliment had undergone a change
for the better, while the number of readers, as a
consequence of the efforts made during the pre-
ceding fifteen or twenty years for the diffusion of
education, had received a considerable extension.
It will be obvious that popular literature, in the
fullest sense of the term, could have no existence
while the majority of the people were unable to
read ; while a desire for books must, in the earlier
stages of a nation's education, be even more rare
than the ability to read them.

No longer ago than the commencement of the
second quarter of the present century readers were
very few proportionately to the population, even
among the lower grades of the middle class, and no
editor of a periodical dreamed of addressing either
them or the working class. Popular literature,

78 Forty Years Recollections.

regarded from this point of view, consisted of
stereotyped editions of wonderful narratives and
stories culled from the old dramatists, published by
Fairburn or Bysh, at sixpence, in paper covers, and
embellished with highly coloured folding plates,
depicting the most sensational incidents of the
story. Some of these were abridgments of standard
works, such as Robinson Crusoe; but the greater
number were such as could be given entire within
the number of pages to which the printer was
limited.

It is necessary to a right understanding and
correct appreciation of the penny serials which
received their impulse from the education movement
that set in strongly half a century ago, that we
should know something of the publications which
they superseded. The prominent favourites of the
rising generation of that day were the wonderful
lives and adventures of Friar Bacon and Dr.
Faustus — known to opera-goers and readers of
Goethe by his right name of Faust — the venerable
history of the Seven Champions of Christendom,
some selections from the Arabian Nights, and an
abridgment of the Memoirs of Baron Trenck.
Readers of a riper age, but not mentally capacitated
to appreciate a Radical newspaper, frowned upon the
stories which had delighted them in their boyhood,
stigmatized them as " lies and rubbish,'^ and pre-

Popular Literature Forty Years ago. 79

ferred true stories, generally narratives of crime,
or the lives of notorious criminals.

These stories formed the staple reading of the
masses when the grey-haired men of the present
day were boys. Here and there might be a
studious artisan who, before the cares and cost
of a family pressed hard upon him, had acquired a
quarto edition of Hume and Smollett, or Blomfield's
" View of the World,^' with plate illustrations, in
shilling numbers; or a radical shoemaker or tailor,
whose desire for enlightenment as to his rights and
his wrongs led him to devote his leisure to the
study of Paine and Cobbett ; but students were, as
they still are, the minority among readers, and the
majority wanted only to be amused.

The supply of better books than were then ac-
cessible to the working classes and that large sec-
tion of the middle class which comprises the lower
grades of the shopkeeping interest only needed a
demand to be forthcoming, however; and the
demand was being prepared on a large scale by the
establishment of elementary schools all over the
country, through the agency of the National and
British School Societies. Enterprising publishers
began to dream of standard works issued at prices
■within the means of every one, and therefore to be
sold by tens of thousands. Constable projected, in
1825, though the idea was not carried out until two

8o Forty Years Recollections.

years later, a series of reprints, which he was con-
fident would, in half a dozen years, " make it as im-
possible that there should not be a good library in
every decent house in Britain as that the shepherd's
ingle-nook should want the salt poke." But his
great intentions and sanguine predictions were not
fulfilled. The books which were to have had a place
in eveiy house were issued, during a period of
commercial depression and industrial distress and
discontent, in shilling numbers ; and though some
of them had a large sale, they were bought only by
readers whose education and means were far above
those of the masses.

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
started with the same high aims, and, in their
earlier issues, made the same mistake. The scientific
treatises which constituted their first venture were
far too abstruse for working men, and were read
chiefly by persons of a higher social grade. Failures
pave the way to success. William and Robert
Chambers, whose labours in the cause of popular
education are so well known and appreciated, had
also studied thedifiicult problem involved in catering
for the mental palate of the multitude, and had dis-
cerned the causes of the inability of their predeces-
sors in the field to reach the classes which they
made their aim. The Edinburgh Journal, the first
of the popular periodicals, proved a great success.

Popular Literature Forty Years ago. 8i

the sale soon exceeding fifty thousand, and nearly-
doubling during the next ten years.

The Useful Knowledge Society, perceiviDg the
success which had attended the operations of the
Chamberses in a field wherein they had reaped only
failure, renewed their efforts, and ventured upon the
bold experiment of a penny periodical, enlivened
with illustrations, far inferior to those which ap-
pear in similar publications at the present day,
but conveying correct ideas of the places and things
represented, and in their day a great source of
attractiveness. A large section of the upper class,
holding an intermediate position between the op-
ponents and the active promoters of popular en-
lightenment, saw, or thought they saw, possible
dangers to religion and morality if the movement
remained under secular direction. Under the
auspices of a large and influential body of peers
and church dignitaries, the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge was formed, and entered the
new field of publishing enterprise with the Saturday
Magazine, a periodical which differed from the
Penny Magazine only in having its title printed in
black-letter, instead of roman type, and its contents
sprinkled with pious reflections and Biblical re-
ft-rences and allusions. Its success did not eqxial
that of the periodicals already in the field, however,
and in a few years its publication was discontinued.

6

82 Forty Years' Recollections.

The earlier venture of tlie Useful Knowledge Society
survived it, but was eventually driven out of the
field by a number of rivals, possessing features of
greater permanent attraction, and the appearance
of which marked the commencement of a new epoch
in the history of periodical literature.

Speculative printers began to reflect that the
number of persons who wished to be amused must
be very much larger than the number of those who
desired to be instructed. They saw Chambers's
Edinburgh Journal going ahead of its rivals, not-
withstanding its higher price, and the absence of
illustrations, and, with a keen discernment of the
literary taste of the masses, attributed its success to
the mild infusion of fiction which its conductors had
imparted to it, in the form of short stories of a
homely and domestic character, which were even
more highly appreciated in the homes of the Scotch
peasantry and the artisans of the towns, than by
their fellows south of the Tweed. The result of
these reflections was the appearance of several
broadsheets, differing considerably in character, but
all aiming at the amusement rather than the instruc-
tion of the classes among whom they were intended
to circulate.

One of the earliest of these, if not the first,
emanated from the oflSce of John Cleave, a wholesale
bookseller and newsagent in Shoe Lane, and one of

Poptdar Literature Forty Years ago. ^^^

the six delegates of the working men of Great
Britain who, in conjunction with as many Radical
members of the House of Commons, drew up the
People^s Charter, as the document was called, which
embodied the views of their constituents on the ques-
tion of Parliamentary Reform. Cleave, whose shop
was one of the chief emporia of the Radical pamphlets
of the time, had also played an active part in the
dissemination of unstamped newspapers; and in
1837, men of his stamp stood higher in the estima-
tion of the unenfranchised masses than the Whig
statesmen by whom they conceived their cause to
have been betrayed. Cleave' s Gazette of Variety,
which resembled in form a four-page newspaper of
the largest size, started, therefore, with all the ad-
vantages derivable from his well-known name, and
a title, as fairly as attractively, suggestive of its
contents. A roughly-executed political caricature
on the first page, and some vigorous writing on the
rights and wrongs of the people, recommended the
paper to the working men of the metropolis and the
large towns of the manufacturing districts, and there
was an ample provision of fiction and anecdote for
the mental regalement of their wives and the rising
generation.

Tlw Fenny Satirid differed from Cloave's paper
only in containing a larger quantity of political
matter, and in reflecting, in that portion of its con-
G 2

84 Foi'ty Veaj's Recollections.

tents, the views of the An ti- Corn-Law League rather
than those of the National Charter Association. It
was said, indeed, that it was subsidized by the League,
the coarse woodcuts which embellished the front of
the paper, and which were graphic arguments for
the repeal of the imposts on food, being paid for by
the funds of that body, the enormous expenditure of
which in the propagation of its principles is well
known. This new aspirant to public favour was
issued by Cousins, a bookseller in Duke Street, Lin-
coln's Inn Fields, whose shop, and Hetherington's,
in Holywell Street, and Watson's, in Queen's Head
Passage, Paternoster Row, were the chief depots of
the literature of unbelief. It never attained so large
a circulation as Cleave's paper, however, partly
because it had not the recommendation of a name
so well known as Cleave's, and partly because the
political portion of its contents were less acceptable
to the masses who, much as they desired cheap
food, thought it of more importance to have the
power of preventing the cost of food from being
artificially enhanced by legislation.

Both were eclipsed in a few years by another
broadsheet, in which politics were eschewed, and
the place of the political caricature was taken by as
coarsely engraved a representation of some incident
of one of the tales and romances which constituted
nearly the whole of its contents. This was Lloyd's

Popular Literature Forty Years ago. 85

Penny Sunday Times, issued by an enterprising
printer and newsagent, whose business was then
carried on in Curtain Road, Shoreditch. The large
circulation which this sheet rapidly attained induced
the proprietor to issue another penny periodical of
the same kind, but without the illustration, and in
a form better adapted for binding, namely, that
which was subsequently adopted for the Family
Herald, and since by all the most widely-circulated
of the popular periodicals now so numerous. The
circulation of Lloyd's Peymy Miscellany soon equalled
that of its predecessor, and Mr. Lloyd was induced
by its success, and the piles of manuscripts that
were offered him, to issue another and similar publi-
cation, with the title of Lloyd's Penny Atlas. This,
too, was a success, though not of the same degree as
the earlier ventures.

The " march of intellect," as it was called, had
not then advanced far enough to suggest the pos-
sibility, since realized, of its being a remunerative
undertaking to engage authors of high literary
repute to write for penny publications ; but, as in
all cases, the existence of a demand creates a supply,
authors were soon found who were very willing to
write any number of novels and romances for the
honorarium offered by Mr. Lloyd, that is, ten
shillings per weekly instalment of the story. The
names of very few of them can now be discovered.

86 Forty Years Recollections.

Among them, however, were Thomas Prest, a popular
song-writer of that day, and Mrs. Denvil, widow of
the tragedian of that name, which will be for ever
associated with his unique and inimitable imper-
sonation of Manfred.

Mr. Lloyd was not long alone in a field which
enterprising printers and newsagents soon perceived
only required judicious cultivation to be profitably
worked; and as the publishers of this class of
literature multiplied, so did the authors. Among
the foremost in the field was Mr. Pierce Egan, son
of the author of " Boxiana," and now, and for many
years past, editor of the London Journal. The
stories produced by this popular writer were all of
the historical class, and had an immense sale ; his
earlier productions, " Robin Hood " and " Wat
Tyler," having been several times reprinted. Next
in the order of popularity comes Mr. Henry Donwes
Miles, subsequently editor of a newspaper devoted
to " the turf,^' who, following in the footsteps of
Mr. Ainsworth, produced romances embodying the
crimes and adventures of Claude Duval, Dick Turpin,
and Jerry Abershaw.

Among those who entered this new field of literary
enterprise later was the famous Anna Maria Jones,
whose " Gipsy Mother " most readers of fiction who
are now waning from their prime will remember as
one of the favourite novels of their youthful days.

Popular Literature Forty Years ago. Z"]

Her " Euined Cottage '^ attained a very large circu-
lation. Then there was Stephen Hunt, an occasional
reporter, who wrote " Melina the Murderess,"
founded upon the story of the young woman who
shot, in St. Jameses Park, the soldier by whom she
had been seduced and deserted. Later still, there
entered the field James Lindridge, a newsagent's
assistant, who catered for the appetite which Mr.
Ainsworth and Bulwer Lytton had done so much to
stimulate, by producing a Newgate romance, entitled
" Tyburn Tree."

The demand for serial fiction in this form was
still unabated, when the accession of leisure which I
derived from the cessation of the Communist propa-
ganda led me to conceive the idea of assisting in
the supply. I had written, a few years before, some
short stories for a local publication, and I flattered
myself both that I understood the requirements of
the public taste, and that I could produce a story
that would stand out in strong contrast alike to the
morbidity and unreality of " Varney the Vampire ''
and the sickly sentimentality of" Ada the Betrayed."
I did not credit myself with genius, or emulate the
fame of the inimitable Dickens ; but I had confidence
in my possession of a quality which, when combined
with a moderate degree of literary ability, is more
useful to its possessor, if he does not happen to
have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

88 Forty Years Recollections.

than the greatest amount of genius that ever
burned, and fretted, and wore its unfortunate pos-
sessor into an untimely grave ; I mean tact.

I had often, when a boy, gazed upon a set of the
series of engravings in which Hogarth portrayed the
life of an " unfortunate,^' and which hung in black
frames in the parlour of my maternal grandmother,
and tried to understand the story so graphically
depicted by the great artist of comedy. The idea
which I conceived was to tell this story in type,
not, however, adhering strictly to the lines laid
down by Hogarth, but introducing characters and
incidents not represented by him, in order to illus-
trate the influence of circumstances in the formation
of character. Taking Eugene Sue for my model,
I drew upon my personal acquaintance with the
actual condition of the lower grades of the people,
and the knowledge which I had gleaned of the
shadows of London life, for the scenes and incidents
which I pressed into my service. Many of them
I had actually witnessed, and not a few of the
characters were drawn from life.

The conditions amidst which I wrote were not
favourable to rose-coloured views of human life and
character. The time was winter, always a season
of hardship for the poor, and aggravated at that
period by legislative enactments devised by Tory
rulers for the purpose of artificially enhancing the

Popular Literature Forty Years ago. 89

cost of food for the benefit of the landowners. As
in 1842, every form of social evil was rife, and
society seemed to be drifting into moral chaos. It
was not a time to paint in roseate hues the condition
of the poor and the unfortunate, or to smooth down
the asperities of life and the jarring contrasts of
society. I felt strongly about them, and I wrote
strongly.

When I had completed my story, I made a neat
little parcel of the manuscript, and proceeded to
Salisbury Square, where I presented myself at Mr.
Lloyd's counter, and stated my business. I was
ushered at once into a room, in which sat a stout
gentleman of sleek exterior and urbane manners —
not the publisher, I found, but his manager.

" Have you written anything before ? " inquired
this gentleman, as he opened the parcel, and glanced
at the title of my tale.

" Only short stories in a provincial periodical,"
I replied.

*'We are rather chary of undertaking the first
productions of young authors," said he, cursorily
looking over the manuscript. " We have so many
brought to us which are really such trash, that even
the machine-boys would nob read them, if we were
guilty of the folly of printing them.'''

" You will allow me to leave it, I hope," said I.

" Yes ; we will have it read," he returned, ''and in

90 Forty Years Recollections.

a few weeks you may call again. You see, our
publications circulate amongst a class so different
in education and social position to the readers of
three-volume novels, that we sometimes distrust our
own judgment, and place the manuscript in the
hands of an illiterate person — a servant or machine-
boy, for instance. If they pronounce favourably
upon it, we think it will do."

I smiled at this ; and though I felt that my story
was sensational enough for those who like to be
excited or intensely interested by what they read,
I asked myself what the housemaid would think of
my metaphysics, and whether the machine-boy
would appreciate my views of social economy.

I left the manuscript, however, and two or three
weeks elapsed without any intimation being received
by me of the judgment pronounced upon it by the
publisher's strange readers. Then I called attention
to it through the post, and was informed, in reply,
that the mass of manuscripts on hand had prevented
it from being read, but that I should be communi-
cated with again in a week. How anxiously I
waited, and how disappointed I was when I learned
that it had been pronounced unsuitable, I need not
say. There was little consolation in the reflection
that it was too good for the readers for whom it was
intended, when it was followed by the thought that
the editors of half-crown magazines would reject it,

Poptdar Literature Forty Years ago. 91

if not for its Socialist tendencies, because the author
was unknown.

For sis months the manuscript lay in a drawer,
for there seemed little hope for a storj which had
been rejected in Salisbury Square. Then I resolved
upon another trial, and the next time I was in
London I placed it with a newsagent who had made
two or three ventures of the kind, which had, how-
ever, not been attended with success. At the end
of a week he also returned it, but recommended me
to try another of the trade, who had formerly been
one of the most active of the secret vendors of un-
stamped newspapers. I acted upon the advice, and
the result justified so far the adage that the third
time is fortunate.

When the first numbers came into my hands, I
was pleased to find that my publisher had got up
the work in better form than characterized the
Salisbury Square issues, or those of any other house
in the same branch of the trade. Ten thousand
copies were printed, and they were all sold ; and I
may add, not in any boastful spirit, but as a ray of
light upon the popular literature of that period, that
it was twice reprinted — a rare instance of public
favour in a branch of literature in which one pro-
duction was constantly succeeding another. As the
story was published anonymously, I had frequent
opportunities of learning what was thought of it by

92 Forty Years Recollections.

those who had read it ; but I could never satisfy
myself as to the degree in which its success was due
to its peculiar tone and tendencies, a point in which
I was greatly interested.

In the opinion of those who would have had the
working-people of that day devote their evenings to
the study of the physical sciences, as well as of
those who would fain have restricted the reading of
the industrial classes to the Bible and the '' Whole
Duty of Man,^^ the tales and romances of what I may
call the Salisbury Square school were replete with
moral contamination ; but, trashy as many of them
undoubtedly were, there was far less immorality to
be foundin them than between the yellow covers of the
French novels sold in Burlington Arcade ; and cer-
tainly no more than could, and can, be found in most
of the three- volume novels of native origin. They did
not, it is true, present such evidences of genius as were
found on every page of the works of Lytton Bulwer
(the late Lord Lytton) and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth ;
but the characters and the incidents of the Salisbury
Square fictions, compared with those in the three-
volume novels and the half-crown maga7anes, show
that the literary tastes of Belgravia and Bethnal
Green were at that day very similar. Highwaymen
and their mistresses did not figure for the first time
in the romances published forty years ago in penny
numbers, nor were they presented more attrac-

Popular Literature Forty Years ago, 93

lively in them than in " Rookwood " and " Paul
Clifford."

The Salisbury Square fictione may be divided,
however, into two classes, one consisting of ro-
mances of the kind made popular by Anna Rad-
cliffe, the other of the sentimental novels purveyed
to our grandmothers by Anne of Swansea and
Anna Maria Jones. The latter predominated in
number and popularity, and the cause of the pre-
ference for them that was so unmistakably evinced
may be discovered by a visit to a minor theatre in
an industrial quarter of the metropolis — the Grecian,
the Pavilion, or the Surrey, for instance, or (some
years ago) the Yjctoria. It is the domestic drama
that draws the largest audiences — the natural por-
trayal of the character and incidents of real life
among the masses that elicits the warmest applause
of pit and gallery. We have only to watch the
countenances, and listen to the whispered remarks,
of the men and women of the lowest grades who
crowd the gallery, eagerly gazing and listening,
during the representation of a drama that excites
their interest by exhibiting the trials of suffering
virtue, to be convinced that the appreciation of
moral loveliness is as keen, the feeling excited by
the contemplation of injustice or cruelty as intense,
among the poorest dwellers in Lambeth or Bethnal
Green as among the most educated and refined of

94 For^ty Years Recollections.

the residents of Belgravia. The sympathies of even
the vicious are invariably enlisted on the side of
virtue; and an outburst of honest indignation against
the villain of the play, especially if he is a cowardly
and treacherous villain, brings together every pair
of rough hands to endorse it with applause.

Two of the most successful of the Salisbury
Square fictions were ^'Ada^ the Betrayed," and
" The Lady in Black," the latter founded upon the
well-known story of a young lady who lost her
reason through the execution for forgery of her
brother, a clerk in the Bank of England, and whose
appearance was familiar to many persons who were
accustomed to visit or pass that institution forty
years ago, when she might frequently be seen
walking to and fro before it, a pale, thin figure, in-
variably dressed in black, waiting for the brother
she would never see again. The moral tone of both
these stories, and indeed of most of the tales issued
by Mr. Lloyd, was unexceptionable, virtue being set
in as bright and beautiful contrast to vice as in any
of the novels on the shelves of Mudie^s library at the
present day. It is doubtful, indeed, whether the
comparison would not be in favour of the former.

The Salisbury Square school of fiction did a good
work in its day. It was the connecting link between
the Monmouth Street ballads and " last dying
speeches," lives of highwaymen, and terrific legends

Popular Liter attire Forty Years ago. 95

of diabolism, which constituted the favourite reading
of the masses fifty years ago, and the more whole-
some and refined literature enjoyed by them at the
present day. The literary tastes of a people cannot
be formed all at once to a high standard. With the
mass, as with each of the individuals composing it,
intellectual progress is incompatible with a high
standard as the starting-point. As a boy is not
likely to read much, if we try to give him a tast« for
reading by confining him to a set course of Locke
and Paley, or even Addison and Steele, so a genera-
tion that had but just outgrown the mental aliment
provided for it by Fairbum and Bysh, conld scarcely
be expected to appreciate the novels of Lytton
Bulwer, even if they had been within its reach.
The way to such appreciation was rightly prepared
by the substitution of the Salisbury Square literature
for that of Monmouth Street and the Minories.

96 Forty Years Recollections.

CHAPTEE VIL

THE CHAETTST MOVEMENT.

The little group of Chartists that had existed in
my native town in 1842, when their orator, the
shoemaker poet, had his famous encounter with
Cobden, had long been broken up when the formation
of a branch of the National Land Company, founded
by Feargus O'Connor to provide the members with
small farms by means of co-operation and allotment
by ballot, brought the remaining members together
aofain. The result was the re-formation of a branch
of the Charter Association ; and, as I had become
convinced by that time that social ameliorations of
every kind must make slow progress until the
masses acquired political power, I joined it. The
weekly meetings were held at a coffee-house, and at
the first of them I was elected a member of the
committee, in which capacity I became a member of
the general council of the Association.

As I took from that day an active part, and locally
a prominent one, in the agitation for the People's

The Chartist Movement. 97

Charter, and the movement lias been persistently-
misrepresented by successive writers, and therefore
very imperfectly and erroneously understood, some
service will be rendered to the cause of truth, and
some material afforded for a chapter of English
history which has yet to be written, by a brief re-
lation of the progress of the Chartist movement,
from its origin to the time at which my connexion
with it commenced.

Properly understood, that movement was a natural
and inevitable result of the development of the nation.
It had its due and legitimate place in the series of
political movements which have been in progress
since the twelfth century, and are even yet not
completed. A nation never achieves its freedom at
a single step. An uprising of the masses may give
them the broadest franchises for a time, but the
liberty thus obtained is brief and illusory. English-
men have been engaged for seven centuries in the
work of political emancipation ; but they have made
every step sure, and clenched every nail which they
have driven into the coffin of arbitrary and irre-
sponsible power. The landowners first, then the
traders, then the workers, with long intervals of fit-
ful agitation between each step, has been the order
— the natural and inevitable order — of enfranchise-
ment.

The agitation for manhood suffrage followed

E

98 Forty Years Recollections.

closely, as might have been expected, upon the
political emancipation of the shopkeepers. United
with the trading classes in the agitation of 1831,
the working men were overlooked in the measure
of Parliamentary Reform which they had helped
to necessitate, and thenceforth had to work alone.
The threat of revolution to which the Tories suc-
cumbed in 1832 would have been breathed in
vain by the middle classes alone ; but those classes,
having gained their object by the aid of the work-
ing men, betrayed their allies, and opposed their
enfranchisement with a degree of stubbornness
which the upper classes would never have ventured
to display.

The working classes, abandoned by their late
allies, and opposed equally by "Whigs and Tories,
formed in 1837 a political organization of their own.
The germ of a document soon to be famous was
contained in a petition, drawn up by an intelligent
working man named Lovett, and adopted by a
crowded gathering which took place in that year at
the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand. It
set forth the injustice and anomalousness of the
existing representative system, which practically ex-
cluded the working classes, and, while it limited
Parliamentary representation to about one- sixth of
the adult male population, gave the election of the
majority of the House of Commons to about one-

The Chartist Movement. 99

fif til of the electors, tlirough the unequal apportion-
ment of members to constituencies. The remedy
proposed was a scheme of Parliamentary reform,
embracing manhood suffrage, vote by ballot, annual
parliaments, equal electoral districts, the abolition
of the property qualification, and the payment of
members.

The late John Arthur Roebuck, who was selected
by the conveners of the meeting to present this
petition to Parliament, ad\ised a conference at the
British Hotel in Cockspur Street, to which all the
members of the House of Commons who were sup-
posed to be favourable to its objects should be in-
vited. The suggestion was acted upon ; but only
eight members attended, namely, O'Connell, Roe-
buck; Hume, Bowring, Leader, Hindley, Thompson,
and Sharman Crawford. After two nights' dis-
cussion, resolutions pledging them to support the
petition were adopted, and were afterwards acceded
to by Wakley, Fielden, and Whittle Harvey. The
bill in which the " six points *' were embodied was
then prepared by a committee consisting of O'Con-
nell. Roebuck, Leader, Hindley, Thompson, and
Crawford, and six members of the Working Men's
Association, namely, Lovett, Hetherington, Cleave,
Watson, Vincent, and Moore, and was accepted by
the unenfranchised throughout the country as the
People's Charter.

H 2

lOO Forty Years Recollections.

Of the twelve authors of that document not one
survives. Hetherington, Cleave, and Watson, all
booksellers in the metropolis, were known to me from
1841 to 1848, in which year the first-named died.
Lovett was a Birmingham man, who wrote a work
on Chartism, and was the subject of a sympathetic
sonnet by Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law Rhymer,
which appeared in '' Tait's Magazine " in 1840, while
the former was undergoing imprisonment for a
seditious harangue delivered during the excitement
which preluded the conspiracy and insurrection of
the preceding year. Vincent was a compositor, and
subsequently became known as a popular, and very
able and eloquent lecturer, both in this country and
the United States.

The movement soon assumed proportions which
caused uneasiness to the ruling classes. As the
country had been on the verge of revolution in 1831,
and the concessions made in the following year
included no extension of power to the working men,
without whose alliance the threat of revolution
would have been made in vain, the danger presented
itself again as soon as the industrial classes had
organized themselves for single-handed pressure
upon Parliament and the Crown. The resistance of
the House of Commons to the demand for the
People's Charter constituted, indeed, a more serious
ground for the fear of revolution than had existed

The Chartist Movement. loi

in 1831 ; for the opposition of the Crown to popular
demands could be overcome by the power of the
Commons to stop the supplies, and that of the Lords
by the power of the Crown to create new peers, so
long as the Commons' House was in accord with the
people, while an obstructive House of Commons,
representing only a small minority of the people,
could be overcome only by revolution, or the fear
of it.

This became the situation in 1839. The unen-
franchised had been organizing for the obtainment
of electoral reform — '^ peaceably if we can, forcibly
if we must,'' as the phrase went amongst them —
since the conference of 1837. The House of Com-
mons had refused to concede their demands, and
the Chartists, quoting Blackstone's observation con-
cerning taxation without representation, prepared
for the alternative so often expressed in their private
gatherings.

A convention of delegates from all the branches
of the National Charter Association assemble^ at
the Ur. Johnson Tavern, in Bolt Court, Fleet
Street, simultaneously with the meeting of Parlia-
ment. Their early deliberations were conducted
harmoniously ; but, as happened again in 1848, the
refusal of the House of Commons to even allow the
Bill to be introduced caused a rupture, the minority
being content to wait until the monopolists of politi-

I02 Forty Years Recollections.

cal power should be willing to make concessions,
while the majority were resolved to appeal to phy-
sical force. The leading members of the majority
held private conferences at the Arundel Coffee
House^ in the Strand ; and the advocates of moral
suasion, fearing that trouble was brewing, resigned
their seats.

Conspicuous among the members of the physical
force section were John Taylor, who had been
educated for the medical profession, and George
Julian Harney, afterwards editor of the organ of
Chartism, the Northern Star. Taylor had some
years previously inherited a fortune of thirty thou-
sand pounds, the greater part of which he expended
in the promotion of revolutionary enterprises, first
abroad and afterwards at home. During the
Greek struggle for independence, he purchased and
equipped, at his own expense, a small vessel, with
which he joined the insurgents. He was after-
wards concerned in a conspiracy of the French
Republicans, and was ordered to leave France in
forty-eight hours. He was described to me as a vain,
impetuous young man, wearing his long black hair
parted down the centre, a fashion very generally
adopted by advanced reformei"s a few years later.

Harney was then only nineteen or twenty years
of age, as great an enthusiast as Taylor, but a poor
orator, as he always remained, though his speeches

The Chartist Movement. 103

read well. As I knew him in after-years, lie was
a pale, delicate-looking man, more intelligent than
well educated, and in his manners and conversation
quiet and unobtrusive, as I have generally found
the most formidable of the conspirators with whom
I have been brought into contact to be.

As I was only eighteen years of age at the time
when the conspiracy of 1839 burst and collapsed at
Newport, and was not connected with the Chartist
organization until several years afterwards, the
glimpses I obtained of the secret and personal
history of the movement were due to individuals with
whom I became acquainted at a later period. As
I then learned, the threads of the conspiracy were
held by the five members of a secret committee
sitting in London, who communicated with only one
member in each of the branches of the National
Charter Association. I have been assured that
more than a hundred and twenty thousand men,
armed and trained (for drilling had been going on
nightly for some time on the moors and hills),
could have been placed in the field at an hour's
notice ; and that there were depots of ammunition
formed at several places in the northern and midland
districts.

The late David Urquhart, who claimed to possess
an amount of knowledge concerning the conspiracy
which I believe no one ever possessed who was not

I04 Forty Years Recollections.

a member of the insurrectionary committee, does
not appear, nevertheless, to have exaggerated the
extent of its ramifications and the danger with
which it menaced the Government. " It was," he
says, '' a most formidable affair ; and far from being
the wild, mad business which it is generally sup-
posed to have been. It is calculated that two
millions of male adults were either directly engaged
or indirectly compromised in it. Its organization,
which was marvellously complete, exhibited un-
mistakable evidence that it was the work of no
common intelligence. Compact and coherent in all
its parts, like a piece of machinery, with every
groove and cog-wheel in perfect working order, it
was assuredly the work of no neophyte. To form
an effective army out of large bodies of raw recruits,
demands, as every one knows, a rare union of mili-
tary genius, skill, and experience ; so also to create
a gigantic conspiracy out of the ruda indigestaque
moles of a discontented population, are required
similar qualities — qualities, we may add, more rare,
because more refined, than those which are de-
manded for the construction of an efficient army, and
which can only be acquired by a long apprenticeship
in the art of conspiracy. Nor in the organization of
the Chartist plot were any of these requisites want-
ing ; it possessed, in fact, and that in a remarkable
degree, the two great characteristics of a well-

The Chartist Movement. 105

constituted secret society, namely, impenetrability
from below and perfect perspicuity from above."

The inference dra\vn by Urquhart was, that the
Chartist organization of 1839 was the work of a
foreigner, and he traced a resemblance in it to
that of the Greek secret association called the
Hetairia, in order to found upon their imaginary
resemblance the theory that both derived their
inspiration from St. Petersburg. The organization
of the Hetairia was, however, more than ordinarily
complex ; while the Chartist organization, according
to the sketch given by Urquhart from a paper
which he claimed to have seen, and which he alleged
was in the handwriting of a member of the insur-
rectionary committee, was very simple, closely re-
sembling that of the United Irishmen.'

I had read Mr. Molesworth's "History of the
Period," Gammage's "Narrative of the Chartist
Movement," and the " Memoirs and Correspondence
of Thomas Slingsby Duncombe," without obtaining
any light upon the conspiracy and its authors,
when, in 1872, I received a copy of an address
delivered at the Cercle Catholique in Paris, by the
Abbe Defoumy. In turning over the leaves, my
attention was attracted by the following extraordi-
nary sentence : —

* Tide " The Secret Societies of the European Revolution."
2 vols. London : Tinsley Brothers.

io6 Forty Years Recollections.

" England was on the point of becoming the prey
of the Commune and the International, then known
under the name of the Chartist movement/' Of
course the reverend orator, knowing nothing about
the International — which is merely an European
organization of trades' unions — intended by this
anachronistic remark, merely to convey the idea
that Chartism was synonymous with revolution —
the English form of the onward march of nations
which Frenchmen of Conservative tendencies de-
scribe, as vaguely as comprehensively, as la Revolu-
tion— as was indeed believed by many persons who
had better opportunities of obtaining accurate in-
formation upon the subject, but were content to
believe what they read in the Times, instead of
endeavouring to ascertain the truth.

Arrested by the sentence which I have quoted, I
read on ; and I make no apology for transcribing the
following passages, because the number of persons
who have read the abbe's address will probably not
be one per cent, of the readers of these recollections.

" Not only London, but twenty of the principal
towns in England, were about to be laid in ashes by
a fire that was only to be quenched in blood. The
day and the hour were fixed, and the signal for
conflagration and murder was to have been given
everywhere at one and the same time. Two days
before the day fixed, in the evening, a man ap-

The Chartist Movement. 107

peared, who was endowed with sufficient courage
and energy to commit himself with three of the five
superior chiefs of the plot — misguided working men,
who had not created the conspiracy, but who held
in their hands its organization and execution. He
spoke to them so forcibly, that he believed he had
moved them, but without convincing them. At two
o'clock next morning there was a knock at his door.
It proceeded from the three men. Had they come
to assassinate him, or to renew the conversation?
He knew not ; but he had the courage to descend
alone, and to receive them. After the exchange of
a few words, these chiefs of the plot literally fell at
his feet, and placed in his hands a list in cipher of
the principal members of the conspiracy. He rhad
no sooner deciphered it than he proved to them what
he had previously affirmed, namely, that they were
unknowingly the instruments of the foreigner against
their own country. There were in the list the
names of two Russian agents who, a short time
before, had played the same game in Greece. The
three men at once sent messengers to countennand
the order that had been given. There was time.
The conspiracy had begun to take effect only in one
town, which was situated at a great distance, and
there the messenger arrived one hour too late."

But for one circumstance, I should have regarded
this story as the result of one of those effi^rts of the

io8 Forty Years Recollections.

imagination often found in French newspapers, and
occasionally in our own. But a gentleman was
present when the address was delivered, whom the
Abbe Defourny referred to as the individual " who
on that day saved his country/^ That person was
David Urquhart, formerly secretary to the British
Embassy at Constantinople ; and the translation
which I have quoted appeared in the Diplomatle
Review, the property of that gentleman, and the
organ of the Foreign Affairs Committees founded
by him. As I had gleaned a few details of the
secret history of the Chartist movement from some
of those political veterans whom Feargus O'Connor
called the " Old Guards/' I felt curious concerning
the revelations made in the Cercle Catholique, and
wrote to the editor of the review in which they had
been made, asking to be favoured with the names
of "the five superior chiefs of the plot," and those
of " the principal members of the conspiracy," or
at least with the former. To this letter I received
no answer ; but, six months afterwards, a lengthy
article appeared in the same publication, giving
further details of the extraordinary incidents related
by the Abbe Defourny, combined with an account
of the Hetairia and a retrospect of the political
condition of the world in general forty years ago.

Beginning with an acknowledgment of my letter,
and a random surmise that I was a relative of

The Chat'tist Movement, 109

John Frost, convicted of treason in 1 840, the writer
proceeded to state that '' the five superior chiefs of
the plot " were Major Beniowski, a Polish refugee,
well known twenty or thirty years ago as a teacher
of mnemonics and the inventor of the logotype
system of type- founding ; three working men,
named respectively Cardo, Warden, and Westropp,
and an individual whose name was withheld, but who
was said to have held a high position in the police.

I had heard Beniowski mentioned in connexion
with the conspiracy thirty years before he was thus
denounced by Urquhart. One of the " Old Guards "
told me that Beniowski was one of those who were
charged with the military organization of the insur-
rection, but was not one of the authors and directors
of the plot, and acted in subordination to the secret
revolutionary committee. Urquhart assigns to him
the leadership of the revolt in Wales, and to that
extent the statement is correct j but it is not easy
to reconcile that position with the assertion that he
was the head and front of the conspiracy. If he had
been, he would either have taken no active part in
the movement, or have taken the chief command.
He went down to the mining districts of Wales,
some time before the outbreak at Newport, to drill
the disafiected ; but it may be inferred, from a letter
written at that time by Dr. Taylor, that the inten-
tion of the revolutionary committee to appoint him

I lo Forty Years' Recollections.

to the military command there was not abided by.
'' The Pole/' wrote Taylor, " has not gone to Wales,
but I understand a much honester man." This also
confirms what I was told by others, that Beniowski
was not the director of the enterprise, but strictly
subordinate to the secret committee.

He had been a member of the Hetairia, and,
according to Urquhart, held a high position in that
association, to which many other foreigners, English
and French political and literary notabilities, as
well as Poles and Russians, were affiliated. No
evidence was ever adduced by Urquhart in support
of his accusation that Beniowski was a secret agent
of the Russian Government. If he was, the Cabinet
of St. Petersburg, depicted by Urquhart as scatter-
ing gold broadcast over the world for the purpose
of corruption, was far from liberal towards its
emissaries ; for he was not a man of luxurious
habits, and he died poor. Universal conspirator
he certainly was ; one of those Poles who, in the
words of the national poet, Casimir Brodzinski,
" scour the wide earth, invoking liberty /' but,
considering how recklessly his denouncer was wont
to accuse of being agents of Russia every one who
dissented from him, he is entitled to an acquittal of
the charge of being an emissary of the Government
which has oppressed his compatriots for nearly a
century.

The Chartist Movement. 1 1 1

I never met Beniowski, nor, so far as I am aware,
ever saw him ; but I find the following notice of
him in a letter written in 1 839 b j a member of the
Convention : — "I have seen Beniowski, and heard
him speak, briefly; and I should think him well
fitted to exercise influence and acquire authority-
over men not verj capable of thinking for them-
selves. He was a fine, tall, aristocratic-lookino^
man, and possessed great fluency and no small
degree of audacity. He came to us in the latter
days of the Convention to ask us to contribute
from our funds to assist in the movements of a
society, chiefly of foreigners, with which he was
connected, but with whom we had no sympathy/'
This may have been either the Democratic Com-
mittee for the Regeneration of Poland, or the
Association of Fraternal Democrats.

Cardo was a shoemaker, and Warden a gardener •
and both, I have been informed, were men of con-
siderable intellectual powers and attainments. Both
and also Westropp, with whose occupation I am
unacquainted, were members of the National Con-
vention; but, I never heard a hint that either of
them was a member of the secret revolutionary
committee. The only names ever suggested, until
Urquhart gave those of Cardo, Warden, and West-
ropp, were Lowery — mentioned by Gammage in his
insufferably dull and uninteresting history of the

1 1 2 Forty Years^ Recollections.

Chartist movement, published in 1854, as a man
who was supposed to know as much about the affair
as anybody — and Bussey, a beer-house keeper at
Bradford, concerning whom Feargus O'Connor made
the following statement : —

'' You remember the ardour, the fervour, the en-
thusiasm of the representatives of London and
Birmingham in the Convention of 1839, and you
have not perhaps forgotten the honesty, the courage,
the valour of the immortal Peter Bussey, the pom-
pous and mouthing representative of the men of
Bradford. This man kept a beer-house, was dele-
gate for Bradford, and devoted his whole time to
writing reports of each day's proceedings, in order
that his constituents should thoroughly understand
the conduct of their representatives. This letter
was addressed to his wife, and was not to be read
till the factories closed, when the slaves could have
an opportunity of receiving the intelligence of their
independent representatives. This beer-house was
like a theatre ; there was a rush for early places, and
all paid for admission.

"■ This fellow got up secret committees, to be held
in different parts of the country, to establish the
best means for getting up a revolution, of which
Feargus O'Connor was to be kept in utter ignorance.
As soon as the mind was ripened, and when the
arm was nerved, two messengers called upon Bussey,

The Chartist Move?nent. 113

informing him that his armj was ready for the
onslaught. He was lying in bed, pretending to be
violently affected with rheumatism, when one of the
staunch advocates of Chartism called him a coward,
and threatened to shoot him, whereupon the valiant
field-marshal, notwithstanding the dire effect of an
agonizing pain, jumped out of bed, ran behind a
bag of flour, and told them to * send for Feargns
O'Connor/ although it was to have been kept an
utter secret from me.

''■ Well, upon the following morning, I was at the
*Mosely Arms,^ in Manchester, when Richardson,
one of the delegates of the Convention, and Aaron,
of Bradford, waited upon me, and informed me that
the men of Yorkshire were prepared to turn out,
and that I should come to Dewsbury and take the
command. I told them that I was on my way to
London, and that it never was my intention to com-
mand troops that I did not marshal myself; how-
ever, that I would return to Leeds, and meet any
deputation that chose to call upon me. I returned
to Leeds by the next coach. Upon the following
day, a deputation from Dewsbury waited upon me
— a very large deputation — and from whom I an-
ticipated no small share of contention and violence ;
however, it ended thus : they declared that they
had been most atrociously deceived by Bussey and
others, and that they would never again place con-

I

114 Forty Year s^ Recollections.

fidence in any leader but the much abused Feargus
O'Connor."

I have been informed by gentlemen who were
acquainted with David Urquhart, and shared his
peculiar opinions, that the list of " the principal
members of the conspiracy " included the names of
Feargus O'Connor, John Frost, Eichard Oastler, aud
Joseph Rayner Stephens. It happens, however,
that the fact of O'Connor's ignorance of the plot
does not rest upon his own assertion alone, though
that, coupled with the fact that he was not included
in the indictment of Frost and others, might be
considered sufficient for the conviction of any im-
partial and unprejudiced mind, Lowery, when
questioned on the subject by Gammage, is said to
have replied, ^' Feargus O'Connor knew nothing at
all about it ; but he was the only man in England
who could have prevented it."

Now, if the list contained the name of one man,
as a principal member of the conspiracy, who knew
nothing at all about it, that is good prima facie
evidence that it was altogether a spurious con-
coction. But let us look at some of the other names.
Oastler was agent to a Yorkshire landowner named
Thornton, and Stephens was a Wesleyan minister.
Both were Tories, and their popularity was due to
their exertions in furtherance of the movement for
limiting the hours of labour in factories. Stephens

The Chartist Movement. 1 1 5

distinctly repudiated Chartism when on his trial at
Chester for sedition in 1840; and two years later
he was a prominent supporter of Mr. Walter, then
a Tory candidate for the representation of Not-
tingham. His followers even were not known as
Chartists, but were always designated Stephenites.

John Frost was deeply implicated in the con-
spiracy, and had the chief direction of the move-
ment in his own part of the country. He was the
principal draper in Newport, a man of good repute,
and one of the Monmouthshire justices until he was
deprived of the commission by Lord John Russell
on account of the active part which he had taken
in the agitation for parliamentary reform. On the
day fixed for the outbreak he led a large body of
working men, chiefly miners, into Newport, and
attacked the Westgate Inn, which was held bv a
company of infantry hurriedly sent to the spot.
The attack failed; and I have been assured that to
that failure the collapse of the well-concerted scheme
of rebellion was due, as the Birmingham con-
spirators were awaiting news of success at Newport,
the receipt of which would have been the signal for
insurrection in all the towns of the midland and
northern counties.

There was a lull in the Chartist agitation durino-
the two years following the outbreak at Newport.
The organization continued to exist, however, and
I 2

1 1 6 Forty Years' Recollections.

early in the Parliamentary session of 1842 Sharman
Crawford introduced, in a very temperate speecli,
a motion pledging the House of Commons to take
the People's Charter into consideration. The Whigs
stood aloof from the discussion, however, and the
motion was rejected by two hundred and twenty-
six votes against sixty-seven.

There was a split at this time in the popular
ranks, and two conventions of delegates were sitting
at once, one in London and the other at Birming-
ham. The former represented the larger section,
which adhered to the " six points,'' and was pre-
pared, if necessary, to appeal to the final argument ;
the latter, with which Joseph Sturge was identified,
represented the smaller section, which aimed at re-
vivifying the union of the middle and working
classes that existed in 1831, and to attain that end
was prepared to exchange manhood suffrage for
" complete " suffrage, whatever that might be con-
strued to mean, and annual for triennial parliaments,
which, having regard to the average duration of
parliaments, would have been a change scarcely
worth contending for.

This division, and the depressing influence of the
latter events of 1842, retarded the progress of the
movement during the next five years; but in 1847
measures were taken for strong and united pressure
upon Parliament in the folio wiug session, when a

The Chartist Moveynent. 117

petition for the enactment of the People^s Charter
was to be presented, bearing' a larger number of
signatures than had been affixed to any praver of
the people ever laid before the House of Commons.

1 1 8 Forty Years Recollections.

CHAPTER yill.

THE GREAT PETITION,

The revival of the Chartist movement in Croydon
was inaugurated by a public meeting, held, not at
the little dingy public-house in the slums at which
Chartist gatherings had previously been held, but
in the club-room of one of the principal inns in the
High Street ; and, as it was announced that three
members of Parliament had been invited to attend,
we anticipated a crowded meeting. As a precaution
against the not improbable non-attendance of those
gentlemen, however, we also invited Mr. Macgrath,
a member of the Executive Council of the Charter
Association ; and the event justified it, for neither
of the Liberal members we had invited thought
proper to attend. The two representatives of East
Surrey, Alcock and Locke King, did not even
answer our secretary's letter. Peter A. Taylor, who
then resided in the town, declined the invitation
on the following grounds : —

'^ An ill-timed effort to forward a public question

The Great Petition. 119

usually delays, instead of hastening, its accomplish-
ment ; and I think there are many reasons why this
subject cannot be eflfectively agitated at present.
Had the conduct of many of its friends been more
reasonable, I think it might have been the next
question to which the energies of Reformers would
be directed; but, under present circumstances, I
consider this most desirable object will have to be
postponed, probably for some years. I regret this
upon every account, but must decline to devote time
or energy to a subject which, in my opinion, cannot
at present be successfully urged."

" Well,^' said I to my colleagues, *' these gentle-
men have been invited, and are expected to attend ;
and their failure to do so concerns nobody but
themselves. We shall have as large a gathering as
if they were on the platform.''

About a quarter of an hour before the time fixed
for the commencement of the proceedings, the seven
members of the local council left the coflFee-house at
which their weekly meetings were held, and pro-
ceeded to the inn, accompanied by Mr. Macgrath
and a reporter from the office of the Northern Star.
There were not more than twenty men in the room
when we entered, but tbey continued to come in by
twos and threes until it was nearly full.

Then we installed as chairman an elderly operative
carpenter, named Westoby, who was an old and

I20 Fo7'ty Years' Recollections.

respectable inhabitant of the town, and went about
our work thoroughly in earnest. Macgrath made a
very effective speech, and then the first resolution
was moved by Hodges, the sawyer — a fine, sturdy
example of the best portion of the English working
classes — and seconded by myself. While I was speak-
ing the local reporter of the South-Eastern Gazette,
then the only provincial Liberal journal circulating
in Surrey, entered the room, took a few notes while
loitering near the door, and then retired, having
been present scarcely ten minutes. The resolution
condemning the existing representative institutions
as anomalous and unjust, and affirming the People^s
Charter to be the only remedy, was unanimously
adopted; and when the petition was laid upon a
table near the door at the close of the proceedings,
during which the gathering had received a con-
siderable accession of numbers, it was signed by at
least three-fourths of those present.

Less than a dozen lines were devoted to this
meeting by the South-Eastern Gazette, and falsehood
and malignity were blended in the reporter's state-
ment that "the chair was taken by Mr. Smallwood,
the Socialist;'^ no such person having taken any part
in the proceedings. As only Chartists read the
Northern Star, in which a full and correct report
appeared, everybody else was deprived by this dis-
creditable manoeuvre of the means of forming an

The Great Petition. 1 2 t

independent judgment of the great agitation wliich
was then being re\'iyed. This was a fair example
of the manner in which Chartist meetings were
usually reported, whether in the organs of Liberalism
or Conservatism.

Hodges was the only member of the local
Chartist Council who had been connected with
the movement from its commencement, Blackaby
having left the town about a year after his encounter
with Cobden. I was temporarily residing in
London when he left Croydon, and was not aware
of his intention ; and on my return to the town I
found that none of his old associates were acquainted
with his new location. It was his habit to disappear
in this manner, leaving no clue to his movements ;
but it was my fortune always to come across him
again in some unexpected place.

One evening, in the summer of 1844, I was
strolling through the secluded hamlet of Walling-
ton, a few miles from the town, when the sight of
an old-fashioned little inn, standing far back from
the road, with a smooth green before it, and tables
and chairs under the spreading branches of a group
of ancient elms, was so suggestive of rest and
refreshment, that I was soon seated in the agreeable
shade with a glass of ale before me. I was picturing
to myseK Ealeigh and Carew sitting under the
venerable oaks of Beddington Park, which formed

122 Forty Years' Recollections.

the background of the landscape, when a man with
a small bundle under his arm approached from the
dusty road, and, as he came nearer, I recognized
Blackaby. The recognition was mutual, and we
were both glad to have a chat together, after having
lost sight of each other for nearly a year.

He had upon several occasions shown me short
poems, the effusions of his imagination ; but, unlike
most aspirants to poetic fame, he had never had a
sufficiently good opinion of his verses to submit
them to an editor or publisher, and I had carefully
refrained from encouraging him to do so, knowing
poetry to be the least profitable ware that an author
can carry to the literaiy market. But to write
poetry is a necessity of the poet's existence. Lord
Abinger had lately died, and Blackaby had written a
poem on the occasion in blank verse, which he
thought of printing for private circulation, calcu-
lating that he could dispose of as many copies as
would defray the cost of its production. He
read to me the opening passages, and the address
which he had put into the mouth of Satan, as
the claimant of the soul of the deceased judge, from
which I perceived that the hint for the poem had
been furnished by Byron's " Vision of Judgment."
There were some passages of considerable literary
merit, but the sentiments expressed were calculated
to find favour only with those who regarded the

The Great Petition. 123

subject from the stand-point of the author. It was
arranged, however, that it should be printed, and I
believe that the fifty copies, to which the order was
limited, were all sold.

The evening twilight faded out while we were
talking, and 1 rose to depart. Blackaby followed my
example, and we walked a short distance together.
The sight of a cactus in a cottage window suggested
to him the question whether I had ever seen the
nisrht-floweringr cereus, the flowers of which unfold
their petals at night, and perish before sunrise. He
had seen a specimen of this strange and beautiful
cactus in the conservatory of Sir Edmund Antrobus,
into which he had been admitted by the gardener,
and its singularity and beauty had inspired some
stanzas, which he produced as he walked, from a
well-worn pocket-book. Having obtained his per-
mission to copy them, and to give them publicity if
I thought them worthy of the dignity of type, I
transferred to my own pocket the sheet of blue-laid
foolscap on which they were written, in a hand
more bold than elegant, and we parted, the poet
retracing his steps towards Cheam, where he then
resided.

The poem, which subsequently appeared through
my instrumentality in the columns of Reynolds'
Miscellany, if not a gem of genius, was certainly
superior to most of the stuff which is constantly

124 Forty Years Recollections.

inflicted upon editors, and wliicli they are asked to
accept as poetry. But, with, the exception of these
stanzas and the " Vision/' no poem of Blackaby's
ever obtained publicity. I afterwards saw others
in manuscript, but none of them were equal in
merit to these, while the subjects of some of them
did not possess the interest required in literary pro-
ductions intended for general perusal.

Blackaby had made another flitting before the
meeting at Croydon, or we might have had the
influence of his oratory and argumentative powers
to help us. While we were assisting in the prepa-
ration of the '' monster ^' petition, the Liberals of
France were organizing for a similar movement, led
by Odillon-Barrot, and the Republican section was
preparing, in the secret societies, to take advantage
of the expected collision with the Government. The
crash that was impending was seen by me months
before it came, for it was clear that the agitation for
electoral reform would soon reach a point at which
Guizot would have to yield, or adopt such measures
of repression as would, as in 1880, bring about the
downfall of the Monarchy.

Before the close of 1 847 I had declared a revolu-
tion in Prance to be imminent, and expressed my
conviction that a vigorous impetus would thereby
be given to the agitation for the Charter. The result
proved that I was right, though it may be said that

The Great Petition. 125

it also proved Peter Taylor to be right. Obviously
we regarded the matter from different points of
view, and could not therefore see it in the same
aspect. He foresaw that the House of Commons,
representing only a small minority of the nation,
would refuse to }deld to the representations of the
majority, unless the question was taken up by the
Government, which was not at all likely ; whilst I
calculated upon the movement assuming propor-
tions that would command attention from all the
estates of the realm, and bind up the cause of
the monarchy with that of the people. The move-
ment did assume the proportions that I anticipated,
but the Government staked the Crown on the issue
of the struggle, and with a success that did not
reward the similar position of the Guizot ministry
in France.

I was at this time a member of the Association of
Fraternal Democrats, meeting monthly at a dingy
public-house in Drury Lane, called the White Hart.
It was composed of democratic refugees from most
parts of Europe, but chiefly of Frenchman, Germans,
and Poles, with a sprinkling of such advanced
reformers of this country as, like Julian Harney and
Ernest Jones, were " Chartists, and something
more.'^ Every candidate for admission was required
to be proposed by a member, whose nomination had
to be backed by another, proposer and seconder

126 Forty Years Recollections.

being held responsible for the soundness of the
aspirant^s democratic views, and the correctness of
his moral conduct. The motto of the association
was " All men are brethren," which was printed on
the cards of membership in twelve languages,
namely, English, French, and German on the top,
above the name of the society, and name and date
of admission of the member ; in Dutch, Danish, and
Swedish on the left ; in Spanish, Italian, and Romaic
on the right ; and in Russian, Polish, and Hungarian
on the bottom, below the signatures of the six
secretaries, representing as many sections of the
society.

I am unable to say whether the association com-
prised individuals of all the nationalities in whose
languages the motto expressing its cosmopolitan
character was printed. The democrats of Britain,
France, Germany, and Poland were well represented
in their respective sections, which, as regards the
foreigners at least, formed links of connexion with
the secret societies of the Seasons, Young Germany,
and Young Poland, the first founded by Martin
Bernard in 1839, the others in 1834 by the German
and Polish refugees in Switzerland, who, in con-
junction with the Italian exiles, formed the associa-
tion known as Young Europe, under the presidency
of Joseph Mazzini.

The Hungarian section was not so strong, there

The Great Petition. 127

being- comparatively few of that nationality in
London at that time ; and the Scandinavian section,
which embraced the still fewer Swedes, Danes, and
Norwegians who held the views of the association,
was the weakest of the six. Members belonging to
other nations were associated with the sections with
which they had the greatest affinity ; thus, a couple
of Russians were enrolled in the Polish section, obey-
ing the sympathies of community of race, and pre-
serving the dream of the United Sclavonians, con-
secrated by the blood of Pestel and Mouravieff.
There was a Spaniard too, in the French section,
who had fought for liberty with Riego and Torrijos.
The Italians in London remained outside our or-
ganization, most of them being affiliated to Young
Italy, and bound by its code not to join any similar
association.

I had been received into the Fraternal Democrats
on the nomination of Julian Harney, seconded by
Henry Ross, a carpenter at HammersmitL The
news of the abdication and flight of Louis Philippe
reached this country while we were holdino- our
monthly meeting, and as it had been preceded by
intelligence which had caused a considerable degree
of excitement among advanced Liberals of all
nationalities, there was a very full attendance of
members. The tricoloured flag of the French
republic ; the black, gold, and red symbol of German

128 Forty Years' Recollections.

unity; the green, white, and red tricolour of the
Hungarian patriots ; the glorious flag that reminded
the countrymen of Kosciusko of their lost liberties ;
— waved with others above the president's chair,
and on his right and left sat the secretaries of the
sections.

Julian Harney was there, pale and quiet as usual ;
Michelot, lively, and somewhat excited; Carl
Schapper, an artist, whose countenance bore the
scar of a wound inflicted by the sabre of a Prussian
dragoon ; Louis Oborski, a tall, fine-looking man of
martial bearing, though far advanced in years, who
had borne arms in more than one revolt of his com-
patriots against the tyrannous rule of the Czar.
Below these representatives and advocates of a holy
alliance of peoples, sat a mingled assemblage of
• Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Poles, and
Hungarians, — Englishmen who had suffered impri-
sonment for sedition in times of strong political
excitement; Frenchmen who had fought at the
barricades with Blanqui and Barbes ; Germans who
had been expelled from their country for propagat-
ing the idea of national unity ; Poles who had bled
at Ostrolenka; Hungarians who cherished the hope
of national independence.

Suddenly the news of the events in Paris was
brought in. The eff'ect was electrical. Frenchmen,
Germans, Poles, Magyars, sprang to their feet.

The Great Petition, 129

embraced, shouted, and gesticulated in the wildest
enthusiasm. Snatches of oratory were delivered in
excited tones, and flags were caught from the walls,
to be waved exultingly, amidst cries of "Hoch ! Eljen .'
Vive Ja Eepuhlique ! " Then the doors were opened,
and the whole assemblage descended to the street,
and, with linked arms and colours flying, marched
to the meeting-place of the Westminster Chartists,
in Dean Street, Soho. There another enthusiastic
fraternization took place, and great was the clinking
of glasses that night in and around Soho and
Leicester Square.

I had few opportunities of attending the gather-
ings of the Fraternal Democrats ; but on this occasion
I was in London on business, and I was, I believe,
the first person to announce in Croydon the event
which I had predicted several months befoye.
Reaching home after the manifestation in West-
minster, I hastened to the cofiee-house at which the
Chartists met, and finding that they had not yet
separated, bounded up the stairs, and entered the
room in which a dozen working-men were assembled^
drinking coffee or lemonade, and reading the
Northern Star or the Daily Neius.

" Glorious news ! " I exclaimed. '' Louis
Philippe has fled, and the revolution is complete."

" Hurrah ! " cried an enthusiastic artisan,
inspired by the thought of the influence which the

130 Forty Y'ears Recollections.

revolution of 1830 had in accelerating the march of
parliamentary reform. " Now we shall get our
rights."

The excitement created by the revolution in
France gave to the Chartist movement the impetus
which I had anticipated; but the national petition
which Charles Kingsley abused so much in ^^ Alton
Locke/^ without knowing anything about it, had
been in course of signature for several months pre-
viously. In furtherance of that object, the council
of the Croydon branch resolved to convene another
public -meeting, and, for the two reasons that we anti-
cipated a larger gathering than before, and that two
or three of my colleagues, being what are absurdly
called " teetotallers,'' wished to avoid holding it in a
public-house, it was resolved to apply for the use of
the Town Hall.

There was a doubt, however, as to the authority
in whom the control of that building was legally
vested, the senior overseer informing me that he did
not possess it, and standing aghast at the suggestion
of a medical gentleman who came up while we were
discussing the question, that the town-crier and
bill-poster, being also the head constable under the
old parochial system, was the right man to apply to.
In this difficulty I acted upon a second suggestion
of the doctor, and made an application in. writing to
Mr. Penfold, a legal gentleman who was at that

The Great Petition. 131

time clerk to the justices. On the following day-
Mr. Penfold called upon me, and informed me that
the use of the Town Hall could not be granted for
the purpose intended.

" What is the objection t" \ asked.

*' The magistrates/^ he replied, '' feel it to be
their duty not to aid or countenance in any way
whatever an agitation which they believe would, if
successful, be the ruin of the country. There is, of
course, no objection to the enfranchisement of a
man like yourself; but ParUament could not let in
the few who are qualified to exercise the franchise
intelligently, and exclude the many who are not so
qualified."

" Does not that objection apply quite as strongly
to the present state of things t" \ inquired. '' There
is no line of separation now between the ignorant
and the educated, the vicious and the virtuous.
Every fool or knave who lives in a borough, and
pays ten pounds a year rent, has a vote."

"^ But the objection grows stronger as the qualifi-
cation is further lowered,'^ returned Mr. Penfold.
'^ I have not time to discuss the question fully,
and have called upon you personally, instead of
writing, because I am sorry to see you engaged in
this mischievous agitation, the success of which you
will probably have occasion to regret. Sooner or
later these revolutionary movements escape from
K 2

132 Forty Years Recollections.

the control of those who promote them, and the
first leaders are rushed over by the mob and left
behind."

*' I am not afraid of that/* I rejoined. '^ It is
only the milk-and-water reformers who are left
behind, because they want the courage and earnest-
ness of purpose that are required in the people's
leaders, and either fall out on the march, or are cast
aside by the men they have fooled and deceived."

Mr. Penfold shook his head, and departed. He
failed to see that the Chartist movement, so far from
being revolutionary, was strictly constitutional, the
ballot being the only one of the " six points '*
which had not, at one time, been part and parcel of
the Constitution. All else that the enactment of
the Charter would have done would have merely
remedied a defect in the Constitution which was not
perceptible in the earlier centuries of its growth ;
namely, that it did not provide for the admission
within its pale of those who, from time to time,
might find themselves excluded by the altered
conditions of society.

As we could not obtain the Town Hall, and the
committee of the Literary Institution were precluded
by their rules from granting the use of their
lecture-hall for a political meeting, we had no
alternative but to hold our gathering in a public-
house; and it was held accordingly in the largest

The Great Petition, 133

room of the Crown Inn, which had always been
the head-quarters of the Liberal party when a
Parliamentary election took place. It was well
attended ; and though the Charter Association did
not gain any increase of numerical strength from
the arguments of the speakers, the extent to
which they served the cause was shown by the
two thousand and odd signatures which were
obtained in the town to the petition.

The treatment of that petition by the House of
Commons being a matter of historical fact, this
place is as fit as another for recording my testi-
mony that those signatures were all genuine, and
for adducing evidence that the fictitious signatures,
which were made the excuse for the rejection of the
petition, were the work of mischievous idlers and
malignant enemies of the popular cause. Macgowan,
the printer of the Northern Star, said to me one
day in his office, when the fictitious signatures were
the subject of conversation, " That was the work of
idle boys. I heard one of my machine-boys say
that he had signed the petition every time he passed
a place where it was lying for signature ; and ' wasn't
it a jolly lark ! ' "

But the mischief was not wrought entirely by the
idle boys of London. In the spring of 1849, when
an attempt was made to obtain signatures to a
similar petition, I waited upon many of the in-

134 Forty Yeai^s Recollectio7is.

habitants of Croydon for that purpose, and amongst
those whom I canvassed was a grocer in the High
Street, whose political opinions were unknown to
me, as he had been only a few months in the
town.

" Oh, I have signed that so often ! " he observed,
in a careless and half-contemptuous tone.

''Often?'' I repeated. "Why, there had not
been a petition for the Charter for several years
until last year.''

''Well, I signed that petition twenty times at
least," returned the grocer, with unblushing effron-
tery. " I used frequently to pass the O'Connor
Land Company's offices in High Holborn, and I
signed the petition every time I passed."

This confession proves that it was by the enemies
of the political enfranchisement of the working
classes that the spurious signatures were affixed
to the petition — a fact of which Charles Kingsley
must be supposed to have been ignorant, but
which must be taken cognizance of whenever the
history of that period is impartially related.

Every town in England partook of the excitement
which was created by the march of revolution on
the Continent, and which increased as one success
after another was scored by the uprisen nations,
and the time drew near for the great popular
demonstration which was intended to be held on

The Gi'eat Petiiio7i.

6:>

Kennington Common on the 10th of April. At the
last meeting of the Croydon branch previous to
that memorable day, apprehensions were expressed
by some of the members that the Government would
provoke a collision with the police, and then call out
the troops ; and the advisability of being prepared
for resistance was discussed. I dissuaded those
who urged this course from adopting it.

''Let us give no pretext for an attack," I said.
" Then, if we are attacked, the Government will
have put themselves in the wrong as much as ever
Charles I. did, and we can find arms afterwards for
a conflict with greater advantages on our side than
can be found on Kennington Common."

On the eve of the intended demonstration we
learned that Sir Richard Mayne, acting under in-
structions from Sir George Grey, had issued a pro-
clamation declaring such a gathering to be illegal,
and informing all whom it concerned that measures
had been taken for its suppression. Close upon
this announcement came the private communication
that the Executive Council of the Charter Asso-
ciation had resolved to maintain the right of
meeting, and proceed with the demonstration at all
hazards.

"There will be a fight," observed one of my
colleagues, looking grave, and speaking in a
thouofhtful tone.

136 Forty Years Recollections.

" I trust not/^ said I. " If there must be_, it
will be a mistake if Kennington Common is made
the battle-field. It is on the wrong side of the
river."

Notwithstanding the sinister apprehensions of
many, my view prevailed with my immediate asso-
ciates j and I have reason to believe that the vast
majority of the teus of thousands who assembled
oa the following day went unarmed, at the risk of
another Peterloo, rather than afford any pretext for
a Whig Eeign of Terror. I did not know then
what preparations had been made by the Govern-
ment as a precaution against a possible insurrection ;
but, as I crossed Waterloo Bridge on the morning
of the 10th, I saw two lines of police drawn up ;
and, happening to look over the parapet near
Somerset House, I caught a glimpse of a dis-
mounted trooper of the household cavalry, who
retired as soon as he found that he was observed.
Returning an hour or two later from the offices of
the Executive Council, I saw a line of mounted
constables, extending from Ludgate Hill to the
foot of Blackfriars Bridge, and surmised that they
were placed there to close that means of communi-
cation, after the working men, who were then
swarming over it, were all on the Surrey side of
the river.

It was impossible not to feel some degree of

The Greai Petitiott. 137

anxiety as to the end, and the feeling increased
momentarily in intensity as I proceeded towards
Kennington Common, and saw every road con-
verging to that point thronged %vith working men,
pouring in a continuous stream towards the space
which had been selected for the intended demon-
stration. Who could say whether it would be the
Government or the directors of the movement
whose resolution would falter at the last moment ?
Who knew whether the tens of thousands who were
assembled on the common would refuse to disperse,
and the signal be given for a conflict, the conse-
quences of which no one could foresee ?

I was standing near the van in which were the
members of the Executive Council and many
delegates of the National Convention, with the
piled-up rolls of the petition, when I heard a cry
of " They have got him ! *' And a wild rush was
made towards the western side of the common.
Looking in that direction, I saw the giant form of
Feargus O'Connor — he and Wakley were the two
tallest men in the House — towering above the
throng, as he moved towards the road, accom-
panied by a courageous inspector of police. There
was a cry repeated through the vast throng that
O'Connor was arrested; a moment of breathless
excitement, and then a partial rolling back of the
mass of human forms that had suddenly impelled

o

8 Forty Years Recollections.

itself towards the road. The tumult subsided ; but
no one knew as yet what was the situation at that
moment.

Presently O'Connor was seen returning, and his
reappearance was hailed with a tremendous shout.
He mounted the van, and in a few words explained
the state of affairs to the anxious throng-. He had
had an interview with Sir Richard Mayne at the
Horns Tavern, and concessions had been made on
both sides. The Government had consented to
allow the meeting to be held without molestation,
and the honourable member for Nottingham had
promised to use his influence with the masses for
the purpose of inducing them to abandon the
intended procession to the House of Commons with
the petition. I breathed more freely when I heard
this arrangement announced, and I have no doubt
that it was a welcome relief to the majority of those
assembled from the painful suspense that had been
felt while the ultimate intentions of the Government
remained unknown.

Mr. T. H. Duncombe states, in his memoirs of
his father, idolized for so many years by the work-
ing classes as " Honest Tom Duncombe,^' that the
meeting was abandoned — a statement which shows
that he knew nothing about the events of that day,
and did not take the trouble to inform himself by
consulting the Annual Begister, or the newspapers

The Great Petition. 139

of the period. It is possible that he may have
been misled by a vague recollection that the vast
assemblage broke up on the conclusion of O'Connor's
speech ; but that separation was occasioned by the
impossibility of even his stentorian voice reaching
those on the borders of the largest assemblage that
had ever taken place in England ; and it would not,
even if the masses had immediately dispersed, have
amounted to an abandonment of the meeting. The
throng merely separated into three or four bodies,
which were addressed by Ernest Jones, Julian
Harney, and other popular orators of that stormy
period.

Similar misrepresentations have been made, both
at the time and since, as to the numbers assembled
on that occasion. The lowest estimate of the
journals of the following morning was 50,000,
which I believe, was as much below the truth as
O'Connor's characteristically exaggerated state-
ment in the Northern Star was above it. My own
estimate was about 150,000, which agreed both
with the numbers given by the most impartial of
the metropolitan journals, and with the estimate
formed independently by Watson, the bookseller,
and communicated by him to me shortly afterwards.

The compromise effected at the Horns produced
a certain amount of dissatisfaction on both sides.
The Chartists would have liked to have carried out

140 Fo7'ty Years^ Recollections.

their programme to the end, as they had been
allowed to do in 1839, when they assembled in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, during the sitting of the
National Convention, and carried their petition
thence in a long procession to the House of
Commons. The authorities, on their part, evinced
the ill-temper of men who were not accustomed to
be thwarted, and had been constrained to make
concessions when they would have preferred to
enforce their will. The thousands who had crossed
the bridges in the morning to congregate on Ken-
nington Common found their return barred by
large bodies of police. The cab in which two
members of the Executive Council conveyed the
petition to the House of Commons was stopped
at Westminster Bridge by the police, and obliged
to react New Palace Yard by tbe circuitous route
of Lambeth, Vauxhall, and Millbank.

Blackfriars Road — I was informed by one who
traversed it some time after the dispersion of the
meeting — was thronged with people, so densely
packed that they could scarcely move, owing to
the refusal of the police to allow more than two
or three at a time to pass through their ranks.
Altercations and fights ensued, ending with the
more irascible of the crowd being removed in
custody, and were followed by rushes at the police,
who beat back the crowd with their truncheons.

TJie Great Petition. 141

The exasperation increased as time wore on, and
as the crowd became more dense, the pressure upon
those in front produced a forward movement which
the police were unable to resist. They began to
yield ground ; the crowd pressed onward, the ranks
of the police became broken, and, with a tremendous
shout, the dense mass surged over the bridge,
sweeping the police before it.

My "way lay in the opposite direction. Threading
my way through the scattered and scattering groups,
I entered the White Swan, on the southern side
of the common, to refresh myself with a glass of
ale. There, at the crowded bar, stood Blackaby.
He had located himself, on leaving Cheam, in Queen
Square, Finsbury, where he made gentlemen's
boots for a first-class shop in Cheaps ide, discussed
political questions with his fellow-lodgers — the
house was full of shoemakers — and wrote verses in
his leisure hours. I promised him a call on my
next ^nsit to the metropolis, and during the next
four years I seldom found myself within a mile of
the City side of London Bridge without spending
half an hour in the shoemaker-poet's garret.

I remember a sensational incident attendino- one
of my visits which affords a ghastly illustration of
the "juxtaposition" — to use a word which he much
affected — of life and death in large London houses
occupied by working men. I was skipping up the

142 Fo7'ty Year's' Recollectio^is.

three flights which I had to ascend to reach the
garret that served him for both work-room and
dormitory, when I was brought up sharp by a black
coffin, standing upon the second-floor landing, at
right angles to the dirty, uncarpeted stairs. No
one stood by the grim and sombre receptacle of
poor humanity's mortal remains, the bearers pro-
bably resting themselves at the public-house at
the corner of the passage by which the little squai'e
is entered from Eldon Street. To reach Blackaby's
room, I had to step over the cofl&n, which con-
tained the corpse of a lodger, who had wound up a
fortnight's debauch by going home in the still hours
of the night and hanging himself.

\

14:

CHAPTER IX.

THE NEW ORGANIZATION.

The events of the lOth of April have been and are
generally referred to as a triumpli gained by the
supporters of law and order over the promoters of
turbulence and anarchy, but nothing can be farther
from the truth than that representation. Down to
that day there had been no thought of conspiracy
or revolt; and, if such had been entertained, it
would not have been on Kennington Common that
the demonstration would have taken place. It was
only when the futihty of moral force seemed to be
shown by the scorn and ridicule cast upon the most
numerously signed petition — not counting fictitious
signatures — ever presented to Parliament, and when
the minds of the unenfranchised were excited by the
preparations made for a conflict, and by the rapidity
with which the revolution was sweeping over Eu-
rope, that an appeal to arms was thought of.

The first step in that direction was the reor-
ganization of the Chartist body, adopted by the

144 Forty Years' Recollections.

National Convention, on the motion of Ernest
Jones. Until then a subscription of a penny per
week, or four shillings annually in advance, had
been paid by each member ; and the affairs of each
branch were managed by a council of five or more
members. Under the new organization no subscrip-
tion was required, and the members were divided
into wards and classes, ten men forming a class, and
ten classes a ward. The advantage of this plan was
that, as was soon to be shown, a large body of men
could be called out at very short notice. On the
secretary of a branch receiving instructions from
the Executive Council, they were communicated by
him to the wardsmen, by the wardsmen to the class-
leaders, and by the latter to the men of their
respective classes. The system closely resembled
that introduced by the secret insurrectionary com-
mittee of 1839, which was borrowed from that of
the United Irishmen — not, as the late David Urqu-
hart laboured to show, from that of the Greek
Hetairia, to which it had no similarity whatever.

An ominous change was made at the same time
in the composition of the Executive Council, the
Convention electing, in the place of the moderate
men who liad guided the Association in the quiet
times of the preceding five years, men who had
taken a prominent part in the trials and troubles of
1839 and 1842. Among these was Dr. Macdouall,

The New Organization. 145

who had been an active and resolute agitator in
those periods, and whose escape from Chester Castle,
in which he was imprisoned for sedition in 1840,
constitutes an interesting chapter of political
romance.

The new organization well stood the test applied
to its capabilities on the evening of the 29th of
May, when, without any public notification, vast
assemblages took place on Clerkenwell Green and
Stepney Green, whence processions moved towards
the City by routes converging on Smithfield.
Uniting on that area, the whole force marched down
Snow Hill, along Holborn and Oxford Street, down
Eegent Street, and through Pall Mall, the Strand,
Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill, into Finsbury
Square, where they dispersed. The number of men
who marched in that procession was estimated at
80,000. Blackaby, who assisted in the demonstra-
tion, told me that he looked back and forward as
they tramped along Fleet Street six abreast, and
could see neither the head nor the rear of the enor-
mous column, whose sudden and unexpected ap-
pearance inspired fear and misgiving both in the
City and among the dwellers at the West End.

" Was anything more than a demonstration in-
tended ? " I asked Blackaby when, being in London
a day or two after the demonstration, I heard his
narrative of the affair.

L

146 Forty Years Recollections.

" I believe sometliing was to have been done/'
he replied, " but I don't know what it was, or why
the intention was abandoned. I had no idea of the
march until Fussell ^ jumped from the platform and
called out, ' Fall in ! ' Then the men about me
began to fall into marching order, and I saw men
marshalling them who had white bands round their
arms. Some one asked Fussell whether anything
was to be done, and I heard him answer, ' I don't
know ; we shall see.' ''

I have reason to believe that Blackaby was mis-
taken in supposing that " something was to have
been done " on that occasion, and that there was no
other object in view than a demonstration of force,
-as a test of the working of the new organization.
But there were at that time two bodies directing
the movement — namely, the Executive Council and
a secret committee; and I am unable to say
how far they acted in concert, and to what extent
the former were cognizant of the plans of the
latter.

"Is it true," I asked, " that arming is going
on ? We hear a good deal about rifle clubs, and

' Fussell was said to have been the unknown man who killed
the policeman in the Calthorpe Street affray in 1835, when the
police attempted to disperse by force a meeting convened in
furtherance of the enfranchisement of the working classes. The
coroner's jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.

The New Organization. 147

life and property protection societies ; but what is
actually being done ? '^

" What do you think of this ? " said a young
Welshman, who worked in the same room, as he
produced a pike from a closet. " I can't say much
about rifles, but there are hundreds of these in the
hands of men who won't hesitate to use them when
the time comes."

The pike produced was not the " queen of wea-
pons " eulogized by John Mitchel, the head being
roughly finished, and the staff not exceeding five
feet in length. Some thousands of these weapons
were manufactured in London and SheflBeld, but I
believe that a large proportion of those fabricated
in the capital of Cutlerdom were sent to Ireland for
the use of the disaffected in that country.

The rifle clubs and kindred societies which I have
mentioned were openly advertised at that time, in
the Norniem Star, as a means of supplying fire-arms
to its members, to be paid for by small instalments ;
and I heard that a Birmingham firm had under-
taken to supply any number of muskets at twelve
shillings each. The idea of a rifle at that price has
been ridiculed by many persons to whom I have
since mentioned it; but in 1854 I saw a rifle pro-
duced by a Birmingham gun-maker before the
Small Arms Committee of the House of Commons,
and heard it stated in evidence that thousands of

148 Forty Years^ Recollections.

such weapons were supplied to shippers at ten shil-
lings for exportation to Africa. It had brass bands
round the barrel^ like the Arab muskets^ and was
not so well finished as an Enfield rifle ; but, on the
chairman asking whether such a weapon was
efficient, the witness replied that it would kill a
man as well as a more expensive one.

Communications passed at this time between the
plotters of revolution on both sides of St. George^s
Channel. ^ Macmanus, who was afterwards convicted
of treason, and transported to Australia, came to
London as an emissary of Young Ireland, and was
admitted to a gathering of the Westminster
Chartists, at their meeting-place in Dean Street,
Soho. By some means a detective contrived also
to obtain admission ; but he was recognized by
some one in the room, and was no sooner denounced
than Macmanus ejected him from the room and
hustled him down the stairs. On his return journey
from London to Liverpool the Irish emissary recog-
nized another detective among his travelling com-
panions ; but he contrived to evade the vigilance of
the gentleman from Scotland Yard in the neigh-
bourhood of the Liverpool docks, and got safely
over to Ireland. His good fortune followed him to
Australia, whence he contrived to escape to San
Francisco, in which city he lived sevei'al years.

Spies and informers, in and out of the police,

The New Organization. 149

were soon busy every where. Olie evening the
coachman of a Conservative gentleman came to the
room in which the Croydon Chartists met, was
enrolled as a member, sat out the proceedings,
silent and observant, and — never came again. He
had learned nothing, and coffee and lemonade were
not the beverages to which he was accustomed. On
another occasion a young man of very respectable
appearance came to my house and said that he had
come from Mitcham, and had been to the coffee-
house at which the Chartists met, and, finding that he
had come the wrong evening, had been referred to
me. He spoke enthusiastically of the revolutionary
prospect, and was very desirous of knowing the
strength of the organization in Croydon and our
preparedness for the expected struggle. I had never
seen the man before, and I never saw him again.

The secret committee by which an insurrection
was being plotted and prepared for consisted of
seven members, named Cuffay, Ritchie, Lacey,
Fay, Rose, Mullins, and a man who was known to
the others by the name of Johnson, and believed by
them to be a working man, but who proved to be a
professional pedestrian named Powell, known at
low so-called sporting public -houses as the Welsh
Novice. Cuffay was a tailor, and was occasionally
employed as an accountant at the offices of the
National Land Company. Ritchie was a plasterer.

1 50 Forty Years' Recollections.

Lacey and Fay shoemakers, Rose a currier^ and
MuUins a medical student.

Cuffay, who was president of the committee, and
appears to have been the concocter of the con-
spiracy, was an elderly mulatto, of mild demeanour
and quiet manners, who worked industriously at his
trade, and was apparently one of the least likely
men in London to be the leader of a revolutionary
conspiracy. He and Rose were the only members
of the committee whom I knew, or ever exchanged
two woi'ds with ; and the latter I met for the first
time about two months before the conspiracy burst
in smoke, without so much as a spark.

Powell, who had joined the conspirators in the
hope of making money by betraying them, was as
horrible a miscreant as the mind can conceive. Like
the wretches who stimulated and then betrayed the
Cato Street conspirators, he was constantly sug-
gesting to his colleagues projects of conflagration
and slaughter, in order to augment his reward when
the time came for him to claim it. It was he who
suggested the making of caltrops — pieces of wood,
with spikes driven through them — to be scattered
in the streets through which cavalry might pass, to
lame the horses.

On the 9th of June, being again in London,
I called at the office of the Executive Council for the
purpose of paying over a small sum of money which

The New Orgafiizaiion. 151

had been raised in Croydon as a contribution to the
Victim Fund, the object of which was the relief of the
wives and children of the Chartists who were then
suffering imprisonment for sedition. Among these
were Ernest Jones, whose offence consisted in pro-
claiming to a public meeting that the time would soon
come when the green flag would wave over Downing
Street; an engraver named Sharp, who died in
prison ; a baker named Williams, who had been the
pioneer of the movement for the sanitary improve-
ment of bakehouses, and the provision of proper
dormitories for the employes ; and a hawker of fish,
whose most seditious utterance was an exhortation
that his hearers should not let the Government
" brutalize " them — many acts of brutality having
been proved against the police, who, in several
instances, had fallen upon men as they retired from
the meetings frequently held on Clerkenwell Green
at that time, and beaten them with their truncheons,
such violence resulting in one instance in a fractured
skull and the death of the victim.

\^Tiile I was waiting in an anteroom, I observed
a wiry-framed middle-aged man sitting there, with
his arms folded, and his head bowed, as if absorbed
in thought. As I was about to leave, after being a
few minutes with Macrie, one of the Council, I met
Dr. Macdouall in the anteroom, and stopped to
speak to him. When we parted, the stranger left

152 Forty Years' Recollections.

liis seat, and asked me if lie had not heard the doctor
call me Mr. Frost. In receiving an affirmative
reply, he informed me, without the least hesitation,
that the preparations for insurrection were com-
pleted— arms and ammunition provided, missiles
collected on the roofs of houses for assailing the
military and police while passing through the
streets, and openings made in party- walls to enable
the insurgents to pass from house to house. Whit
Monday had been fixed for the rising, which was to
be prepared for by the massing of the metropolitan
branches on Blackheath and Bishop Bonner's Fields.

Those demonstrations had been publicly an-
nounced by the Executive Council, and the announce-
ment had been followed by a proclamation from
Scotland Yard, prohibiting them on the ground of
apprehended danger to peace and order. I felt
convinced that the prohibition would be as generally
and as resolutely disregarded as it bad been on
Kennington Common; but I could not feel assured
that the night of the 12th of June would pass as
quietly as that of the 10th of April had done. What
should I do ? That question occupied my mind very
seriously as the train bore me to Croydon that evening.

Only three days would intervene before the blow
would be struck. Arrangements had already been
made for a local gathering on Duppas Hill, where,
six centuries before, the tournament was held in

The New OrganizatioJi. 153

which the son of Earl Warrenne was slain by mis-
adventure_, the occasion being one of the armed
gatherings which the barons and knights of the Earl
of Leicester's party convened in furtherance of their
conspiracy against the Crown. Then the aristocracy
plotted and fought against the absolute rule of the
monarch ; now the masses were combined against
the claim of the representatives of a small minority
of the people to make laws for, and impose* taxes
upon, the unrepresented majority. Was not our
movement as natural and as righteous as that of the
nobles ?

The local portion of the General Council had
resolved to convene this meeting several days
before I saw Dr. Macdouall, in order to prevent the
police of the town from being sent to London on
Whit Monday, as they had been on the 10th of
April, when the town was entirely denuded of police,
and special constables roamed about the streets in
the evening, many of them in a state of semi-
intoxication, insulting every Chartist or Radical
whom they met. In view of the information which
I had received in London, our contemplated demon-
stration assumed an aspect of greater importance.

But what should I do ? That question occurred
to my mind again and again. The man who had
so freely and unreservedly imparted to me the plan
of the intended outbreak was a stranger, might be a

154 Forty Years Recollections.

spy, an agent provocateur of the Home Office. On
the other hand, he might be a bold man, who knew
me by repute sufficiently to feel satisfied that I
might be safely entrusted with a secret. That
secret I was not going to betray. Clear to my mind
as the sun at noon to my material vision was the
rightfulness of the meditated revolt. No lapse of
time, no legislation of class-elected Parliaments, can
deprive a people of the right to reclaim the franchise
of which it has been deprived. There can be no
Statute of Limitations where a nation's rights are
concerned.

No generation of men has the right, even by an
unanimous vote, to bind succeeding generations ;
but there had been no surrender by the British
people of their rights, the deprivation against which
they vainly protested having been the result partly
of usurpation in bygone times, and partly of the
growth of social conditions different to those which
existed in the infancy of our representative in-
stitutions. Therefore, when the majority demanded
their rights, and the representatives of the minority,
supported by their constituents, met the demand
with a stern and peremptory refusal, the excluded
masses had, in virtue of the social compact, as clear
a right to recover their lost franchises by force as
the owner of stolen property has to reclaim it
wherever he finds it. I determined, therefore, to

The New Organization. 1 5 5

impart the information which I received to no one,
and thus avoid compromising either my colleagues
or myself in the existing doubtful situation. In the
meantime, I would guide myself by events as they
arose. It would be time enough for us to move
when a promising movement had been made in
London.

On the night preceding the day that was expected
to be so eventful, just as I was about to sit down to
supper with my wife, I heard a knock at the door,
and, on opening it, saw the stranger who had spoken
to me in London at the offices of the Executive
Council. Without a word I threw open the door,
and he stepped into the hall.

" What has brought you down here ? " I in-
quired, when I had closed the door. " Anything
wrong ? "

" Nothing that we might not have expected,'^ he
replied. " We got a warning yesterday, through
Dr. Macdouall, that warrants had been issued at
Bow Street for the arrest of a lot of us, and that
the GoYernment are resolved to act with vigfour this
time, and suppress the demonstrations at all hazards.
So the intended gathering on Blackheath has been
abandoned, and our entire metropolitan strength
will be massed on Bishop Bonner's Fields.*'

" A very wise arrangement," I remarked, with a
recollection of the cannon on Westminster Bridge,

156 Forty Years Recollections.

and the forces stationed on the Middlesex side of all
the bridges on the 10th of April.

" The doctor/^ continued my visitor, ^' sug-gested
that all who had no special duties in London to-
morrow should provide for their safety at once ; so
I thought I would come down here, and see if I
could be of any use."

There is now neither indiscretion nor breach of con-
fidence in divulging the fact that my visitor was a
member of the secret revolutionary committee. He
slept at my house that night, and on the following
morning we surveyed the ground which had been
selected for the demonstration. In passing through
the town we found considerable excitement pre-
vailing, in consequence of the police having been
called infroma,ll the neighbouring villages, and ball
cartridges served out to the troops at the barracks.
The general impression seemed to be, however, that
the magistrates were making '^much ado about
nothing,'^ and that no disturbance would take
place unless the meeting was disturbed by the
police.

About noon I received through a policeman a mes-
sage from Captain Adams, the chairman of the
bench, intimating that he would be glad to confer
with me at the Town Hall. I put on my hat, and in
a few minutes, after elbowing my way through a
crowd of policemen and special constables, was in

The New Orga7iizatio7i. 157

the presence of the justices. Two other members of
the Council had been invited, but one of them was
absent from home, and the other did not arrive until
the conference had closed.

" We have sent for you," said Captain Adams, in
his blandest tone, '^ in the hope that our conference
may have the happy effect of preventing such a
breach of the peace as we feel assured would be
regretted by you equally with ourselves. You are
aware that disturbances have arisen elsewhere from
the gathering of large assemblages in the open air ;
and the duty having devolved upon us of taking
measures for the maintenance of public order in this
town, we have judged it advisable, as prevention is
better than cure, to ask your co-operation in that
task."

" I have no reason to apprehend any breach of
the peace," I rejoined, siniling as I spoke at theodd-
ness of the situation ; " but, as a precaution against
disorder,we will swear the meeting to keep the peace. ^*

" Why not abandon the meeting altogether ? "
said the magistrate, persuasively.

" Because,'^ I replied, " in the first place, we
believe that we are exercising: a constitutional rio-ht
which we are not disposed to surrender ; and,
secondly, the abandonment of the meeting, after you
have made a display of force, would look very much
like cowardice on our part.

158 Forty Years Recollections,

" It is only stopping at home this evening," ob-
served the magistrate, with the same persuasive
voice and benignant expression of countenance.

*' I beg your pardon, sir/' said I. " If the pro-
moters of the meeting are absent, many hundreds of
their fellow-townsmen will be there, and they will
blame us for whatever happens. We have asked
them to assemble, and we must be there to meet
them."

'' Then, sir," said Captain Adams, assuming a
grave tone, '' I have to inform you that we have re-
ceived instructions from the Home Office to pre-
vent your meeting, and, in obedience to those
instructions, have prepared a sufficient force for
the purpose. We shall take possession of the hill,
and the police will have orders to arrest you or
any other person who may attempt to make a

" Will you have the goodness to inform me under
what authority you have taken those measures ? "
said I.
speech."

" There is our authority ! '' exclaimed Mr. Suther-
land, a stern-looking, dark-complexioned man, who
had spent the greater part of his life in India.

He pointed, as he spoke, to a large printed bill
which lay upon the table, and which I recognized
as the proclamation which had emanated from Scot-
land Yard.

The New Organization. 159

'' I cannot allow to a police ukase the authority
of an Act of Parliament/^ I rejoined.

Mr. Sutherland seemed about to indulge in a
violent outburst of rage, but he checked himself j
and Captain Adams explained that they were acting
under an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of
Charles II., which declared illegal all meetings of
more than twenty persons.

*' Well, you must do your duty, gentlemen,"
said I, " and I shall do mine ; and as I shall have
been instrumental in bringing together whatever
concourse of people may be on the hill this evening,
I consider it will be my duty to be there to meet
them.''

" Very well," returned Captain Adams. ^' We
are about to adjourn to the workhouse ; and if you
desire to confer with us again, we shall be glad to
see you in the board-room."

Five hundred special constables had been enrolled,
and were now sent to the hill on which the meeting
was to be held, and which a hundred and fifty
soldiers had already occupied. I immediately
convened a special meeting of the Council, and
informed them of the preparations made to suppress
the meeting by force, and of all that had passed
between the magistrates and myself. After some
discussion a resolution (not of my moving) was
adopted, condemning the course taken by the

i6o Forty Years Recollections.

magistrates as arbitrary and unconstitutional ; and
this I and the mover were deputed to communicate
to the magistrates. On sending this into the
board-room of the workhouse, we were invited to
another conference, the object of which was to elicit
from us what had been resolved upon by the
Council with regard to the meeting. I replied that
we should be guided by the weather (for it was
then raining heavily) ; but that, if the evening was
fine, I should be on the hill at seven o^clock, unless
the majority decided otherwise.

Until nearly seven o'clock the rain descended in
torrents, and then a scout from the hill informed us
that the few persons who had appeared were pre-
vented by the police from assembling in groups,
and were required to keep moving. The police,
horse and foot, numbered eig'hty, and Avere the only
force visible; the soldiers and special constables
being at the workhouse, on the brow of the hill, in
readiness to act if required.

The courage of my colleagues was now put to the
test. On my rising and asking them what they
intended to do, there was a dead silence for a few
moments, and then a resolution to abandon the
meeting, on the ground of the unfavourable weather
and the measures adopted by the authorities, was
proposed, and was carried by a majority of, I think,
five to two. One object had been attained, how-

The New Organization, 1 6 1

ever ; we had prevented tlie police and the troops
from being sent to London,

'' They are at it there now, hammer and tongs/'
observed Rose ; '' or," he added, after a pause,
"nothing has been done at all.''

Scouts from the railway stations brought us no
news from the metropolis, and at ten o'clock Rose,
who then left us, expressed his fear that the move-
ment had failed. Anxiety weighed heavily upon
my mind, however, mingled with a degree of dis-
appointment, as I stepped into the sloppy street ;
and, leaving the town behind me, ascended an
eminence, and looked northward as anxiously as
the watchers by the Vistula did on a certain night,
half a century ago, when the signal was to be
given for the rising in Warsaw. But not one of
the conflagrations which Ritchie's corps of "lumi-
naries " were to have kindled reddened the sky.

The troops had by that time returned to the
barracks, and at midnight the police were with-
drawn from Duppas Hill, the special constables
returned to their homes, and Captain Adams tele-
graphed to Sir George Grey, *^ All quiet at
Croydon." Next day I learned that the troops and
police had occupied Bishop Bonner's Fields in
numbers which deterred the conspirators from
making any attempt at a demonstration. They
might have suddenly changed their base of opera

M

1 62 Forty Years Recollections.

tions, and assembled their forces in Smithfield or
Lincoln's Inn Fields ; but I had afterwards reason
to believe that they were not so prepared for a
conflict as Rose had represented them to be.

When the crisis had passed^ I was so strongly
impressed with the conviction that the success of a
revolutionary movement was hopeless, owing- to the
unpreparedness of the conspirators when the time
came for the execution of their plot, and the warning
which the Government could not fail to take from
the abortive movement of the 12th of June, that I
resolved to keep aloof from the conspiracy, in which
I had not become compromised. I was confirmed
in that resolution by a letter which I received from
a literary gentleman who had connected himself
with the Chartist movement, and was a member of
the Fraternal Democrats, advising me not to com-
promise myself with the revolutionists, and predict-
ing the failure of their enterprise, whenever it
might be attempted.

I have reason to believe that Cuffay afterwards
became as fully convinced as I was of the hopeless-
ness of the undertaking; but his younger and
more reckless colleagues would not hear of its
abandonment, and a chivalrous sentiment of honour
withheld him from withdrawing from it alone. He
went on, therefore, against his own judgment, until
at length he found himself in the position of Robert

The New Organization. i6

o

Emmet on the eve of the abortive movement of the
United Irishmen, when it was as dangerous to
retreat as to advance.

On the evening of the loth of August, which was
finally fixed for the outbreak, a number of men
assembled at a public-house called the Orange Tree,
in Orange Street, Bloomsburv, and were in feverish
expectation of the signal, when an inspector of
police appeared at the door of the room in which
they were seated, with a drawn cutlass in his right
hand, and a cocked pistol in his left. Behind him
those seated opposite the door could see a dozen
constables, all similarly armed. There was a move-
ment among the party as he entered, indicative of
meditated resistance or escape ; but it was checked
hy the threat to shoot down the first who resisted,
or attempted to leave the room.

Commanding each in his turn to stand up, the
inspector then searched them, and afterwards the
room. A sword was found under the coat of one,
and the head of a pike, made to screw into a socket,
under that of another. One had a pair of pistols in
his pocket, and a fourth was provided with a rusty
bayonet, fastened to the end of a stick. Some
were without other weapons than shosmakers'
knives. A pike, which no one would own, was
found under a bench upon which several of the men
had been sitting. All of the party were taken into
M 2

164 Fo7'ty Yeari Recollections.

custody, and marclied off to the nearest police-station.
Ritchie, Lacey, and Fay were arrested in the
course of the evening at their respective lodgings.

While these arrests were being made, about
150 men were assembled on the Seven Dials — ■
standing in groups at the street corners, or before
the bars of the public-houses. Just after the arrests
at the Orange Tree, a man approached a group at
the corner of Great St. Andrew Street, and spoke a
few hurried words in a low voice to a labourer, who,
with a pickaxe in his hand, was directing the atten-
tion of his companions to a loose stone in the pave-
ment of the roadway. Almost at the same moment
a body of police made their appearance, but appa-
rently without other intention than being in
readiness for something.

The man moved quickly from one group to
another, and as he left each the men composing it
separated, some walking quietly away, and others
entering the public-houses at the corner of the
streets to communicate what they had heard to
those assembled inside. In this manner the number
of men assembled on the Dials was reduced in a few
minutes to about a tenth of those who had been
found there — a result which was attributed by the
authorities to the appearance of the police, but was
really due to the warning so promptly conveyed to
the men.

Tlie New Orgaiiization. 165

I have since been informed that the flag of the
revolt was to have been first unfurled at this spot,
upon which barricades were to have been erected —
the beginning of a series to have been extended on
every side from that centre — until the insurgents
were able to hem in the seat of the Court and the
Government. I never heard whose plan this was,
and the few hints given me in June were vague and
imperfect. Seven Dials was probably selected as
the nucleus of the insurrection on account of its
contiguity to Whitehall, and the facilities afforded
by its narrow streets, radiating in so many directions
from a common centre, for a rapid advance.

Cuflfay was arrested the next morning at his
lodgings, whence he had refused to fly, lest it
should be said that he abandoned his associates in
the hour of peril. Mullins evaded the search for
him for a time, but was eventually discovered, dis-
guised as a woman, at a house in Southwark. Rose
escaped. His house in Clare Court, Drury Lane,
was searched by the police, and some cartridges and
grenades seized, but he had had time to provide for
his safety. After being concealed for several weeks
at the house of a friend at Somers Town, he ven-
tured to travel to Hull, where he took passage to
Hamburg. In that city he obtained employment
at his trade, that of a currier, and was joined by his
wife and children.

1 66 Forty Years' Recollections.

The house in which Powell lived had to be
guarded by the police from the time of the arrests
until the termination of the trial, and several
constables accompanied him to and from the
tribunal.

" He deserves death ! " Blackaby observed to
me one day, during the progress of the trial.
" I have a mind to shoot the dog myself.^'

" You ! " I exclaimed, in sui'prise. " In the
street ? "

" \'' he rejoined ; '^ but not in the street. There
would be a better opportunity when he is in the
witness-box. He would present a good mark
standing there, and in the crowded court I could
draw a pistol from my coat-pocket without being
observed, and it would be done in a moment.^'

" Don't think of it,'' I said. " Conviction is
certain, and you would sacrifice your own life
without saving the men from their predetermined
doom."

"I don't know that my life is worth much,"
returned Blackaby ; " and I have no wife or child
to mourn for me."

"Leave the wretch to the fate that is sure to
overtake him," I urged. '^ He will be shunned
wherever he goes, for as a spy and informer he will
be an outcast from the lowest society in London,
and he will end his miserable life as miserably as

The New Organizatio7t. 167

he has lived — 'a broken tool that tyrants cast
away.' "

I did not feel sure, however, when I parted from
Blackaby that day, that he had abandoned the idea,
and I took up the morning paper with an uneasy
feeling until the trial came to a conclusion, dreading
to learn that the base informer had been carried
from the court a blood-stained corpse, and that the
poor poet was in Newgate. My persuasion had
prevailed however, and Powell was left to the judg-
ment of God.

As I had foreseen, all the accused were convicted.
Cuffay, Eitchie, Lacey, and Fay were sentenced to
transportation for life, and Mullins to a long term
of imprisonment. Powell, who had expected to be
handsomely rewarded for his treachery, received
only a free passage to Australia. Too idle to work,
he found no inducement to remain in that colony,
and returned to England a year or two affcerwards,
a discontented man, believing that he had " saved
society,'' and that society had not adequately
testified its gratitude. What eventually became
of him I have not been able to discover.

The fate of his fellow spy, the policeman Mullins,
is extremely suggestive. Does the reader remem-
ber the murder at Hackney of an old woman named
Emsley, for the sake of a few pounds which she
had in the house, and the base attempt of the mur-

1 68 ■ Forty Yea7's Recollections.

derer to divert suspicion from himself by placing
part of the stolen property on the premises of an
innocent man ? That miscreant was the Home
Office spy and informer MullinSj who had been
dismissed from the police force for some miscon-
duct, and went on from crime to crime, until he
ended his horrible existence upon the scaffold, to
which he had so often striven to conduct others.

Blackaby did not live to see the greater part of
his political creed made part and parcel of the
Constitution on the proposition of a Conservative
minister. Failing health induced him to seek the
purer air of Northampton, and I never saw him
again. Whether he continued to court the Muses,
or had all the poetry crushed out of his nature by
the severer labour rendered necessary by an inferior
description of work, I know not. If he left any
manuscripts they have probably been used to light
fires, or are stowed away, dusty and cobwebby, in
some obscure comer of the house in which he died.
His strength diminished as his health failed, and
with it the means of supporting life unaided ; and
he succumbed at last to sickness and poverty, and
removed to the house of his brother, in the village
of Hunsdon, near Ware, to die.

169

CHAPTER X.

O'COXXOR AND THE NORTHERX STAR.

My connexion with the Chartist movement as a
member of the General Council, and with the
National Land Company as a local office-holder,
brought me into frequent communication with
Feargus O'Connor, and with the men who, as
members of the Executive Council, or directors of
the company, were most in his confidence. Being
acquainted also, with Julian Harney, then editor
of the Northern Star, and with Ernest Jones, who
was on the literary staff of that journal, I had
many opportunities of gleaning particulars of the
life of Feargus O'Connor, and hearing anecdotes
illustrative of his character.

As no biography of that thorough demagogue
has ever been published, some particulars of his
early life may not be uninteresting, as an intro-
duction to the stories and anecdotes which he was
ever ready to tell. It will probably not be a work

170 Forty Years^ Recollections.

of supererogation to inform many of the readers
of these recollections that he was a younger son
of Roger^ one of the brothers of Arthur O'Connor,
famous as a leader of the United Irishmen, and
afterwards a general in the French army. He
received his education at various schools in England
and Ireland ; but, according to his own showing,
did little credit to his instructors, being much less
disposed to study than to boxing with his fellow-
pupils, robbing the neighbouring orchards, and
galloping about the country on the horse allowed
him by his father. He was expelled from two
schools, and the stories he used to tell of his boyish
exploits and vagaries leave no room for surprise
at the disfavour in which he stood with his
father.

After finally leaving school, he and his brother
Frank lived with their elder brother Roderick, to
whom their father had given a house and 200 acres
of land. Conpidering themselves unfairly treated,
both by their father and Roderick, they absconded
with two of their brother's horses, with no more
definite plan for the future than that of proceeding
to England, obtaining employment there, and
saving money enough to take a small farm. Having
sold the horses at Rathcoole, to obtain funds for their
purpose, they proceeded to Dublin, and thence to
Holyhead, with the intention of walking to London/

O 'Co7tnor and tlie N or t Item Star. 171

They went first, however, to Bath, where they
had an uncle living ; but though they remained
several days in that city, they could not muster
courage enough to call upon him. They walked on,
therefore, to Marlborough, where they obtained a
week^s work at haymaking on a farm belonging to
the Marquis of Aylesbury. After a little hesitation
as to whether they should emigrate to the United
States, or adhere to their original proposition, they
resolved upon the latter course, and continued their
somewhat circuitous journey towards the metropolis.
Eeaching Kensington with very little money in
their pockets, they stopped at a public-house, where
Feargus remained while his brother sought out
Sir Francis Burdett, who was an old acquaintance
of their father and their uncle Arthur, and Frank's
godfather. Burdett had received a letter from
their father, who had anticipated that they would
seek him, requesting him to send the truants home ;
and, first exacting a promise from Frank that they
would return, he gave him 50L for the expenses of
the journey.

Frank was no sooner out of Burdett's house
than he regretted having gi\'en the promise, and
he found Feargus very much disposed to let him
return alone. The elder lad, who felt himself bound
in honour to return, prevailed upon Feargus to
accompany him, however, and they started home-

1 72 Fo7'ty Years Recollections.

ward at once, but with tlie best disposition to make
the journey as long and as agreeable as the ample
fund at their disposal would allow. They walked
all the way to Bristol, where they embarked on
board a sailing packet, and after a stormy passage,
during which the vessel lost her mast and rudder,
were towed into Cork harbour. Jn the pleasant
capital of Munster they remained a fortnight, " very
jolly,^' Feargus used to say, and still unwilling to
perform the role of prodigal sons. Feargus wished
to " cut away again," but Frank said, ^^ I can't
break my promise to Burdett." So they started
by coach for the paternal mansion, and, after a
violent scene with their father, returned to the
house of their brother Roderick.

Feargus was afterwards placed in a farm of about
100 acres by Sir Francis Burdett, who also gave or
lent him some money for its cultivation. On his
next visit to Ireland, Burdett called upon his young
friend, who, on his remarking that he saw no stock
on the farm, took him to the stable, and showed
him a couple of hunters, saying, '' There's my
stock.'' Burdett laughed heartily, and gave him
a cheque for 150L '^ And the stock I bought,"
Feargus used to say, with a jovial chuckle, when
he told the story in after years, " was red coats,
leather breeches, top-boots, saddles, and bridles."

Farming not being to his taste, he resolved to be

O ' Connor aiid the Northern Star. 1 7 3

a barrister, as his uncle Arthur had been, and
entered himself at King's Inn, Dublin. For this
his father disinherited him, as he could not be called
to the bar without taking the oath of allegiance,
which his father, who was wont to boast of his
descent from the mediasval kings of Connaught,
regarded as a degradation. Soon finding himself
destitute, he borrowed 60Z. of his brother Roderick,
and commenced business as a horse- dealer and
trainer, by which, as he used to boast, being a good
judge of horses, he cleared in twelve months more
than lOOOZ. in excess of his requirements, though
" living like a gentleman."

He made his first appearance as a politician in
1822, a period of severe distress in the south of
Ireland, when he made his maiden speech in the
Romish chapel at Enniskene, in the county of Cork,
where a meeting had been convened by himself
and the priest. Serious disturbances had occurred
at several places, and O'Connor attributed them
to the tyranny of the landowners and the Pro-
testant clergy. It was rumoured soon afterwards
that he was the secret director of the White Boy
insurrection, and as information to that effect
was given upon oath, and the charge was never
investigated, the story, as it was long afterwards
told by himself, may not be uninteresting.

" After his Majesty's loyal troops had gained

1 74 Forty Years Recollections.

the battle of Carriganimme/' so runs the story as
told by O'Connor, '^ they advanced, upon Deshure,
where the White Boys were encamped upon a
hill. The Rifles and the Scots Greys arrived at
the bottom of the hill before daylight. The side
of the hill was covered with furze bushes, hisfh
and thick, which afforded concealment to tlie
Eifles ; and when, soon after daybreak, the White
Boys charged down the hill, knowing that the
cavalry could not charge them up the steep incline,
there was an awful slaughter when they reached the
furze where the Rifles were in ambush. Those who
were taken prisoners were tried by a special com-
mission at Cork, and were convicted and hanged.

" Now for my share of the story. Soon after
this affair a relation of mine, who was a magis-
trate, called upon me and advised me to get out
of the country as quickly as I could, as Colonel
Miller, who commanded the Scots Greys, had in-
formed him that a schoolmaster named Crowley
was prepared to swear an information against me,
to the effect that I was the generalissimo of the
White Boys ; that I was with them at Deshure ;
that I lent them my horses to go out at night to
steal arms ; and that one of my horses had in one
of those marauding expeditions been wounded in
the shoulder. Crowley had further stated that
when the rebels were routed, and the Scots Greys,

O ^Connor and the Northern Star. 1 75

contrary to expectation, charged up the hill, I
jumped a grey horse over a mud wall that had
been erected on the summit as a barricade, snapped
a pistol at a captain, and, on its missing fire, took
a knife from my pocket, struck the flint, and shot
the captain through the arm; also that I wore a
blue frock coat, and that a bullet passed through
the skirt and wounded me in the leg.

" Well, curiously enough, there was a burnt hole,
about the size of a bullet, in the skirt of my coat.
I had been smoking a cigar, and some of the ashes
had fallen upon it ; and, still more curiously, I had
a sore leg at the time. So, upon receiving the
magistrate's friendly warning, I mounted a horse,
rode all the way from Cork to Dublin, embarked
with my horse for Holyhead, and rode all the way
to London, where I lived thirteen months, until the
breeze had blown over, in a humble garret at No. 4,
Northumberland Street, in the house of Major
OTlaherty."

O'Connor was little better provided with money
at this time than on his first visit to London, and in
a short time he found himself obliged to sell his
horse. He then turned his thoughts for a time to
the possibility of gaining a livelihood by literary
pursuits, and with a speed that surpassed the
greatest efforts of Scott and James, he produced
a novel called ''The White Boy," two tragedies.

176 Forty Years Recollections.

entitled respectively '' Constantia and Gardenia "
and the " Spanish Princess," a comedy illustrative
of Irish life and manners called " Bull or O'Bull,"
and a farce entitled ^' Mock Emancipation/* He
showed them to a gentleman named Adderly, who
held an appointment in the Exchequer Seal Office,
and who was greatly amused with the farce, but
gave him no encouragement to offer either that
or his other dramatic productions to a London
manager.

He was as destitute of literary ability as any
man of ordinary intelligence and education can
be, his style being discursive, and his poverty of
language, to say nothing of imagination, extreme.
Neither the novel nor the plays were ever pub-
lished ; and when, nearly thirty years afterwards,
having started a monthly publication called the
Labourer, of which he and Ernest Jones were' the
joint editors, he commenced a rambling story
called " The Jolly Young Poacher," he soon lost
the thread of his plot, and, when it had become
hopelessly entangled, left it unfinished.

He was very fond of relating his election re-
miniscences, and the party-fights and duelling
adventures in which he had been engaged in the
course of his stormy political career. One of these
stories related to Sir John Easthope, who was then
proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, in which an

O 'Connor and the NortJiern Star. 1 77

article had appeared charging him with delusion
and hypocrisy. On reading it he went oflP at once
to Sir John's private residence, and not finding him
at home, called again and again, at last informing
the servant that he would remain until Sir John
came in. Presently the baronet arrived, and, on
learning the visitor's business, assumed a haughty
demeanour, disclaiming responsibility for am-thing
that appeared in the paper, and referring him to the
editor.

O'Connor declared that he would hold Sir John
responsible, and the baronet finding that his visitor
was not easily to be got rid of, and perhaps per-
ceiving that he was not the ruflSan that Whig
journalists portrayed him, invited him into another
room, where his solicitor was awaiting an interview.
Sir John then read the article, and expressed his
opinion that there was nothing offensive in it,
appealing to the solicitor to support that view.

"Let me read the article," said O'Connor ; and
when he had read it, the solicitor pronounced it
offensive ; and Sir John Easthope said, —

" Well, I see now from the manner in which Mr.
O'Connor reads it that it is offensive, and there
shall be an apology in the Chronicle to-morrow
morning."

On another occasion the Globe made an onslaught
upon him, on account of a speech which he had

I 78 Forty Years' Recollectio7is.

made at Bradford, and which, though (strange as it
may seem) he usually spoke more temperately than
he wrote, was probably somewhat violent in tone.

^' When I read it," he said, '' I instantly posted
off for London ; arrived there at seven o'clock in
the morning, and went to the Glohe office at nine.
When I arrived, knowing who the editor was, I told
him the object of my visit, when he answered that
the responsible editor had not arrived, but would
be there at ten o'clock. When I called again, I
observed a good deal of smirking and smiling,
and a man was called to show me up to the
editor's room, where I saw a big fellow with
enormous moustaches, who, I have no doubt, was
hired for the occasion. I read the attack upon
me, and told him I had come to demand satis-
faction. He asked me in what manner. I replied,
by calling the editor out. He was silent for a few
moments, during which the fierce expression dis-
appeared from his countenance, and then, after a
little discussion of the matter, he assured me that
the article should be retracted and an apology made
in that evening's impression."

Very amusing, and highly characteristic of the
man, were some of his stories of his imprisonment
in York Castle in 1839, when he was convicted of
sedition and libel, and sentenced to two years' im-
prisonment. His treatment by the authorities ap-

O Connor and the Norther7i Star. 1 79

pears, from his own account of it, to have been harsh
in the extreme ; and, besides being very obnoxious
to the Whig Government of the day, his mind was
too proud and unbending, his temperament too fiery,
to render any mitigation of the unpleasantness of
his situation very hkely. He was not the man to
submit to harsh treatment without protest, and as
much resistance as was possible ; and for some days
after his conviction violent scenes between himself
and the governor of the gaol were of constant occur-
rence. After the third day he was allowed to procure
his meals from a neighbouring hotel, and one of his
fellow-convicts was allowed to attend upon him daily,
and put his cell in order.

He was not allowed to write any articles or letters
for publication in newspapers, but he wrote a long
narrative of his prison experiences upon the thinnest
paper he could procure, wath a view to its secret
transmission by a very ingenious device. It was
the custom in York Castle to allow every prisoner
to have a pendant dressing-glass ; and when the
period of incarceration of the man who acted as his
servant expired, O'Connor asked him to bring his
glass to the cell The back was then taken out, the
manuscript laid upon the glass, and the back re-
turned to its place. When the man left the prison
he received instructions to take the glass to the
NortJiei-n Star office, then at Leeds, where he would
N 2

i8o Forty Years' Recollections.

receive five pounds. He did so ; and O^Connor's
narrative was published in the journal under the
title of '' The Mirror of York Castle.'^

Some passages of this narrative reflected so
strongly" upon the conduct of the deputy governor
of the castle^ whose name was Barber, that upon its
publication he went in a rage to O^Connor^s cell,
and informed him that the magistrates were deter-
mined to make a searching inquiry concerning the
manner in which he had contrived to send the
manuscript to Leeds.

'' Very well/' said O'Connor, '' I am ready for
the investigation, and I will let the magistrates
know the channel through which it was conveyed.
Perhaps you are aware of it ? "

" No, I am not," returned Barber, snappishly.

"Don't you remember," said O'Connor, "your
bringing me a number of papers, about a fortnight
ago, from a debtor, and asking me for my opinion
as to the claims of his creditors ? "

"Yes, I do," replied Barber, beginning to look
thoughtful.

*' Do you remember that I returned those papers
to you in a sealed cover ? " O'Connor asked.

Barber nodded ; he felt unable to speak.

" Well," said O'Connor, " all the matter that was
sent to Leeds was in that cover, and I am quite
prepared for the investigation."

O ^Confwr and the Noi'tliern Star. 1 8 1

Barber thereupon turned pale, and begged him
not to mention the incident of the debtor's papers,
as it was contrary to the rules of the prison to do
such things, and, if it became known, he would be
dismissed from his post. The matter was thereupon
allowed to drop.

O'Connor very seldom wrote a " leader " for the
journal, his contributions usually taking the form of
letters, addressed to the Chartists generally, to
those old and tried members of the Association
whom he honoured with the distinctive designation
of the Old Guard, or to any press or platform
opponent whose hostility seemed to call for castiga-
tion. His style was vigorous, but coarse, being
well sprinkled with expletives, often set forth in
capitals, and spiced for the taste of the '' fustian
jackets " of the Midlands and the North. There was
a marked difference, however, between the tone and
style of these letters and of those which he addressed
to O'Connell in 1836, and afterwards published in
pamphlet form, as well as of those in which he
related his election contests in Ireland, and which
appeared in the Daily News. There was the same
vigour in the latter, but the absence of the coarse-
ness and scurrility which characterized the former
showed that he could adapt his style and his treat-
ment of a subject to the readers whom he addressed.

The fierce invectives and coarse abuse which he

1 82 Forty Years Recollections.

lavished upon liis political opponents became more
reprehensible as he advanced in years, and with the
increased extent to which he indulged in the baneful
and degrading habit of intemperance. The stric-
tures of the press upon the National Land Company,
and the action of the Government in prohibiting the
ballotting arrangement by which its object was to
be realized, on the plea that it was a contravention
of the statute for the suppression of lotteries, excited
him almost to madness. The letters which he pub-
lished at this time were dictated by him to his
nephew and secretary, Roger O'Connor, he pacing
the room all the time, with an occasional pause at a
table on which a tumbler of strong brandy-and-
water stood. In this manner he would dictate a
letter to the hostile critics of his land plan, address-
ing them as '' the press-gang," and beginning with
^' You ruffians ! " or to some platform or parlia-
mentary opponent — Mr. Bright, for instance, an
epistle to whom he once commenced with ^^ You
buttonless blackguard ! "

Eoger committed to paper every word of his
ravings, which appeared in the Northern Star just
as they came from his lips. There can be no doubt
that the mental disorder which, a few years later,
necessitated his being placed under restraint in the
asylum conducted by Dr. Tuke, had already begun
to influence his actions and language, the mental

O 'Connor and tJie Northern Star. i8

o

excitement produced by the eiforts made to discredit
and destroy his small farms project leading to
increased alcoholic indulgence, and intemperance
aggravating his natural irascibility, and rendering
him less able to bear the constant excitement in
which he lived. When he left Dr. Tuke's asylum
the vigour and elasticity of both mind and body
were gone, and the man who had towered, in stature
at least, above all his fellow-members of the House
of Commons, except Wakley, and been the very
type of the " burly demagogue " of the novelist,
had become the mere wreck of his former self. He
did not long survive this terrible collapse.

The literary staff of the Northern Star at the time
when O'Connor was dictating these intemperate
and vituperative letters comprised Julian Harney,
the editor; Ernest Jones, who wrote the second
leader, and conducted the correspondence column ;
and George A. Fleming, who compiled the Parlia-
mentary summary. The direction of the journal
was, therefore, in more revolutionary hands than it
had ever been before, Harney and Jones being
republicans of the reddest type, and members of the
Fraternal Democrats, and Fleming a Socialist, who
had formerly edited the Xew Moral World. O'Connor
held his subordinates with a tight rein, however,
which was especially required in the case of the
young and enthusiastic Harney, the St. Just of the

184 Forty Years^ Recollections.

movement. O'Connor was strictly a constitutional
monarchist, and he firmly repressed all tendencies
towards a republic, especially la rejJuhUque democra-
tique et social, to which Harney evinced an unmis-
takable leaning in the latter years of his editorship
and of the journal's existence.

Harney came to the front of the movement in
1839, when he was about twenty years of age, by
some bold utterances in support of the cause in
Smithfield and other places, to which he was
prompted by his enthusiasm and his faith in the
revolutionary movement which collapsed at New-
port. In 1842 he was prosecuted, with O'Connor
and the Rev. William Hill (then editor of the
Northern Star), for conspiracy, by which process he
was brought more prominently forward; and, on
the removal of the organ of the movement from
Leeds to London, he became its editor. He escaped
prosecution during the stormy period of 1848, when
he and Jones, with Macgrath, who had been a
member of tlie Executive Council, constituted the
deputation which conveyed the congratulations of
the Chartist body to the Provisional Government of
the French Republic, and were received by Ledru-
RoUin at the Hotel de Ville. On the cessation of
the Northern Star he edited for a time the Bed
Republican, and subsequently the Democratic Review,
a monthly publication ; but both were failures, and

O^ Connor and the Northern Star. 185

he retired from public life, living for several years
in Jersey, whence he removed to the United States.
Ernest Jones was educated for the bar, but litera-
ture had greater charms for him, as it has had for
so many students of Coke and Blackstone ; and, his
political views bringing him into connexion with
O'Connor, he obtained an engagement upon the
Northei'n Star, and subsequently the editorship of
the Labourer. For that magazine he furnished most
of the contents — politics, history, fiction, and poetry ;
but the most stirring of his poetical effusions ap-
peared in the Northern Star. His conviction of
sedition in 1848 cut short his journalistic career,
and when the term of his imprisonment expired the
Northern Star was declining with the movement of
which it was the organ, and, no other literary
employment offering, he removed from London to
Manchester, and commenced the practice of his
profession, in which he continued till his death.

1 86 Foi'ty Years Recoil. dions.

CHAPTER XI.

PAPERS rOK THE PEOPLE.

In looking over some letters on literary matters at
the beginning of 1850, when I was sadly in want of
occupation, I found a couple from David Page,
who was then on the literary staff of William and
Robert Chambers, and with whom I had been in
correspondence a few months previously. The one
of earlier date referred to some literary project of
mine which had not been entertained, and is now
forgotten, and concluded as follows : —

"^ As to other literary employment. We are about
to enter upon an extensive series of weekly issues of
a somewhat higher order than we have hitherto
attempted, and for that purpose are anxious to
collect a staff of good and efficient contributors.
Perhaps you may be inclined to aid us. Our terms
will average from twelve to twenty guineas per
sheet ; say fifteen for ordinary acceptable matter."

The first number of the contemplated issue, the
Papers for the People, having appeared, I reminded

Papers for the People. 187

the editor of the promise conveyed in the second
letter to communicate with me again when the
arrangements were completed ; and proposed that I
should write a Paper on Utopias, a subject which
had never been comprehensively touched. The
suggestion found favour with the editor. " The
early history of such theories," he wrote, " may be
made highly interesting, while more recent schemes
ought to be treated fairly and kindly, as emanating
from a desire for the public good, however mistaken
their authors may have been. I enclose a number
as a guide to length and the treatment of the
heavier articles. What we especially desire is
clearness, conjoined with that breadth and freedom
of style which is generally characteristic of the
leading reviews.*'

It was a sensation as novel as it was pleasing to
be writing for publishers who paid from twelve to
twenty guineas per sheet, and the pleastire was
greatly enhanced by the discovery of a bond of
sympathy between myself and the editor. The
subject of my first contribution was one with which
I was familiar, and for the elucidation of which I
possessed a considerable store of material, collected
during the period of my connexion with the Com-
munists.

The few days that elapsed between the despatch
of my manuscript and the receipt of the editor's

1 88 Forty Year's Recollections.

intimation that it fully met the views and intentions
of the publishers, were a period of no little anxiety
and suspense. At length the wished-for letter
came, and, as I recognized David Page's rather
remarkable caligraphy, and eagerly tore open the
envelope, there fluttered from between the folds of
the letter a cheque for fifteen guineas. The dis-
covery almost took away my breath. When I had
fully realized the great fact that I was capacitated,
the opportunity being given me, to earn fifteen
guineas in little more than half that number of days,
I read the editor's letter, which contained a request
that I would send a list of subjects likely to be suit-
able for the Papers, and which I could treat in the
same broad and comprehensive manner as I had the
Utopias.

The subject selected from half-a-dozen which I
suggested for my second Paper was a survey of the
secret societies by which the revolutionary move-
ment in Europe had been promoted and guided
during the last quarter of the eighteenth century
and the first half of the nineteenth. My treatment
of this subject proving satisfactory, I was asked to
contribute a similar Paper on the secret associations
of the Middle Ages, such as the Assassins, the
Templars, the Vehmists, and the Rosicrucians.
"When this had been sent in, I received an intima-
tion from the editor that the year's issue of the

Papers for the People. 189

Papers was provided for, and that he could not give
me a commission for another for some months,
unless some topic of fresh and living interest should
suggest itself, the treatment of which would be in
my special line.

Both the Papers on the secret societies were
written, in fact, before the publication of the one on
the social Utopias ; which, though I had been careful
to express no opinion of my own concerning the
societary theories of St. Simon, Fourier, Owen,
Cabet, and other ideologists of the age, provoked
a considerable amount of unfavourable criticism ;
not from the reviewers, but from readers of the
Papers, who were shocked by the mere mention of
such ideas, unless for the purpose of the most
severe and unreserved condemnation.

'' I enclose for your amusement, I need not say
edification," wrote David Page, "■ a specimen or two
of the remarks which the Paper has called forth. I
was fully aware that such a topic could not be
handled without calling forth animadversions from
various quarters, but scarcely expected that the
bitterest were to be from our so-called religious
friends and supporters. Of course I have acknow-
ledged in a civil way the letters referred to, and
merely send them to you as specimens of the inflic-
tions which we have daily and weekly to endure."

As an example of these private critiques, I give a

190 Forty Years' Recollections.

portion of one of the letters which the editor en-
closed to me, premising that the first of two pas-
sages specially objected to by the writer was the
following, from the first page of the Paper : — ^^ The
idea of a state of society free from vice and misery
of every description dates from a very remote period.
All the ancient nations had a tradition that, in the
first ages of the world, man enjoyed an existence
uncontaminated by crime and untainted with disease ;
surrounded by the beauties of nature, and living in
innocence and peace upon the spontaneous produc-
tions of the earth. Such was the Eden of Moses and
Zoroaster, and the golden age of the Greek poets."
" Now I must say," wrote David Pagers corre-
spondent, " that though I am not a clergymnn, and
do not pretend to be at all strait-laced in these
matters, I was shocked at reading this, so contrary
to all one has been taught and believes. Is what
Moses wrote only a tradition ? Is it not the re-
vealed word of Grod ? ' They have Moses and the
Prophets,' our Saviour says. How different is
the article I refer to — ' Moses and Zoroaster.' I fear
that the two sentences considered together forbid
the conclusion that it is a mere slip of the pen, and
the impression left on my mind is so painful that I
cannot forbear from drawing your attention to it.
I think that the whole article is objectionable,
perhaps negatively objectionable, but that in ti-eat-

Papers for the People. 191

ing sucli a subject is surely a great fault. See
again the way in wliicli the paper concludes. The
Utopian idea is either a recurrence of the same idea
in the human mind, or true in principle. The first
is negatived ; ^go, the Utopian idea is correct in
principle. I hope that the adoption of the Paper
has been hastily done. I should be very sorry to
think otherwise, as in my mind it is calculated to do
much harm and no good."

I showed this letter to a gentleman of undoubted
piety, and whose orthodoxy was equally beyond
question. When he had read it, he laid it on the
table, with the remark, " What was Eden in the
time of Moses but a tradition ? " Perhaps my critic
supposed that the Israelites preserved no traditions
of the early ages of the world, and did not even
know that they had grandfathers. until the fact was
revealed to them in the Pentateuch ; but, when all
that he advances has been conceded to him, the
concession only involves him in the dilemma of
having to acknowledge either that the Persians
preserved the memory of events which the Israelites
had lost, or that the Zend-Avesta was, equally with
tlie books of Moses, the revealed word of God.

The latter sentences of the criticism are a mis-
representation of the sense of the concluding para-
graph of the paper, which was as follows : — '' The
persistency with which the Utopia idea has been

192 Forty Years' Recollections.

reproduced through so many centuries is regarded
by some as a proof that the human mind revolves
continually in a circle, constantly conceiving the
same ideas ; and by others as an evidence of the
correctness of the principle upon which the idea is
based. The progression that has been forbids us
to entertain the first belief ; and the second involves
a problem which will be best solved by posterity.
The social ideologies of the present day are, how-
ever, evidently the expression of a deeply-felt want,
an aspiration after the beautiful and the intellectual,
a feeling of sympathy for human woe ; and while
their authors, and those who adopt them, confine
themselves to moral and peaceful means of pro-
pagating them, and do not suffer their zeal to
mislead them into courses inimical to the con-
tinuance of order, we should respect their motives,
however erroneous we may deem their opinions. In
an age like the present, whatever of good may be
contained in the systems that have been passed
briefly under review will not be lost ; the criticisms
of their authors upon present society may be useful
in drawing the attention of legislators to many
errors and abuses, the dust and cobwebs of the
past J and their visions of the future may suggest
many modifications applicable to the moral, mental,
and material wants of the present generation. We
dive for pearls into the depths of the ocean, and

Papers for the People. 1 93

descend for gold into the darksome mine ; and we
should not disdain to search for truths among
dreams of Utopia and foreshado wings of the Mil-
lennium."

Something like the comments which I have here
made upon the kind of criticism of which I have
given an example was contained in my next letter
to the editor, who responded in the following
manner : — " I am much pleased with your note of
yesterday, and entirely concur with you, not only in
the opinions you have expressed, but in the manner
in which you have expressed them. In sending you
the remarks of Mr. G. and Mr. W., I did so merely
with a view to show you how one's writings are
received by certain parties, and because I think it
is always well that an author should have an inkling
of how he stands with the public. Of course I
could have sent you others ; for scarcely a number
we issue but brings bundles of flattery or of fault-
finding.^'

One word more upon this correspondence. David
Page was no s}Tnpathizer with Socialism, no
Eadical, nor (it is to be presumed from the con-
servatism of his political creed) a sceptic in religion.
On the cessation of the papers, he removed from
Edinburgh to Cupar, to edit and superintend the
publication of the Fifeshire Journal^ which was his
own property, and an exceedingly well-conducted

o

194 Forty Years' Recollections.

journal, mildly Conservative in its tone and ten-
dencies.

The subjects of my two next contributions to the
papers are sufficiently indicated in the following
letter : — " I am glad you have grappled with the
■ancient philosophers. People every day hear of
the philosophy of the Hindoos, of Confucius, of
Plato, Epicurus, Aristotle, and a dozen others, and
yet I don't believe that one in a hundred has a right
conception of who these worthies were, and what
the opinions and dogmas they propounded. I trust
you will produce a first-rate exposition. Very
much in the same condition stand the ancient
mysteries. Very absurd and superstitious a great
many of them may have been, and yet I do not
believe them to have been one-half so absurd,
superstitious, and wicked as the generality of well-
meaning but uninformed Christians regard them.
Pray endeavour to set them right on this matter
also."

I was very much gratified when my paper on the
ancient schools of philosophy was referred to by
David Page as " a very admirable precis of all that
is necessary to be known by the general reader."
The paper on the Eleusinian, Isian, and other
mysteries of the ancient world, required more study
and research than any other subject I had ever
written upon. The only existing work on the pagan

Papers for the People . 195

mystei'ies was that of St. Croix, and all that I could
find in Enghsh was the fourth section of the second
book of Warburton's " Divine Legation of Moses/'
But, by wading through an immense amount of
ancient history and poetry, I contrived to produce
what was, and is, the only work on the subject in
the English language, albeit extending only to
thirty-two pages.

This was my last contribution to the series, which
was carried on with great success for two years,
and was only discontinued, as I have been informed,
because the publishers desired to make a strong
case against the paper duty by attributing it-s
cessation to the operation of that impost. I should
not have said so much as I have about my con-
tributions to the papers if their authorship, and that
of the whole series, had not been misrepresented
in a review the conductors and contributors of which
are usually well-informed.^ On the occasion of the
death of Eobert Chambers, it was therein stated, as
evidence of the literary industry and versatility of
the deceased and his brother William, that, besides
editing Chambers's Journal, they wrote the whole of
the Papers for the People. As the latter serial was
issued weekly, and ranged over every field of
literature and science, each paper extending to
thirty-two pages, this was making something more
* AthencBum.

o 2

T96 Forty Vears^ Recollections.

than literary Crichtons of two men whose claim to
the grateful remembrance of their generation rests
upon their great services to the cause of popular
education and enlightenment, rather than upon
their literary merits.

They were not even the editors of the periodical
with which their name was associated, and which
was the pioneer of the popular periodicals of the
present day. That was conducted thirty years ago
by Mr. Leitch Ritchie. The papers, as I have
shown, were edited by David Page, and I have
reason to believe that neither William or Robert
Chambers wrote a single one of the series. Some
of the tales, such as " The White Swallow '' and
" The Ivory Mine," were written by Mr, Percy
St. John; and others, I believe, by Mrs. S. C. Hall.
If either of the brothers Chambers wrote any of the
papers, I should be more disposed to credit William
with the authorship of those on industrial asso-
ciations and the educational and sanitary movements,
and Robert with that of the biographies of Words-
worth, Campbell, and Ebenezer Elliott, than any
others of the series ; but even of these I am not
sure.

197

CHAPTER XII.

A NEW PHASE OP THE REFORM MOVEMENT.

Nearly thirty years ago, when I had been absent
from my native town about a year, I observed on
my return to the neighbourhood signs of a more
active and vigorous moral life than my fellow-
townsmen had ever been known to exhibit before.
Something like an infusion of new vitality had
taken place, attributable partly to a considerable
influx of population from localities nearer to the
metropolis, consequent upon the facilities which the
railway afforded for frequent and rapid communi-
cation, and partly to the growth to manhood of a
new generation. The young men of the middle
class, carrying with them the more advanced minds
among the middle-aged, were talking of Parlia-
mentary reform, and endeavouring to organize a
system of untrammeled discussion.

As I have sometimes been asked for suggestions
for the organization and management of working
men's institutes, mutual improvement societies, and

198 Forty Years' Recollections.

other associations of a similar character, and as dis-
appointment has often been felt by the promoters
of institutions of that kind, when it has been found,
after several years' trial, that the class for whose
advantage they were devised would not support
them, the contribution to the history of the agita-
tion for Parliamentary reform which this chapter
contains may be usefully prefaced with a few par-
ticulars of the movement referred to at the close of
the last paragraph, which may help to solve the
problem.

Forty years ago there existed in the town a
Literary and Scientific Institution, located in the
building which had formerly been the theatre, and
in that phase of its existence had witnessed the
histrionic triumphs of the Infant Eoscius and Miss
Foote, afterwards Countess of Harrington. It had,
therefore, an excellent lecture-hall, and in addition a
good library, the nucleus of a museum, and a spa-
cious reading-room. For several years it was in a
flourishing condition, but comparatively few mem-
bers of the working class were at that time con-
nected with it. In 1843, however, it began to
receive a considerable accession of members from
the ranks of the workmen and tradesmen's assistants,
and a numerously signed memorial was laid before
the committee on behalf of those classes, suggesting
the formation of a discussion class, and the excision

A New Phase of the Reform Moveynent. 199

of the rule excluding from the library works on
politics and controversial theology, which, it was
complained, had been relaxed in favour of works of
conservative and orthodox tendencies.

This memorial did not find favour with the com-
mittee, which was composed of the local gentry and
clergy, who shook their heads at the idea of dis-
cussion, and expressed their fear that the young
men who had signed it wished '^ to talk politics."
An unfavourable answer was returned, and the in-
flux of artisan members received a check. The
middle-class members did hot regret this effect, as
they objected to the presence of their assistants
and workmen in the reading-room ; and shortly
after the rejection of the working men's memorial
their influence procured, under the guise of reducing
the amount of the subscription, a system of sepa-
rate fees for the lectures, the use of books, and the
use of the reading-room; so that, while the sub-
scription for the two former objects was somewhat
less than had formerly been paid for the three, the
several payments were higher in the aggregate than
the original single fee. The object of this arrange-
ment was the exclusion of the workingf men from
the reading-room ; the effect was to drive them
from the institution altogether.

An endeavour to establish a mutual improvement
society, on the basis of free inquiry, which was

200 Forty Years Recollections.

made by myself and a few working men two or
three years later, failed from want of funds. A
similar cause had, in the meantime, obliged the
committee of the institution to discontinue the lec-
tures ; many more of the members thereupon with-
drew, and, in the end, the building had to be
vacated, and the library was removed to a room in
the Town Hall, of which each of the half-dozen re-
maining members had a key.

The lecture-hall had been closed for several years
when a knot of intelligent young men, chiefly the
clerks and assistants of the principal ti-adesmen,
formed a project for the establishment of a new in-
stitution upon a more liberal basis. They com-
menced operations by convening a meeting in the
British school-room, which was literally crowded.
A provisional committee was elected by ballot, each
person writing seven names upon a slip of paper,
which he rolled up, and dropped into a hat carried
round for the purpose. There was no nomination
of candidates ; and, as none of the clergy and gentry
had attended, none of their names came out of the
hat. Of the names which did come out, the seven
which stood highest when the votes wei'e cast up
were my own and those of two tradesmen, two
tradesmen's sons, a draper's assistant, and a Scrip-
ture-reader. Three were members of the Esta-
blished Church, three were Congregationalists, and
one was an undenominational Christian.

A New Phase of tJie Reform Movements 201

Having at our disposal as yet only the school-
room in which the preliminary meeting was held,
we did not deem it expedient to make any imme-
diate arrangements for lectures ; but we determined
to have a public discussion in the school-room,
hoping that it would attract to us the working
men, who as yet held aloof from the institution,
waiting to see in what spirit it would be conducted.
The subject selected was the influence of steam-
driven machinery on the condition of the working
classes, and it was arranged that I should open the
debate.

The school-room was again crowded, the members
of the institution being reinforced by a strong con-
tingent of the men who were as yet waiting and
watching. I had a very attentive audience, .the
subject at that time engaging the attention of the
thinking portion of the working classes very deeply,
and strongly antagonistic views prevailing. I
began with an exposition of the extent to which
steam-driven machinery had superseded manual
labour, and then proceeded to show that the evil
would be recurrent with every new application of
machinery, at the same time acknowledging that
the severe distress which the change produced was
the inevitable consequence of social progress under
competitive conditions, and that the results were,
on the whole, beneficial to society. From this view
I argued that the evils incidental to machinery could

202 Forty Years' Recollections.

be removed only by the workers becoming the
owners of the machines^ through the agency of
co-operative associations, under whose direction
machinery would work for them, instead of being
an antagonistic power. Some of the speakers
expatiated on the beneficial results of machinery,
which I had not disputed, and others expressed
doubts of the practicability of co-operative produc-
tion, to which I replied by referring to the success
of the Rochdale experiment, the history of which
has since been so ably told by Mr. Holyoake.

The discussion brought us such an influx of new
members, chiefly of the working class, that we
ventured to become tenants of the premises vacated
a few years previously by the old institution, and to
make arrangements for a popular course of lectures
and musical entertainments. These were alternated
with discussions on various questions, to which the
public were admitted free, and which invariably
brought forward a good array of speakers, and con-
tributed very much to the popularity of the in-
stitution.

The causes of the failure in the one case, and of
success in the other, do not lie very deep. Working
men do not like to be treated like children, to have
the books they shall read chosen for them ; and they
naturally resent any attempt to set up barriers be-
tween themselves and other classes, when all are

A New Phase of the Reform Movement. 203

associated on the same footing for a common-
object.

The more active intellectual life of which the
new institution was one of the signs was favour-
able to the growth of a new political agita-
tion, freed from the prejudice which attached to
Chartism. In Crovdon, as elsewhere, there were
many of the middle classes who desired Parlia-
mentary reform quite as much as the working men,
though with a different aim; but they wished tor
what they called a moderate measure, by which
they meant one that would enfranchise the shop-
keepers of the large unrepresented towns which had
been growing into importance during the preceding
twenty years, and still exclude the majority of the
worldng men. As the Chartist agitation quietly
died out after the excitement of 1848, a new move-
ment was commenced, therefore, and a branch of
the Parliamentary Reform Association, which had
just been launched into existence under the auspices
of Sir Joshua Walmsley and Joseph Hume, was
formed among the shopkeepers of the town and
neighbourhood, with a sprinkling of other grades
of the middle class, such as yeomen, farmers,
brewers, &c.

Finding the Chartist organization broken up, and
discerning in the new movement a power that
might be used with good effect against any Govern-

204 Forty Years' Recollections.

ment that took its stand on the finality of the legis-
lation of 1832, I proposed to the Chartists of the
locality that we should join it, and endeavour to use
its machinery for the furtherance of our own aims.
They were at first reluctant to move in that direction,
but when the example had been set by Hodges and
myself, most of them followed. Their adherence
added so considerably to the numerical strength of
the local branch of the new association, that I
deemed it only fair, as they were nearly all working
men, while the majority of the original members
were shopkeepers, that they should be represented
in the committee. I availed myself of the first op-
portunity, therefore, to propose the reorganization
of the governing body, on the ground that, having
been elected when the society was in its infancy, it
did not then fairly represent the members, who had
increased threefold.

The proposition being carried almost unanimously,
"we proceeded to a new election, when four members
of the ultra section, including myself, were elected ;
and we could easily have elected one or two more,
had we not been afraid of breaking up the move-
ment. The result of the election was the re-election
of three tradesmen and two mechanics, and the sub-
stitution of three artisans and myself for two
yeomen, a farmer, and a brewer.

About the same time, I wrote to the council of

A New Phase of the Reform Movement. 205

the parent association, offering, for a very, moderate
salary and travelling expenses, to agitate the
question of Parliamentary reforms in the agri-
cultural districts, which had never yet been stirred
up about it. Several letters on the subject passed
between the secretary, Edward Whitty, and myself,
and my proposal seemed for a time to be entertained;
but nothing came of it. The funds at the disposal
of the council may have been inadequate to the cost
of extending their operations ; but all that I can
confidently affirm is, that the proposition was not
adopted.

There may have been another reason. Eeformers
of the calibre of the gentlemen who directed the
Parliamentary Eeform Association may have shrunk
from the consequences of stirring up an agitation
that must have accelerated the realization of the
aims of the Chartists. It would have been
dangerous to have played over again the game
of political tactics which succeeded in 1832. It
was always clear to my own mind that every
movement for the extension of the franchise must
lead eventually to manhood suffrage, with new
electoral divisions, so arranged as to give every
voter the same amount of political power. The
farm-labourers would be the last to be reached
by it ; but penny newspapers would gradually
enlighten their mental darkness concerning politics

2o6 Forty Years Recollections.

and political economy, and they would some day
share the aims and aspirations of the working men
of the large towns.

How the farmers would have stared at the pro-
position to enfranchise the labourers ! They shake
their heads at it now, more than a quarter of a
century afterwards ; but they will see it realized
before many years, as they have seen fulfilled my
prediction of farm-labourers' unions and strikes,
made in the columns of the Shrewsbury Chronicle
years before the existing unions were formed, or the
name of Joseph Arch had been heard.

I was much amused by the look of surprise, which
changed the next moment to one of incredulity, with
which a Conservative gentleman regarded me when
I mentioned the project of a tour through the
southern counties for the purpose of stirring up the
rural working class on the franchise question.

'* I don't think even Walmsley is mad enough for
that," he observed, after a pause. " It would not
succeed ; it ought not to succeed ! No, no. What
the labourer wants is not a vote, but more pork and
bacon ; and that he can only get through a reversal
of the mischievous policy of Peel."

'^ How would he get more through their being
made dearer ? " I asked.

" If the farmers got a better price for their com
they could afford to pay higher wages," he rejoined.

A New Phase of the Reform Movement. 207

" And that is what must be done. The country-
will not put up with the present state of things
much longer."

*' I hear that the country gentlemen are talking
of mounting their horses," said Ij alluding to a
speech that had been made a short time before by a
Conservatiye member of Parliament at an agricul-
tui-al dinner. " If the Protectionists mean that, and
will give me a commission, I will undertake to i-aise
an infantry force, ten times as strong as the cavalry
raised among the gentry and the farmers."

He regarded me keenly for a moment, as if
seeking to discover whether I was in earnest;
then he shook his head, and looked very grave,
but he said no more. The Protectionists were in
the same position in respect of such a movement
as the more violent and less discreet among them
were then hinting at, as the slave-owners of the
United States were when they raised the flag of
secession. They had a great force behind them,
which they were afraid to use.

The position occupied in 1852 by the movement
initiated by Walmsley and Hume was weakened by
a similar cause. What the middle classes most
wanted was a diminution of the pressure of taxation,
then much greater than at the present day ; and if
that object could have been gained without
Parliamentary reform, they would gladly have

2o8 Forty Years Recollections,

refrained from touching that question. But they
could not see their way to its accomplishment
without an increase of the voting power of
the shopkeeping classes; and that involved the
difficulty that always stood in the way of their
success. They could not bring the pressure from
without to bear upon Parliament with sufficient
force for the purpose without union with the
working classes, and the support of the latter
could be obtained on no other terms than the
adoption of the principle of manhood suffrage.

When the Council of the Association convened a
conference on the question, the members of the
Croydon branch elected me as one of their delegates,
giving me for a colleague a clothier, named Talbot,
a representative of the moderate party. Among
the ultra Liberals whom we met in St. Martin's
Hall on that occasion were Macgrath and Clark —
who had been members of the Chartist executive in
1847 — Ernest Jones, George W. M. Reynolds, and
Mr. Holyoake; but the representatives of the
moderate section constituted the majority. Joseph
Hume was voted to the presidential chair, and a
debate commenced which extended over two days,
and did not terminate without provoking consider-
able exasperation on the part of the ultras.

It was made e^ddent, at an early stage of the pro-
ceedings, that the representatives of the trading or

A New Phase of the Reform Movemetit. 209

moderate section were much more earnestly intent
upon increasing their own power in the House of
Commons, for their own purposes, than upon
achieving the enfranchisement of the majority.
They could not be urged beyond a rate-paying
qualification for the franchise, though they knew
that the majority of the working' classes would be
excluded by the operation of the Small Tenements
Rating Act, and that in London the majority of the
unenfranchised of all classes were lodgers. Hence,
the dissensions that arose in the Conference on the
second day, and which culminated in Ernest Jones's
vehement denunciation of Joseph Hume as a re-
actionist.

The agitation collapsed shortly afterwards, nor
was there any earnest renewal of the struggle for
more than a dozen years afterwards, though the
question was brought before Parliament on two or
three occasions by Mr. Bright and the late Earl
Russell.

2IO Forty Years'' Recollections.

CHAPTER XIII.

MISSION WORK IN BETHNAL GREEN.

I WAS acquainted at this time with a young curate,
with whom I had some time before made a pedes-
trian tour through some of the most beautiful por-
tions of the beautiful county of Kent, and who had
lately exchanged his first curacy at Haverstock Hill
for a similar engagement in the district of St.
Philip, Bethnal Green. On the occasion of my first
visit to him after this change, our conversation
turned upon home missions, and I was led to
make some remarks, derived from my own obser-
vation, upon the incompetency of many of the
scripture-readers, whose mission-fields were the
industrial quarters of our large towns, for the
accomplishment of the end for which they were
appointed.

" They may be tolerably well qualified to deal
with the indiSerent and the ignorant, '^ I observed;
'' but they are utterly incompetent to remove the
doubts or meet the arguments of the many intelligent

Mission Work in Bethnal Green. 2 1 1

men to be found in large towns who reject tlie
Bible as a divine revelation. They may be useful
auxiliaries of the clergy in visiting the poor mem-
bers of a conofreofation, and tolerablv successful in
bringing into the fold of the Church the ignorant
and the indifferent; but they don't reaKze my idea
of what a Christian missionary in the home field
should be in an age like the present."

" There is great difficulty in obtaining men who
would/' returned the curate. '' It is true they are
not very highly paid ; but many of them, notably
those employed by the City Missionary Society,
are as well paid as a large proportion of curates,
who are drawn from a higher and more educated
class.''

" The Churches," said I, in continuance of the
thought that was in my mind, '' send to the ignorant
heathen of Africa and Malaysia men qualified by
education for the ministry at home, and to the home
field of labour they appoint men who can meet the
arguments of the sceptic and the unbeliever — it
may be the questions of the earnest seeker after
truth — only by an ample quotation of texts, which
derive all their value from the divine authority
claimed for them, and are often inapplicable to the
question at issue."

" I have no doubt that a man like yourself would
be better qualified for the mission work of a district
p 2

212 Fo7'ty Years Recollections,

in which infidelity is rife," the curate observed, after
a pause of some moments. " But men like you
don't oifer, and the societies have, as a rule, to
choose between the converted rough and the pious
young man whose notions of the right way of
spreading the Gospel are derived from the Sunday-
school and the Bible-class/'

" There is Brown," said I (that was not the name
of the man I referred to, but it will do as well as
any other). " He said to me the other day that he
thought doubt was impious, and that he could
understand unbelief only in connexion with moral
depravity. "What would be the use of such a man
endeavouring to convert a honest and intelligent
unbeliever, a man who has been earnestly seeking
for the truth, but has lost his way ? "

" Have you ever thought of devoting yourself to
mission work ? " my friend asked.

" The idea has crossed my mind,'' I replied, " but
it has not rested in it, for I have never been able to
see my way. You know my political creed, and
you know that the ideas of nearly the entire body of
the clergy are diametrically opposed to it.''

"I doa't think that difficulty would be insu-
perable," the curate observed.

Talking over this subject with another friend,
who subsequently superintended a home-mission in
•one of the largest towns in the North, I found

Mission Wo7'k in Beihncil Green. 2 1 3

myself so warmly encouraged to engage in mission-
work that, after some reflection, I made an applica-
tion for employment to the Church of England
Scripture Readers' Association, backing it with the
required testimonials.

There had been a little dilSculty, and the manner
in which it arose may be usefully told as an
illustration of the tone and temper of the times.
The friend last mentioned, and a gentleman of
the medical profession, certified to my thorough
respectability and moral fitness ; but I was re-
quired to produce, in addition, letters from two
clergymen of the Church of England, testifying
to my fitness for the special duties of a missionary ;
and it was desirable, though not absolutely neces-
sary, that these should be given by clergymen
oflBciating in the locality in which I resided. With
these I deemed myself unlikely to be in very good
odour, on account of my Socialist tendencies, and
my recent connexion with the Chartist movement ;
but the incumbent of the district in which I lived
had paid me a visit of condolence on tho death of
my first wife, and his manner had then been most
cordial and sympathetic. To him, therefore, I re-
solved to make my first application.

He received me in a very friendly manner, and I
went straight to the object of my visit, observing
that the friend who had given me the first testi-

214 Forty Yeat's Recollections.

monial was so well and favourably known to liim,
that I thought he would not hesitate to endorse his
recommendation. After some conversation, he ad-
vised me to see the vicar of the parish ; intimating,
however, that he would give me the required testi-
monial, in the event of that gentleman declining
to do so.

" As I expect he will," said I, as I rose to leave.
" The vicar is a Conservative, and he knows me only
by name and repute, as having taken a prominent
part in the Chartist agitation, and now a member of
the Radical section of the Reform Association."

" You still hold the same political views ? " said he.

*^ I have found no reason for changing them,"
I rejoined.

• '^ Well, I don*t know that they should be an
objection," said he, reflectively.

Then we parted, and I proceeded to the vicarage.
The vicar received me very coldly, and hia counte-
nance expressed surprise and perplexity when I
acquainted him with the object of my visit.

'' I thought you were an unbeliever, " he observed.

''You inferred it, perhaps, from my former
Socialist associations," I rejoined.

" I know nothing of them," said he ; "I rather
think that I received the impression from the ten-
dency of something that fell from you at the
Institute."

Mission Work in Beiknal Green. 2 1 5

" I remember notlimg from which such an infei-ence
could be drawn," said I, *' There has been no
question of a theological character debated there."

** I have been misinformed, then, or you have
been misunderstood,'^ said the vicar. '' But I have
not seeu you at church, and — in short, your antece-
dents are not, in my opinion, in your favour, and I
must decline to certify to your fitness for the work
you seem disposed to engage in."

" That you have not seen me at church is not
remarkable, because I seldom attend your church,"
I rejoined. "I more frequently attend Christ
Church; sometimes St. James's, sometimes St.
Peter's."

" That of itself shows unsettled views," remarked
the vicar.

*' Will you," I asked, " have the goodness to ex-
press the grounds of your objection more definitely,
so that I may be able to state them correctly to any
other clergyman to whom I may apply ? "

*' To speak plainly," said the vicar, rising as he
spoke, as if to intimate that the interview was at an
end, '■' I don't consider a Chartist a fit person to
perform the duties of a scripture-reader."

There remained for me only to bow in silence and
retire. I returned to the incumbent of St. James's,
and acquainted him with what had passed between
the vicar and myself. He listened attentively, and

2i6 Forty Years' Recollections.

smiled wlien he heard the vicar's final and real
objection. Without further hesitation, he gave me
a very favourable testimonial, and said at parting,
as he offered his hand to me, " I will give you the
hand of Christian fellowship, and I sincerely hope
that you will succeed."

Having forwarded my testimonials, the second
having been given me by my friend the Bethnal
Green curate, I went up to Spring Gardens for my
fiirst examination in Biblical knowledge, which I had
no difficulty in passing. Indeed, there was no
question which any person who had ever read the
Bible could have had any difficulty in answering.

The district of St. Philip's, Bethnal Green, was
then, and had been for a long time, without a
scripture-reader, although a grant had been placed
by the Church of England Association at the dis-
posal of the incumbent for the purpose of paying
one, owing to the extreme wretchedness of the
population, which, with the difficulty of procuring
decent lodgings, deterred men from undertaking
it. This the curate informed me on my calling
upon him after my visit to Spring Gardens, and
on hearing it, I immediately offered to take the
district, in the event of my passing the second
examination, of which neither the curate nor myself
had any doubt. My friend immediately proposed
that we should visit his incumbent, to whom he

Mission Work iti Bethnal Green. 2 1 7

introduced me, and who, on his part, was pleased
with the prospect of obtaining an active and earnest
lay assistant, and readily agreed to accept my ser-
vices in that capacity.

The second examination at Spring Grardens was
performed by an austere-looking doctor of divinity,
whose countenance reminded me, at the first glance,
of Scott's description of the Grand Master of the
Templars ; but, on a more leisurely survey of his
features, as he turned over some papers before
addressing me, I failed to discover in them any-
thing " striking and noble." They were more
strongly suggestive of the portraits of the sourest
Calvinistic preachers of the seventeenth century.

After a few very simple questions, which any
Sunday-school child of average capacity ought to
be able to answer, he asked me, with a gravity
which was very near disturbing my own, '' Who
built Noah's ark ? "

" Noah and his sons," I replied, looking as
serious as my interlocutor, though I could scarcely
refrain from smiling at the simplicity of the ques-
tion, which, like those which had preceded it, might
have been more appropriately asked by a Sunday-
school teacher of a child of nine or ten years.

" Don't you think they must have had some ship-
carpenters to help them ? " inquired the doctor.

" I have never had my attention directed to that

2 1 8 Fo7'ty Years Recollections.

possibility/^ I replied. '' I limit my answer to
Noah and his sons^ because^ as the ark is the first
vessel mentioned in the Bible, there are no Biblical
grounds for supposing the existence of ship-car-
penters at that period."

'^ But Noah and his three sons could not have done
all the work themselves," persisted my examiner.

*' Possibly not/' I rejoined. " If there were ship-
xjarpenters at that period, they may have had such
help as you suggest; but there is no evidence on
that point.

The doctor looked not very well pleased at this
rejoinder, and, dropping the subject, asked why
Noah's family were saved from the deluge.

*' We are not told," 1 replied. '' It is to be pre-
sumed, I think, that, if they were less righteous
than Noah, they were at least more righteous than
those who were condemned, seeing that they were
not involved in the general destruction/'

" Why do you 'presume so ? " asked the doctor,
regarding me austerely.

^' Because Noah was a pre-eminently righteous
man, and also because they did not incur the divine
condemnation," I replied.

'^ There is no evidence that Noah's sons and their
wives were more righteous than those who perished,"
said the doctor.

*^ May not their righteousness be inferred from

Mission Work in Bethnal Green. 2 1 9

their selection to re-people tbe earth ? " I asked, in
as modest a manner as I could assume. " It was
them, not Noah and his wife, who were the divinely
appointed maintainers of the continuity of the
human race."

*' No," returned my examiner. " The righteous-
ness of Noah was imputed to tliem, as the righteous-
ness of Christ is imputed to us."

Before I could follow the doctor, even in thought,
through the maze of argument to which this view
appeared to lead, he spoke again, informing me, in
his most chilling tone, that my knowledge of the
Bible was insuflBcient to justify him in certifying to
my competence to perform the duties of a scripture-
reader. I rose immediately, bowed silently, and
left the oflBce.

I proceeded immediately to the lodging of my
friend, the Bethnal Green curate, and thence to the
residence of the incumbent of the district. Both
gentlemen heard my report of my examination with
surprise, and expressed the opinion that I had
come through the ordeal with credit, and that both
my logic and my theology were better than those
of the reverend doctor.

" I am sorry," said the elder clergyman, " as
much for the poor people of my district as for
you."

My rejection was a matter of little consequence to

2 20 Forty Years Recollections.

myself J but I felt annoyed by it^ and suspected tliat
the reason which had been assigned for it was not
the real one. Was it possible, I asked myself, as
the train bore me homeward, that I had been
rejected for no other reason than because I had
hesitated to assume the existence of ship-carpenters
before ships, and doubted the examiner's assertion
that the all-wise God had chosen to re-people the
earth with men and women as corrupt and wicked
as those whose abominable vices had prompted Him
to sweep them from its face ? Was the prominent
part which I had taken, locally, in the agitation for
Parliamentary reform, and the refusal of the vicar
on that ground to certify my capacity for mission
work, known to the examiner, or to the committee
of the association ? I could not answer these ques-
tions, and they troubled me much, not on my own
account, but as they aft'ected the interests of true
religion.

In the evening I visited the friend who was subse-
quently superintendent of the Leeds mission, and
told the story of my failure over again, with the
comments thereon of the Bethnal Green incumbent
and his curate.

"Your rejection does not say much for the
society's zeal for the salvation of souls," he ob-
served, with more warmth of feeling than he was in
the habit of displaying. " It looks as if they would

Mission Work in Bethnal Greeti. 221

rather leave one of the most neglected districts in
London in its present condition of spiritual destitu-
tion than appoint a man for its relief who cannot
subscribe to the crotchets of their examiner."

" Or who regards justice between man and man
as an inseparable portion of the Gospel,'' I added.
" Is there any political reason at the bottom, do you
think ? "

" It is not improbable," he rejoined.

" That is what I cannot understand," said I,
expressing a mental diflBculty which did not then
present itself for the first time. " The men who
provide the funds from which scripture-readers
are paid, and who express the greatest regard for
the welfare of the working classes, as a rule, oppose
every effort of those classes to obtain their political
enfranchisement, and give their support to that
system of ' one law for the rich, and another for the
poor,' which is the natural result of class legislation.
Why, then, do they support scripture-reading
associations ? "

He looked grave, supported his head upon one
hand, and did not immediately reply. The ques-
tion seemed to be troubling his mind as it had
mine.

"]n order that the poor may be taught content-
ment, so that the rich may live in peace," he at
length replied.

2 22 Forty Years' Recollections.

'* Then their reading of the Gospel is not mine/*
I rejoined.

No comment upon my friend^s answer is now
needed. The change of ground effected in 1867 by
the former upholders of the monopoly of political
power by a small minority of the nation, whether
that change was due to conviction of the justice or
of the expediency of the enfranchisement of the
majority, has, happily for society, le(t no ground for
the painful contrasts of former times.

One of my clerical friends having given me a letter
of introduction to the then rector of Whitechapel,
the Rev. W. W. Champneys, I had an interview
with that estimable clergyman, who expressed the
warmest sympathy with my aim and interest in its
accomplishment. I cannot now recollect whether it
was at his or some other well-wisher's suggestion
that I waited upon Mr. Geldart, the secretary of the
Towns Mission Society, who placed my name upon
the list of candidates for employment. Having
answered that gentleman's questions satisfactorily,
I presented myself, on an appointed day, for exami-
nation by the committee, who, it seemed, enjoyed
that business too much to delegate it to a secretary.

The ordeal which I went through upon this
occasion was very different from my examination at
Spring Gardens, and not nearly so amusing. No
endeavour was made to ascertain the extent of my

Mission Work in Bethyial Green. 223

Biblical knowledge, or even the orthodoxy of my
views of the Christian faith, the process adopted
being one of moral dissection, in which the principal
wielder of the scalpel was a gentleman with a red
and bloated face, watery eyes, and large sensual
mouth. This gentleman seemed very anxious to
elicit from me a confession of the kind made by the
converted thieves and costermongers who are from
time to time introduced to the public, and greatly
disappointed when he found that I had no revela-
tions of vice and blackguardism to make.

Of course he did not express in that manner the
grounds of the opinion he formed, that I was not
quite the sort of man they had. hoped for ; but that
is the way in which it presented itself to my mind.
His brother committeemen intimated their con-
currence in his judgment, and there remained
nothing more to be said. I shook the dust off my
feet as I stepped into Red Lion Square, and troubled
scripture-reading organizations no more.

As I removed to London about this time, in the
autumn of 1853, and my temporary abode was
in Stepney, I occupied my leisure in amateur
mission work among the wretched inhabitants of
squalid and poverty-stricken Bethnal Green, and
assisting the curate of St. Philip^s in teaching the
ragged urchins who attended his Sunday-school.
The condition in which I found the mass of the

2 24 Forty Years^ Recollections.

population of that district pained and depressed me
more than any other revelation of the social depths
of our large towns that had ever come upon me.
Nowhere else had I ever seen poverty of the same
extent or the same degree as that in which the
toilers of Bethnal Green were at that time sunk. It
was not the poverty which a large proportion of the
working class everywhere becomes acquainted with
at one time or another^ but hopeless, helpless,
chronic destitution, which crushes the sufferer down
to a little more than vegetative existence most pain-
ful to contemplate.

I no longer wondered, after a few perambulations of
the lanes and courts of the Friars' Mount district, at
the paucity of the attendance at St. Philip's church,
and the listless faces of the pale worshippers whom
I met there. This was one of the several churches
which had been erected a few years previously with
funds supplied in response to an appeal to the
Christian public, setting forth the spiritual destitu-
tion of that quarter of the metropolis ; and the
average attendance was about one-fifth of the num-
ber for whom seats had been provided. With the
exception of the church in Victoria Street, West-
minster, designed to relieve the spiritual destitution
of Strutton Ground, I never sat in a place of worship
in which the worshippers were so few in proportion
to the accommodation.

Mission Work in Bethnal Green. 225

The causes of this almost general neglect of the
outward observances of religion were not to be found
on the surface. The curate could only tell me that
the people did not come to church ; and that needed
no telling. The majoritj of those who did attend
were women, most of them poorly clad, the few
desperate attempts that were made to conceal the
poverty of the wardrobe being too transparent to
escape attention, and too painful to excite a smile.
In what proportions the few listless worshippers
represented the shopkeepers and the working class
I could not learn, all classes alike being steeped in
poverty to the eyes.

The result of my inquiries, and such observations as
I could make, showed that the paucity of worshippers
was not due either to unbelief or dissent, both of
which indicate more exercise of the intellect than is
compatible with such a low material condition as
then prevailed among the masses of Bethnal Green,
whose minds were engrossed almost constantly with
the one thought — how to get the next meal, to replace
some worn-out garment, or to pay the rent of the one
miserable room in which, as a rule, each family lived
and slept. Wide-spread heathen ignorance, which
there were no agencies for reaching — indifference on
the part of many, soul-crushing misery on the part
of more — those were the chief causes of the almost
empty churches of Bethnal Green thirty years ago.

Q

2 26 Forty Years' Recollections.

CHAPTER XIV.

JOHN CASSELL AND HIS LITERARY STAFF.

Shortly after I had settled myself in London I was
introduced to tlie late John Cassell, whose name
was at that time '^ familiar in the mouth as house-
hold words." It met the eye at every turn; on
every dead wall and hoarding ; in the advertisement
pages of every publication. Though it may be
doubted whether it would ever have been known —
except by such brief and circumscribed fame as may
be won by not very brilliant oratory in the advocacy
of total abstinence from alcoholic beverages — if he
had not been favoured in no ordinary degree by
fortune, he was, in some respects, a remarkable man.
Born at Manchester in 1817, in a lowly position,
he was entirely self-educated, and had worked for
years as a carpenter before he set out upon that
lecturing tour in the provinces which was his first
introduction to public life. The earnestness which
he evinced in the cause with which he thus became
honourably associated won him a wife and a
fortune.

yohn Cassell and his Literary Staff. 227

His connexion with the total abstinence move-
ment was a good foundation for the establishment
of an extensive business in tea and coffee, and his
warehouse in Fenchurch Street, under the able
management of Mr. Smith, soon became as famous
as his publishing emporium in Belle Sauvage Yard.
John Cassell's teas and coffees were advertised in
the boldest type, on the cover of every magazine,
in the columns of every newspaper, in immense
posters, that everywhere met the eye, in conjunction
with Cassell's Family Paper and Cassell's Popular
Educator. Both publications had an extensive cir-
culation, and the value of the latter in the promotion
of self-education among the masses has been
acknowledged in public by more than one of our
leading statesmen. The Family Pajaer, which was
the older periodical of the two, addressed a far
larger portion of the reading public than the other,
however, and had a proportionately larger cir-
culation.

The Family Paper was a judicious combina-
tion of the pictorial newspaper with the popular
periodical, containing a serial story and a chronicle
of current history, the latter illustrated with por-
traits, historical scenes, and ^-iews of places to
which a temporary interest was given by the events
of the time. The Russo-Turkish campaign in the
valley of the Danube, and the struggle in v.-hich
Q 2

228 Fo7'ty Years Recollections.

our own countrymen and the French were engaged
with the army of the Czar in the Crimea, were illus-
trated by the pencil as well as described with the
pen, and, as the illustrations were printed from
electrotypes procured from the office of U Illustra-
tion, they were equal to those which embellished the
illustrated newspapers published at six times the
price. The serial stories were furnished by Mr.
Percy St. John and Mrs. Burbury, and the
historical narrative, with much of the other matter,
by the editor.

' Cassell's Magazine of Art had not so large a sale
as either of the other serials issued with the same
prefix, and from the same office, though it was ably
edited, printed on fine paper, illustrated as well as
any similar publication in existence, and numbered
among its contributors the Howitts and their
daughter. Miss Meteyard, (better known at that
time by her nom deplume of Silverpen), the late
James Hain Friswell, Mr. J. E. Ritchie, Mr. Dallas,
and Mr. E. B. Neill, whose "London Gossip" was
then, and for many years afterwards, the most
distinctive feature of the Albion, and the favourite
Liverpoolian reading. The illustrations were, with
few exceptions, of Parisian origin, electrotypes
being obtained from the celebrated imprimerie of
Best et Cie. of all such subjects in the publications
therefrom issued as were suitable for the purpose.

yohn Cassell and his Literary Staff. 229

and which were thus reproduced with all the beauty
and fidelity of the originals.

I had some conversation with Cassell, on the
occasion of our first meeting, concerning the popular
periodicals of that day, and, on learning that I was
one of the authors of the Papers for ths People, he
thought that I could be useful to him in the con-
ducting of his own serial publications. Early in the
following spring I received a letter from him, asking
me to call at his office at my earliest convenience ;
and on the following morning, just as ten o'clock
was booming over the City, I passed under the
archway of Belle Sauvage Yard, which at that time
presented a very different aspect to that which it
has assumed since the erection of the present exten-
sive premises of his successors.

On the left, just through the archway, which in
the old coaching days was the entrance to the court-
yard of the ancient inn from which the place derives
its name, there was a dingy and dilapidated
building, the greater part of which was propped
up within and without, to prevent the whole from
crumbling and cracking, until it came down with
a crash. This was the printing-office. Farther up,
on the same side of the yard, but detached from
the main building, was a six-roomed house, the
ground-floor of which was used as store-rooms,
the apartments above being occupied by the pro-

230 Fo7'ty Years^ Recollections.

prietor and the gentlemen composing his editorial
staff.

In a sparely furnished room on the first-floor I
found John Cassell, a tall sallow-complexioned
man, with straight black hair, and a pleasant
expression of countenance. He was generally to be
found there from eleven to four, smokiug a cigar,
Avith which indulgence he solaced himself for his
abstinence from wine and beer. When I entered
the room he was sitting at a table strewn with
letters and newspapers, smoking as he read ; but he
rose on my entrance, and, there being only one
chair in the room, leaned against the table, still
smoking.

An understanding is soon arrived at between two
persons when, as -in this instance, both have the art
of conveying their ideas in a few words, and perceive
that it will conduce to their mutual advantage.
Professor Wallace had resigned the editorship of the
Popular Educator, and it had been arranged that
Mr. Millard, who had hitherto conducted the
Magazine of Art, should have the responsible direc-
tion of both publications, receiving assistance on
the latter from a sub-editor, who was also to trans-
late Charles Blanc's magnificent work on the old
masters for another serial, '' The Works of Eminent
Masters," which had hitherto been done by Mr.
Percy St. John. This sub-editorship was offered

JoJm Cassell and his Literary Stafi. 2 3 1

to me, and as it promised useful and congenial
occupation, I accepted it.

I had been very pleasantly employed there for
about a fortnight, when the door of my room was
opened one morning, and, the sound of strange
footsteps causing me to look up from the proof I
was reading, I saw a fair-haired feminine-looking
little man hobbling towards me — a pleasant-looking
dwarf, with crooked and shrunken legs.

" Good morning," said he, in a soft and agreeable
voice that harmonized well with the feminine aspect
and expression of his countenance. " I have come to
ask a favour."

" I hope I shall be able to grant it," returned I,
very favourably impressed by the little man's
pleasant face and manner. " What can I do for
you ? "

" I want an article on the war for the Familtj
Paper/* he replied. " I have been absent from the
oflBce more than a fortnight through illness, and
I find myself rather pressed for matter this
week.*'

" I shall be happy to assist you," T responded.

" You know the sort of thing we want," he con-
tinued. ^'The popular clap-trap about British
valour, and a compliment to the Emperor, you
know. It has all been said before, but we must say
something about recent events, for our war illustra-

232 Forty Yeari Recollections.

tions are exceedingly popular, and that is the key
that our accompaniments must be played in/'

''You have condoned the 2nd of December,
then t" \ observed, with a smile, remembering that
Napoleon III. had been vigorously attacked at that
period in the Faviily Paper.

" He is our ally and very good friend now,*' he
rejoined. " You will let me have the article to-day ?
Thanks."

He was pursuing his tortuous course towards the
door, when he remembered something else, and
came back to my table.

" Mr. Cassell wished me to ask you,'' he said,
" whether you could undertake the correspondence
column of the Paper. You have seen Green, that
sour-looking old man, who looks as if he had had a
fight with the world, and got the worst of it, and
now resented his defeat upon all mankind ? He
makes the indexes, and extracts from works, and
does the correspondence column ; but he performs
that part of his duty in such a sour and cynical
manner, often answering a correspondent with a
sneer or a rude rebuff, that Mr. Cassell would like to
have it done by some one else."

" I think I can manage it," said I, and the little
man then retired.

That was John Tillotson, the editor of the Family
Paper, and one of the most amiable men whom I

John Cassell and his Literary Staff. 233

have come in contact with in the whole course of my
varied life. I was in daily intercourse with him for
several months, and saw him occasionally after our
paths in life separated, and always found him the
same gentle and pleasant associate, notwithstanding
his delicate health and temperament. He had a
very happy and genial style of writing stories for
boys, several of which were published by Griffith
and Farran, in St. Paul's Churchyard; and his
industry enabled him, besides editing the Family
Paper, and writing much of the matter, to produce
several works of that description, and to write
leaders and London letters for a couple of provincial
newspapers.

On the following morning a boy brought me a
handful of letters from readers of the Family Paper
in all parts of Great Britain, containing questions
upon a great variety of subjects. I have met with
persons who believe that the correspondents of
periodicals are the creations of the editors. The
letters which I found every morning upon my table
would have convinced them of their mistake;
though, as I pretend to no skill in graphiology, and
did not act as a matrimonial agent, my correspon-
dents were not so numerous as those of the publica-
tions which devote two or three columns of small
type every week to judgments upon the handwriting,
or the colour of the hair of their readers, give advice

2 34 Forty Years' Recollections.

as to the choice of lovers, and put young men in
quest of wives in communication with young women
in want of husbands. Green resented the transfer
of this portion of his duties to me very seriously ;
and, as I had no reason for desiring it, it was not
long before he was allowed to resume it. The old
gentleman seemed to think that I had been instru-
mental in temporarily depriving him of his occupa-
tion, for he behaved very grumpishly to me ever
afterwards, and ultimately took his revenge for the
imaginary injury in a very characteristic manner.

I had a very pleasant time for six months. Mr.
Millard was often absent for a day or two, finding he
could work better at home ; and contributors to the
magazine who then called came into my room, as
well as at other times, when, having seen him, and
not being too busy, they came in for a chat. The
Howitts I never saw, and Miss Meteyard was not
a frequent contributor ; but Friswell and St. John
came in occasionally, and their conversation afforded
an agreeable relief to the daily grind of translation,
varied only by the manufacture of '^ padding.'^

James Hain Friswell I remember as a pleasant,
though rather dandified young man, with a profu-
sion of very light and very curly hair. He did not
impress me at that time, either by his conversation
or his contributions, with the idea that he would
ever attain a high reputation. His most remarkable

yohn Cassell and his Literary Staff . 235

production of that period was a brief note which I
received from him in the spring of 1855, when he
was conducting a periodical which combined some
of the features of a newspaper with those of a
literary publication, somewhat after the manner of
the magazines of the last century. That it was a
failure scarcely needs to be recorded. As I had at
that time opportunities of occasionally gleaning
political information of an important character, I
offered him the benefit of them, and was equally
surprised and amused when I found his intimation
that "exclusive intelligence would be acceptable,
and be remunerated at a moderate rate," followed
by the qualification that it " must be condensed into
a line and a half." I did not inquire what would
be the moderate remuneration for that quantity of
matter.

I have said that Miss Meteyard was not a frequent
contributor, but she was the first whom I had the
pleasure of meeting. I had been on the staff only
a few days, when Mr. Millard rushed one morning
into my room pale and excited.

" Here is Miss Meteyard coming up with some
complaint ! " he exclaimed. " Some mistake — I
can't explain now ; but pray see her, and say I am
not here."

In a moment he had disappeared into his own
room, the door of which he closed and locked -, and,

236 Forty Years' Recollections.

before I had recovered from my surprise, the over-
seer ushered into my room a fair-haired young lady,
who was evidently suffering from mental excitement.
I rose to receive her, and the overseer, who had sent
one of the reading-boys to warn Mr. Millard of her
coming, explained the object of her visit.

"" Miss Meteyard complains of an error in the
composition o'f her last article," said he. " I have
explained to her that it was a mistake of the com-
positor, which was unfortunately overlooked by the
reader, but she wishes to see Mr. Millard."

'^Mr. Millard is not here at present," said I,
turning to the lady, and placing my only chair for
her, " but I shall be happy to be the medium of any-
thing you may wish to say to him."

" Such a very stupid mistake is unpardonable ! " ex-
claimed Miss Meteyard, her tone and manner evincing
strong excitement. "Mr. Millard should have de-
tected it, and had it corrected. Look at that, sir ! "

Producing the last number of the magazine, she
pointed to a line in an article from her own pen, in
which Adonais had been printed Adonis, in a quota-
tion of the first line of Shelley's monody on the death
of Keats.

" Oh, weep for Adonais — lie is dead ! "

" It is so ridiculous/' she continued. " It makes
nonsense of the quotation. Adonis was a youth
beloved by Venus."

yohn Cassell and his Literary Staff. 237

" I sincerely sympatbize with you/' said I, " and
I am sure Mr. Millard will regret extremely a mis-
take so annoying to you ; but what can we do,
beyond making a note for an erratum?"

" It is so vexing ! I could cry about it/' returned
the fair authoress, and I feared for a moment that
she would do so ; but, having relieved her mind by
the statement of her grievance^ she 'calmed under
the influence of sympathy, and presently took her
departure.

" What is the matter V inquired Mr. Millard, re-
entering the room, after opening his door softly, and
looking towards the stairs to assure himself that his
unwelcome visitor was gone.

In a few words I acquainted him with the cause of
our lady contributor's excitement.

" It is my fault," said he, looking rather foolish.
" I struck out the a myself in the proof, supposing
it to be an error of the compositor. But who ever
heard of Adonais ?"

" Shelley applies the name to Keats/' I returned.
" It looks like Greek."

" I never read a line of Shelley in my life," said
he.

Towards the close of 1854 Cassell came into my
room one afternoon, and, standing with his back to
the fire, with the invariable cigar between his lips,
informed me that he had become involved in pecu-

238 Forty Years'' Recollections.

niary difficulties which obliged him to discontinue
the least remunerative of his publications, and to
dispense in consequence with the services of Mr.
Millard and myself. A few days after I vacated the
sub-editorial stool, I called at the office to see Til-
lotson. While we were talking of the uncertain
future prepared for by this change. Green came in,
and, having heard a portion of our conversation, in-
formed me, with his sourest look, that at a place in
the Strand, which he mentioned, several poor men
were wanted to hawk books. Poor old fellow ! I
hope he enjoyed his joke as much as I did.

239

CHIPTER XV.

PROVINCIAL J0CJEXALI3M AXD JOURNALISTS.

The number of newspapers published in the United
Kingdom had increased so much since the repeal of
the stamp duty that I felt encouraged, on the ter-
mination of my Belle Sauvage Yard engagement, to
aspire to the position of a journalist. Penny news-
papers had become possible for the first time, and
Renter's telegrams placed them, in respect of foreign
news, upon the level of the old and higher-priced
papers. Surely, I thought, there must now be three
newspaper proprietors competing for the services of
one editor or leading article writer, instead of three
journalists competing for every vacancy.

I had contributed some letters on Parliamentary
reform to a provincial journal, and others on Owen's
home colonies and the small farm plan of O'Connor,
in two of the most widely-circulated London news-
papers, in 1847 ; and during the two following years
I had been an occasional contributor to the columns
of the Northern Star. O'Connor had commended my

240 Forty Years' Recollections.

letters on his project in his paper, and I had no diffi-
dence as to my abihty to exercise the profession of
journalist with credit to myself and advantage to the
cause of progress.

I did not know then how little effect the abolition
of the stamp had had in promoting the interests of
journalism. The truth was, however_, that the ad-
vantages of the fiscal change were confined, so far
as journalists were concerned, to the multiplication,
in a small degree, of daily papers. The great num-
ber of new provincial journals that sprang into exist-
ence in 1853 not only did not increase the demand
for journalists, but unfavourably affected the interests
of the profession by diminishing the circulation of
the previously existing papers, and thus obliging the
proprietors to reduce their literary staff or to em-
ploy writers of inferior ability.

The new journals may, with a few exceptions, be
divided into three well-defined classes. There are,
first, those which were started for the purpose of
supplying a cheap vehicle for local intelligence, and
which realize the ideas of Cobden on the subject by
giving a sheet of news and advertisements, without
articles, long or short, on the public questions of the
day, political or social. Another class consists of
papers one side of which is printed in London, and
contains the general news of the week, with or with-
out a London letter and editorial matter; and the

Provincial 'yournalis7n and Jou^'nalists. 241

other, containing local news and advertisements, in
the town in which the paper is published. The third
class comprises journals of entirely local production,
and containing editorial matter, provided in most
cases by the proprietor, and generally as brief in
quantity as it is poor in quality. In most instances,
the staff of a paper of this class is limited to one
young man, who acts as reporter and reader, and is
expected to " fill up his time at case/^ which reduces
him to the level of the compositors, except that he
receives a few shillings per week more, or about
three-fourths of the wages of a bricklayer.

For example, I received a letter in the year
1855 from the proprietor of a newspaper issued in a
small town in a south midland county, inviting me
to a preliminary conference with him at a tavern in
the city. I kept the appointment with the punc-
tuality which is one of my acknowledged qualities,
and had waited solus in the parlour until I had
begun to consider whether I should have another
glass of ale or leave, when there entered a stout,
red-faced man, of the type to be encountered at
every step at the Agricultural Hall during the
cattle-show week, and who, in his broad-rimmed hat
and top-boots, might have sat to Leech for the many
portraits of John Bull with which he enlivened the
pages of Punch.

" Are you the young man who advertised for an

s

242 Forty Years' Recollections.

editorship ? '^ he inquired^ looking at me stead-
fastly.

I answered affirmatively, and, having rang the
bell and ordered a pint of ale, he sat down. Some
remarks of the kind strangers thus situated are apt
to exchange when an interval has to be filled up
were all that were ventured upon until the ale was
brought, and he had filled and lighted a long clay
pipe. Thus primed, he entered upon the business
which had brought us together. He was the pro-
prietor, editor, printer, and publisher of a moderately
Liberal paper, and he required the assisrance of a
young man capable of sub-editing, reporting, and
reading. There was a nice little cottage in the
neighbourhood, which he thought would just suit
me, and he had no doubt that I should suit him,
and that we should get on very comfort-
ably together. And now, what wages did I
expect ?

"Two pounds," I replied, that amount, be it
observed, being the then ordinary remuneration of
a printer's reader in London offices, and less than
was paid in news offices.

" Two pounds a week ! " he repeated, opening his
eyes to their utmost capacity; "why, I give my
overseer only five-and-twenty shillings."

" What was your expectation on the subject ? " I
asked as gravely as possible.

Provincial yournalism a7id yournalists. 243

" I couldn't give anythino^ like that money," he
rejoined, shaking his head.

" Then I must bear to decline your offer, and wish
you good morning," said I, rising.

The old gentleman returned my salutation some-
what gruffly, and in another moment he was alone
with his pipe and his pint.

It was my good fortune to obtain, shortly after-
wards, an engagement as leader-writer and London
reporter on a first-class Birmingham journal, the
organ of the advanced Liberalism of the district.
Understanding that there was a growing demand
for thoughtful writing on such matters as co-opera-
tive societies, industrial investments, workmen's
dwellings, trades unions, and the like, I took these
for my earlier subjects, and soon had the satisfaction
of knowing that my treatment of them was appre-
ciated. I do not, however, claim for them brilliance
of style as the cause of my success, which I am
disposed to attribute to their being separated by a
broad line from the newspaper articles on the same
or similar topics, which were written by gentleman
who, knowing nothing about such questions,
treated them in the vein of Josiah Boimderly, of
Coketown.

I was soon called upon to deal with political ques-
tions, and it was a matter of much self-gratula-
tion to me that my journalistic career commenced at
B 2

244 Forty Years' Recollections.

the time when the steadily continued demand for
Parliamentary reform had at length impressed Lord
John Russell with the conviction that the legislation
of 1832 upon that question could not be final.
That he should have maintained the. contrary for
twenty years is a fact which shows more tenderness
for his party than knowledge of the people or
respect for the Constitution. If the Act of 1832
was to be final, it should have provided for a more
extensive redistribution of seats, and a wider exten-
sion of the franchise in boroughs ; and it should
have been passed without the Chandos clause, which
gave the county franchise to the fifty pound house-
holders. That Tory device, more cunning than
clever, was the thin end of the wedge which every
successive dealing with Parliamentary reform has
driven farther into the Constitution. It was the
first step towards the assimilation of the county and
borough franchises, and the constitution of new
electoral districts on the plan proposed by the
People^s Charter. If the old lines of the Constitu-
tion were to be preserved, evei'y town should have
been made a Parliamentary borough, as in the time
of Edward I., and the franchise should have been
extended to every male adult liviug in a borough,
but restricted to freeholders in the rural districts.

The sweeping away of the distinction between
county and borough franchises would, however,

ProviJicial y ournalisin and Journalists. 245

have been a measure worthy of a great statesman,
who would not have hesitated at an innovation if he
saw that its adoption would conduce to the welfare
of the nation. Unfortunately, the Whig leader was
only a well-meaning, but not very far-sighted,
political tinker ; and the Eeform Bill of 1 854 was
the worst that was ever laid before Parliament. It
proposed nothing for the removal of anomalies
which struck at the root of the principle of repre-
sentation, while it would have driven deeper the
wedge that is destined to destroy the distinction
between the county and the borough.

This was a very important question in Birmingham,
where a rating franchise would have failed to enfran-
chise a single individual, owing to the operation of
a local Act, which extended the principle of the
Small Tenements Rating Act ; and my articles
upon the Bill, in which I called attention to its
non- enfranchising character, and predicted that
compound householder question which created so
much difficulty in 1867, attracted considerable
attention, not only in Birmingham, but in all
the towns in which the journal circulated. Par-
liamentary reform was shelved, however, on account
of the war with Russia, and I believe no one
mourned the withdrawal of the Bill, both the
Government and the House of Commons being glad
of an excuse for not dealing with the subject, and

246 Forty Years Recollections.

the unenfranchised feeling nothing but contempt
or resentment for such a measure as Lord John
Russell had introduced.

The war, moreover, was popular, and the unen-
franchised knew that their cause must gain from
delay. A war demonstration was convened in St.
Martin's Hall, and it was in assisting and reporting
it that I first became acquainted with the operations
of the Foreign Affairs Committees, instituted by
David Urquhart.

" Some of Urquhart's party will be there," I was
told, " and when those fellows get on their legs, you
require to be one of the initiated to know what
they are driving at. There will be a row."

I congratulated myself upon having a ticket for
the platform when I saw how crowded the hall was,
and how eager the throng seemed for fiery speeches.
When the proceedings commenced, the popular
feeling in favour of Turkey was strongly manifested ;
but when Mr. Collet, the editor of Urquhart's
organ, raised the question of the restoration of
Poland, it became evident that he was not so well
understood by the meeting as Ernest Jones or Julian
Harney would have been speaking upon that topic.
Between the disadvantage which he laboured under
of being, or seeming to be, opposed to the war, and
the efforts of several gentlemen on the platform to
prevent him from speaking, he had great difficulty

Provhicial y ournalisju and journalists. 247

in obtaining a hearing. Lord Harrington, who was
in the chair, exerted himself to maintain order, and
some of the gentlemen on the platform, including
myself, strove to secure Mr. Collet an audience ; but
the uproar continued for some .time, dunng which
Mr. Collet remained standing, but desisted speaking
through inability to make himself heard. Sir
William (then Mr.) Tite, who was sitting next to
me, was one of his most violent and persistent
opponents.

" Sit down, Mr. Tite \" I at length exclaimed,
grasping his arm as I spoke. " This is most unfair.
You have no right to howl a man down because you
don't agree with him/^

The honourable member for Bath turned upon
me sharply, with an angry expression of counte-
nance ; but he sat down, without giving vent to the
resentment at my interference which he seemed to
feel. Mr. Collet was then permitted to finish his
speech, but the proceedings continued so stormy
and confused, that nobody knew whether his
amendment or the original resolution had been
carried.

It was at this meeting that Sir Robert Peel, who
then held the otfice of Secretary to the Admiralty,
made the famous speech, in which he described
himself as " an independent member of the Govern-
ment." The desigrnation was laughed at in the

24B Forty Years Recollections.

clubs, and mucli commented upon by the press;
but there can be no doubt that it was honestly
given, and correctly described the right honourable
baronet's position. He was too honest and inde-
pendent for office in those days, and, after exchanging
the Admiralty for the Irish Office, he dropped out of
the list of possible future Ministers. The statesmen
of that day feared his honest, outspoken utterances,
lest he should reveal something which they wished
to conceal. I was present when a contention arose
in the Select Committee on Public Contracts, as to
something which had been done at the Admiralty
while he was in office, and it was proposed that he
should be called to clear up the matter. The Minis-
terial members were quivering with fear, lest, if the
right honourable baronet was called, he might re-
veal more than the Government were willing to have
known ; and, after some whispering and laying
together of heads, the more discreet Mr. Phinn was
sent for instead.

Reporting Select Committees was an agreeable
variation from the task which I often had to per-
form, of winnowing the grain from the chaff of
official Blue Books and Parliamentary Papers. On
one occasion, however, I got into collision with the
late James Wilson, then Secretary to the Treasury,
and was very near raising a question of breach of
the privileges of Parliament. I was reporting the

Provincial y oiirnalism ajidyoiirna lists. 249

Assay Committee, over which that gentleman pre-
sided, and which he or the Government, for some
reason by no means obvious — unless the hypothesis
may be ventured that he desired an exclusive report
for his own paper — wished to be secret. No intima-
tion to that effect had been given, however, and, as
great importance was attached to the inquiry in
Birmingham and Coventry, I shoidd have paid no
attention to it if there had been.

The inquiry was apparently an open one, the
public being admitted below the bar, and reporters
to the table which, in every committee-room, is
assigned to them. On the second day, however,
before the proceedings commenced, one of the wit-
nesses, a watch manufacturer from a provincial
town, informed Mr. Rose, clerk to the committee,
that the evidence given by him on the first day had
appeared in a local newspaper. Mr. Rose thereupon
came round to the reporters* table, and asked me
whether I was the reporter of the journal that had
been mentioned.

"I am," I replied.

" Did you report the evidence taken on the first
day of this inquiry ? " he asked, regarding me
austerely.

" I did," said I.

" Don't you know that to do so is a breach of
privilege ? '* he inquired, with increasing severity.

250 Forty Years Recollections.

" So is the publication of the debates," I re-
joined, wondering what was to come next.

The equipoise of the official mind seemed to be
upset for a moment by my cool audacity.

" The chairman desires that this inquiry shall be
private," said Mr. Rose, when he had recovered
from the shock, " and if you take any notes of to-
day's evidence you will be turned out of the room."

At that moment Wilson entered, and the clerk
left me, and, bending over the chair at the head of
the horse-shoe-shaped table around which the com-
mittee sat, made a communication to him, the nature
of which I had no difficulty in guessing.

" Clear the room ! " said Wilson, sharply.

The witnesses in attendance and the score or so
of listeners below the bar left the room, and I fol-
lowed. In a few minutes the door was opened, and
they flocked in again, but on my attempting to
follow, I found the way barred by one of the
messengers.

" I have orders not to admit you," said he.

" On what ground ? " I inquired.

" It is the chairman's order," he replied.

" The chairman has no right to exclude me
individually," said I. " The inquiry is an open one,
and I demand admission."

The man seemed undecided as to the course he
should adopt on finding me determined to enter, but

Provincial Journa lis7n and yoiwnalists. 2 5 1

on my grasping tbe handle of the door, he made a
warning gesture with his hand.

" If you attempt to stop me, I shall charge you
with an assault," said I.

" You must take your chance, then, if you will
not be warned," he observed, withdrawing his hand.

Instead of returning to my seat at the reporter's
table, I now stood below the bar, keeping my note-
book in my pocket. In a few minutes I saw Mr.
Rose whispering to the chairman, who immediately
looked towards me.

"^ Are you the reporter who has been complained
of ? " he asked.

" Yes, sir," I replied.

" You have been desired to withdraw," he ob-
served, in the tone of one who . demands an ex-
planation.

" This inquiry is an open one," I returned. " If
you order the room to be cleared, I shall withdraw ;
but while the room is open to the public I claim the
right to remain."

'* You are not taking notes ? "

'' No, sir."

*' Very well. The inquiry is, as you say, an open
one ; but you must not take any more notes."

There the matter droppe 1. I took no more notes,
but I attended every meeting of the committee, and
having a very retentive memory, I was enabled to

252 Forty Years' Recollections.

report as correctly, thougli not quite so fully, as if
I had sat at the reporters' table and taken notes.
The witness who had complained had no evidence to
give, and no one called attention to the fact that the
evidence continued to be reported.

James Wilson ought to have been one of the last
men to complain of publicity being given by the
press to evidence taken by Parliamentary com-
mittees, even when there are Governmental reasons
for desiring secrecy. His own hands were not clean.
Journalistic competition renders it of great im-
portance to obtain early or exclusive information
upon any matter of public interest, and many are
the devices resorted to for the purpose. The modus
operandi is often an impenetrable mystery; but
there was no mystery about the way in which the
Economist was enabled to place before its readers,
before the document had been issued, the Treasury
warrant permitting the mixture of chicory with
coffee, James Wilson being at the time proprietor of
the Economist and Secretary to the Treasury.

Though the copies of the draught Report or
Reports of Select Committees and Royal Commissions
which are furnished to the members for reference
during the discussion of its propositions bear an
official notification that it is for their use only, the
intimation is frequently disregarded ; and, in some
way or other, the substance of the Report almost in-

Provificial yournalism ajid yoiirnalists. 253

variably oozes out, and is communicated to the press
before the Report is ready for issue. This does not
necessarily imply a breach of confidence on the part
of a member.

Though I had become familiar with many secret
channels of information, and had been tolerably
successful in availing of them, I was as much sur-
prised as any experienced journalist can be at any-
thing when I saw in the columns of the Times long
extracts from the Report of the Public Schools
Commission, at a time when I had been assured that
it was not yet printed, and had failed to procure
a sight of it, or any information as to its leading
propositions. I had been watching for that Report
for months. I knew that it was settled, and that
proofs had long been in the hands of the Commis-
missioners ; and I had learned only the day before
that the delay was due to the absence from town of
the Lord Chancellor, who had not yet returned the
proof which had been forwarded to him. How a copy
of the Report had got into the hands of the editor
of the Times I could only surmise. The matter was
brought before Parliament, however, and it then
transpired that the Secretary to the Commission had,
on receiving the Lord Chancellor's proof, sent a
copy of the report to Printing House Yard by mis-
take, as the matter was represented by the Minis-
terial gentleman who explained it to the House.

2 54 Forty Years' Recollections.

On one well remembered occasion, when I had
obtained permission to read an important document
on the conditions of secrecy as to the source of my
information, refraining from copying a single line,
and returning it the same day, I was placed in a
terrible predicament. On my way home I had
called at the house of a brother journalist, to whom
I had mentioned in professional confidence my pos-
session of the paper, and at his solicitation I con-
sented to leave it with him for a few hours. On
applying for it, he startled me with the assertion
that he had not got it, and that I must have inad-
vertently taken it away.

I knew not what to think. Could I have lost the
paper ? That hypothesis was dismissed in a moment.
Then I must have carried it home. Thither I re-
turned in hot haste ; but the paper was nowhere to
be found. My wife had not seen it. Perspiration
stood in cold drops on my forehead as I thought of
the possible consequences of the paper not being
forthcoming when required. As it was not a
printed document, but a roll of manuscript, of which,
as far as I was aware, there was no duplicate in
existence, there was no possibility of preventing
discovery by the substitution of another copy.

Once more 1 hurried to my friend's house, where
I asked the servant who admitted me whether I had
a roll of paper in ray hand when I left the house ou

Provincial yoiirnalism and Jotirfialists. 255

the first occasion. I "was reassured by the woman
telling me that I had nothing in my hands when I
went out ; and, as I bounded up the stairs, I was
met by my brother journalist, who greeted me,
greatly to my relief, with the assurance that it was
" all right/' He had placed the roll of manuscript
behind a sofa pillow on a gentleman being announced
who had called on business, and afterwards had
forgotten where he had put it, and thei-eupon
endeavoured to persuade himself that it had not
been in his possession. That he had some difficulty
in doing so may be inferred from his making the
search which resulted in the discovery of the paper
where he had concealed it.

256 Forty Years' Recollections.

CHAPTER XYI.

THE HYDE PARK EIOTS.

Is it really a quarter of a century since the turf of
Hyde Park was trampled by howling mobs, and the
dwellers in Belgravia were admonished to go to
church by the unwashed of Whitechapel ? Time
has flown rapidly, but there can be no mistake
about the date. It was in the summer of 1855,
when the war with Russia occupied public attention,
almost to the exclusion of any other topic, that Lord
Robert Grosvenor asked the House of Commons to
discuss a bill which, according to the preamble, was
to secure the better observance of the Lord^s day.
The end which the supporters of the measure
desired to attain was good, but the means proposed
were bad, and ihey could not well be otherwise.

If the majority of the nation were agreed as to the
observance of Sunday, there would be no need of
legislation upon the subject ; and the absence of
such agreement creates a difficulty in dealing with it
which is greatly increased by the impracticability of

The Hyde Park Riots. 257

devising a measure that sliall be free from the
odium which attaches to the making of " one law for
the rich, and another for the poor/' Lord Robert
Grosvenor proposed to prohibit the running of
railway trains and steamboats on Sundays, and to
close every public place of refreshment from mid-
night on Saturday till Monday morning. The
objectionable character of such a measure is not so
obvious perhaps to dwellers in the country, or to
those who know nothing of the conditions of life
among the working classes of the large towns, as to
the artisans and labourers and work-women who
toil six days in unhealthy factories and crowded
workshops, and live in a couple of rooms, or, as in
tens of thousands of cases, in the one room which
serves a whole family for sitting-room, bed-chamber,
kitchen, and scullery. These, whether or not they
attend a place of worship on Sunday, naturally ask
why they should be debarred from a sight of the
green fields on the only day they can look upon
them, while the carriages of the rich convey them
wherever they please to go ; and why they should be
compelled to take water with their Sunday dinner,
while the rich indulged as freely as they pleased in
wine and beer.

The results of the discussion of the Sunday bill
were, therefore, such as might have been expected.
The proposal to prohibit Sunday excursions and

258 Forty Ytars^ Recollections.

Sunday beer produced a feelhig of the deepest ex-
asperation. By one of those widely diffused impulses
whichj in times of popular excitement^ set multitudes
in motion without previous concert, the masses of
the metropolis poured into Hyde Park on the last
Sunday in June, and, swarming upon and along the
principal avenues, assailed the occupants of carriages
with cries of " Go to church ! ^' Many ladies were
frightened, and some had their carriages driven
homeward ; but no disposition to riot was manifested
until the following Sunday, when the mob in the
park was estimated to number no fewer than
150,000 persons.

The consciousness of strength which the vastness
of the gathering inspired, the extent to which the
popular exasperation had been fanned during the
preceding week, and the efforts at repression that
were made by the police, then combined to produce
a tumult which, in Paris or Madrid, might have re-
sulted in the fall of the Ministry, perhaps of the
Crown. The crowds were no longer content with
advising the privileged orders to set the example of
a purely religious observance of Sunday. They hissed
and hooted such supporters of the obnoxious bill as
they recognized, stopped every carriage, and allowed
to proceed only those the occupants of which showed
prayer-books as evidence that they were on their
way to a place of worship.

The Hyde Park Riots. 259

Lord Palmerston was one of the many notabilities
whose carriage was turned back. The newspapers
stated that he was not recognized, but this is im-
probable, as he was one of the best known men in
Parliament. The statement was probably a mere
assumption, based on his supposed popularity, which,
as far as the working classes were concerned, was
very small.

The repeated but nnsystematic efforts of the
police to repress these disorderly proceedings had
no other effect than to exasperate the mob, and ag-
gravate an evil which they were powerless to prevent.

No attempt was made to clear the park, which
probably would not have been done without the
assistance of the military ; whose services might, once
called for, have been required elsewhere than in
Hyde Park. All that the police did was to make
wild rushes at intervals into the crowd, and use their
staves upon heads, arms, and shoulders in the most
violent and reckless manner. Many persons sus-
tained serious injuries from these assaults, which
caused the mob to give way for the moment at the
point against which they were directed, and to which
the multitude surged back when the police receded.

Scores of persons were arrested, and the station-
houses were crowded to an extent which, combined
with the savage mood of the constables who guarded
them, made the sufferings of the prisoners scarcely
s 2

26o Forty Years' Recollections.

less dreadful than those of the victims of Surajah
Dowla in the " black hole '^ of Calcutta. The con-
duct of the police was afterwards made the subject
of inquiry by a special commission^ by whose Report
it was severely censured.

On the afternoon of the second Sunday in July,
wishing to form an independent judgment of the
behaviour of the mob on the one hand, and of the
police on the other, I proceeded to Hyde Park, see-
ing and hearing on my way enough to produce a
strong impression upon my mind that, if the tactics
of the guardians of order remained unchanged^ the
day would not close without a sanguinary conflict-
Few of the men who were going the same way as
myself were without sticks, and I heard many remarks
as to the use that was to be made of them. In the
park, several men and lads were carrying under
their arms bundles of stout sticks, which they were
selling to those who had gone unprovided with the
means of defence ; and there was an unmistakable air
of resolve about the crowds that thronged the Long
Drive and gathered on the greensward that fore-
boded mischief.

But the counsels of wisdom had prevailed, rather
than the brutal suggestion of a cannonade offered in
the House of Commons by a military member, and
the conflict that had appeared to be impending was
averted. No carriages appeared, and no attempt to

The Hyde Park Riots. 261

disperse the mob was made by the police. The
adage that it takes two to make a quarrel received
a very forcible illustration. The multitude soon tired
of thronging the raiHngs, and scattered over the park.

Seeing a movement from all directions towards
the magazine, I hurried to the spot, where I found a
company of the guards under arms, and a momently
increasing crowd gathering in front. Suddenly the
oflHcer in command cried " Fall in ! " and in a mo-
ment every soldier was in his place, awaiting the
next order. There was no movement, however, on
either side ; the attitude of both was that of anxious
expectation, mingled on the part of many of the
crowd with a feeling of curiosity.

Early in the evening, when the throng was fast di-
minishing, I left the park by Apsley Gate, and crossed
the Green Park towards Westminster. The groups
whom I passed seemed to be proceeding quietly home-
ward, but a numerous section was movinar throuo'h
Belgravia ; and before I reached home I learned that
the windows of a large number of the supporters of
the Sunday bill had been broken, and some alarm
created by the burning of a quantity of straw, which
had been laid down before the house of the Arch-
bishop of York.

On the following day Lord Robert Grosvenor
withdrew the bill which had produced so much ex-
citement, and prompted such an alarming irruption

262 Forty Years Recollections.

into the region of palatial mansions and aristocratic
clubs; and thereupon the Sunday disturbances ceased,
not without having increased the popular jealousy
and mistrust of the higher orders, and created a
precedent for the conversion of Hyde Park into the
forum of the masses.

The precedent was not forgotten when Lord
Palmerston introduced his unpopular Conspiracy Bill
at the instigation of the French Emperor, who thereby
forfeited the transitory gleam of favour which the
English people had accorded him during the war
with Russia. Before relating what I saw of the
popular manifestations of that period, however, I
must speak of an incident which occurred at the time
of the Emperor's visit to London, and which has nob
been recorded by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold. On the
night following the arrival of our imperial visitor in
the metropolis, I was passing through one of the
bye-streets in the vicinity of Leicester Square, when
I passed a man whose bronzed face and grizzled
moustaches I thought I recognized as the light of a
lamp fell full upon his countenance on his stepping
from a cafe-restaurant frequented by many of the
French refugees.

" M. Alphonse ? " said I, turning round the
moment I had passed him.

That was not his name, but it will do as well as
another.

The Hyde Park Riots. 26

o

'^'^Ah!'* he ejaculated, with a glance of half-
recollection, " I think I have seen you at the gather-
ings of the Fraternal Damocrats. There have been
some ups and downs since those days, my friend/'

'^ Did you see the Emperor ? " I inquired, as I
lighted a cigarette at his black pipe.

"A has Vassassin !" he growled. *'Let him
take care. His crimes are not forgotten or forgiven
by the men whom they have forced to expatriation.
Let him take care when he goes to the City.''

He nodded significantly as he uttered this implied
threat, but I attached little importance to it.

" He bears a charmed life," I rejoined, laughing
as I went on my way.

After the imperial visit to the Mansion House,
there was a vague rumour that the Emperor was to
have been shot on his way through the City, but
that the intending assassin had been deterred from
the attempt by the fear of injuring the Empress.
The rumour might have been as difficult to trace to
its source as was the absurd report of a later period,
that the Prince Consort had been arrested and con-
fined in the Tower, but I was made aware of it by
its being mentioned to me by more than one
person.

" You couldn't get the silver bullet," I remarked
jocularly to the French refugee, on meeting him in
Tichbome Street a few nights afterwards.

264 Forty Years' Recollections.

" I ? no/^ he rejoined, first elevating his eyebrows,
and then shrugging his shoulders. " But I know
an Italian who would have had a shot at him,
but— ^^

"For fear of hurting the Empress," I said,
interpolating the motive which had been assigned
by rumour.

" Bah ! '* returned Alphonse, with a gesture of
contempt for the idea. '^ But what chance was there
with one of your cuirassiers of the guard riding on
each side of the carriage ? Those big fellows were
as good as a shield to the man.^^

The attempt of Pianori closely followed the
Emperor's return to Paris, and there was probably
not an hour of his life during the ten years between
the siege of Rome and the declaration of war against
Austria in which he was safe from the assassin's aim.

He had committed more perjuries than one, and
the oath of the Carbonari was one not to be violated
with impunity.

That there were Italian refugees in London
capable of meditating the design which Alphonse had
attributed to one of them, and of attempting its exe-
cution if a favourable opportunity had been offered,
was proved by an event that occured a few months
after the attempt of Pianori. Five Italians were, at
mid-day, in a coflfee-house in Rupert Street. Their
names were Foschini, Rudio, Rossi, Chiesa, and

The Hyde Park Riots. 265

Rouelli, the last being the waiter of the place, which
was frequented chiefly by his compatriots. Suddenly
Rossi cried out that he was stabbed, and a blood-
stained dagger was seen in the hand of Foschini,

Then a struggle ensued, in which Rudio, Chiesa,
and Rouelli were severely wounded ; and Foschini
quitted the house, walked quietly down the street,
and was never seen or heard of afterwards, so far as
ever became known to the public.

The affair created a considerable sensation, but it
remains to this day a profound mystery to all but
those whom it personally concerned. The eflForts of
the police to trace Foschini were unavailing ; the
wounded men evinced a reluctance to speak of the
affray which indicated the existence of something
that they wished to conceal ; and, as they all even-
tually recovered, no judicial investigation was made.

All the circumstances point, however, to a secret
society, of which the men concerned in the fray were
members ; and those who have read Wilkie Collins'
sensational story of " The Woman in White " will
have no difficulty, if at all acquainted with the history
of secret societies, and especially of the Carbonari,
in finding the clue to the mystery.

It was about this time that I was startled one
evening by hearing a hoarse voice loudly proclaiming
that the Emperor of the French had been shot dead
in his carriage while on his way to the opera.

266 Forty Years Recollections.

I put on my liat, and hurried to the residence of
the London correspondent of a Liverpool journal, to
whom I communicated the startling iatelligence.

" It may be true, ^' said he, with an air of thought.
"There is nothing, indeed, more likely. True or
not, it will probably be his fate, sooner or later.^'

Next morning the absence of any telegram from
Paris confirming the announcement proved its falsity.

The " hoarse unfeathered nightingale " by whom
it was made was an old man, who, as I afterwards
learned, was in the habit of hawking " catchpenny^'
accounts of similar character about the streets after,
the hour at which the last ordinary edition of the
evening papers appeared.

The air was full of false reports at that period, and
for some time afterwards. I was walking quickly
along Lambeth Walk one morning, on my way to
Westminster, when my ears caught the words " ar-
rested last night, and sent to the Tower,'' as I passed
a group of workmen who were standing at the corner
of a street. As I was wondering as I went on my
way who could have been the object of this attention^
on the part of the Home Secretary, I heard the name
of the Prince Consort mentioned by a shopkeeper,
who was in earnest conversation with his neighbour
before his window. What could it mean ? I glanced
eagerly at the contents-bills of the morning papers,
but saw not a line that enlightened me.

The Hyde Park Riots. 267

" It can't be true/' I heard a mechanic say, as I
reached the foot of Westminster Bridge. " I read the
paper while I was having my breakfast, and there
isn't a word about it."

The speaker was one of a group of workmen who
were reading a bill settino; forth the contents of a
morning journal, and I paused, in hope of hearing
something more.

"Perhaps they have kept it out of the papers,"
observed one of the men.

" What do they say he has done ? " inquired an-
other. " That's what I want to get at. "

" Intriguing with Russia ! " replied the second
speaker. " Making himself a tool of Menzikoff !
That's what them blessed Grermans are always a-
doing."

Later in the day I encountered the London re-
porter of a provincial Conservative journal.

" Have you heard this extraordinary story about
the Prince ? " I inquired.

*' Heard it as soon as I was up," he replied.
" That he was arrested last night, and sent to the
Tower. That was all, at first ; but before I could
get a paper, the story was improved by the explana-
tion that Lord Palmerston had discovered an intrigue
in which the Prince was engaged with Russia against
the interests of England."

From another person to whom I mentioned the

268 Fo7'ty Years Recollections.

rumour I received a similar explanation, with the
difference that Lord Palraerston, being supposed to
be a tool of the Russian Foreign Ofl&ce, was said to
have concocted the charge against the Prince, whom
he found an obstacle to the coercion of the Queen into
the policy of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.

How the rumour originated was a mystery. So
far as I was able to trace it, the canard, was hatched in
the Lower Marsh, but whether it emanated from some
Foreign Affairs Committee, or was concocted by some
mischievous idler for his own amusement, will pro-
bably never be known. It was no Stock Exchange
hoax, no exaggeration of club gossip. It had spread
all over Lambeth, and reached Westminster, long
before the Exchange was open, or legislators had
left their beds.

The rumour of a few years later, that Lord Palmer-
ston had died that morning, was first heard in the City,
between three and four in the afternoon. The
veteran statesman was suffering at the time from a
severe attack of gout, which, at his advanced age,
gave an air of credibility to the story. But, on
making inquiry at Cambridge House, I found that,
so far from being dead, he was so much improved
in health that he had gone out for a drive.

" There will be a tremendous crash when he does
go,^^ observed the London correspondent of the
Albion, when I commuuicated to him the result of

The Hyde Park Riots. 269

my inquiries at Cambridge House. '^ The system
•whicli he represents will end with him, and who the
coming man is to be there is not a sign to indicate/'

" There is Gladstone," said I, naming the states-
man in whom 1 had more confidence than in any
other.

" The country will not have him/' he rejoined.
" Some Whig stop-gap will be found for a time ;
but the man who can hold the reins as long as
Palmerston has held them has got to be found. He
is not discernible on either side of the House."

Palmerston's political vitality was as remarkable
as the physical \'igour which he preserved to his
latest years. Dismissed from oflBce by the Queen
for an act which should have precluded him from
ever setting foot in Downing Street again, he held
his head as high as before, and was able, in 1858, to
bring in a measure at variance equally with the tra-
ditional policy of the country and the sympathies of
that generation. The Conspiracy Bill was a bold
experiment in what it is now the fashion to call Impe-
rialism— an insolent expression of careless disregard
of the popular feeling, and of cynical contempt for
his supporters in Parliament. It was a piece of
exceptional legislation in favour of a perjured and
blood-stained usurper, who had ten years previously
enrolled himself on the side of an unrighteous com-
bination to exclude from political power the people

270 Forty Years Recollections.

among whom he had found a refuge; and it was
submitted to Parliament by a Minister who had
aimed at a dictatorship in havings to use the emphatic
words of Lord John Russell, " passed by the Crown,
and put himself in the place of the Crown/' Could
Polignac or Metternich have been bolder, or more
blind ?

The attempt to make Parliament a machine for
registering the decrees of the French Emperor
roused a spirit all over the country which Palmerston
must have supposed to be extinct. The masses of
the metropolis swarmed into Hyde Park again, and
demonstrations against the bill were made, Sunday
after Sunday, at which stronger language was used
than I had heard since 1848. That England should
be stigmatized as " a den of conspirators " by the
mouthpiece of a man who had shared her hospi-
tality, and made " a den of conspirators '^ of every
place in which he had lived, before and after ; that
the Government, instead of resenting such language
should assume a position so opposite to that which
the admirers of Lord Palmerston claimed for him,
of being '' a truly British Minister," and act as the
instruments of Napoleon, was a situation which
roused the resentment of every one in whose heart
there glowed one spark of patriotism.

The Conspiracy Bill so closely concerned the
foreign refugees in London, especially those of

The Hyde Park Riots, 271

French nationality, that I was not sui-prised, when
I went to Hyde Park to inform myself as to the
aspect of affairs, to observe the neighbourhoods of
Soho and Leicester Square well represented in the
crowds assembled there. It was said that the spies
of M. Pietri were there also to watch them, and the
hunting of foi'eigners, who were denounced as such,
furnished the '' roughs," who hang on the skirts of
every popular demonstration, with the most excitmg
episodes of the agitation.

I was walking on one of those Sunday afternoons
on the north side of the Park, when a man with a
pale scared face and a torn coat dashed past me like
a hunted deer. As I turned to look after him, I
heard a shout, and in another moment a score or
two of men and boys rushed on in the track of the
terror-stricken fugitive, yelling in tones that ex-
pressed mingled indignation and disgust. I saw
the man run down, and hastened to the spot, where
I found him in the centre of an excited crowd,
which had already received a considerable augmen-
tation of numbers. The white-faced fugitive, whose
garments were in shreds, was gasping and gesticu-
lating ; but no angry hands were now raised against
him, for a constable stood by his side, whether for
his protection only I am unable to say, as contra-
dictory stories circulated on the edge of the throng
with regard to the matter which had provoked the

2/2 Forty Years Recollections.

rough treatment which he had received from his
pursuers.

In the midst of the excitement created by his
unpopular proposition. Lord Palmerston resigned.
He had for once miscalculated his strength. He
had been so long the idol of the shopkeepers, and so
successful in overcoming opposition to his will,
whether from the Crown, as in 1851, or from Parlia-
ment, as in 1857, that he could see no reason why he
should not continue to rule to the end of the chapter.
But there was a weak point in his position which
overweening confidence in its strength had caused
him to overlook. The consideration that no very
great amount of statesmanship is required in a
Minister to whom the constituencies are willing to
give carie blanche, on the sole condition of attempting
no radical changes that might disturb trade, and
especially of not '' opening the flood-gates of demo-
cracy,'' does not seem to have entered his calcula-
tions . The policy was easy, and its exponent might
as well be a Conservative as a sham Liberal — a
Granville or a Clarendon as a Palmerston.

This indifference to party extended to the working
classes, but had grown up in their minds from a
different cause. These saw that they had no more
to expect from one than from the other of the two
great parties, and regarded with indifference the
rise and fall of Ministers that, whether called Liberal

TJie Hyde Park Riots. 273

or Conservative, were equally opposed to their en-
francMsement. There was not a statesman, not a
leading man in Parliament, to whom they could give
their entire confidence. Mr. Bright's utterances on
the franchise question were too undecided. He
never seemed to know — certainly no one else ever
knew — whether he advocated manhood suffrage or
household sufi'rage, or a suffrage limited to house-
holders who paid a certain amount of rent.

This unhealthy state of the public mind was a
source of anxiety to every thoughtful man. Parties
no longer held different principles, and it seemed
that they could be saved from confusion only by
their disintegration, and the formation of new com-
binations from their elements. The middle classes
were absorbed in the pursuit of gain j the working
classes were without political power. Even the
attempts, as feeble as they were fitful, which the
House of Commons made from time to time, to deal
in some fashion with the franchise question, served
only to threaten with obliteration the landmarks of
the Constitution.

To those who know no more of the working
classes than could be gathered from a very super-
ficial view, there seemed at this time to be an
amount of apathy on the part of the unenfranchised
to the questions raised by Mr. Bright and Mr. Locke
King, which was strangely at variance with the idea

T

2 74 Forty Years Recollections.

that they earnestly desired the franchise. But this was
a mistake, and one which could be made only by those
who misunderstood the bearings of the question
upon different sections of the people. There was
certainly no popular excitement, for the realities of
life press too heavily upon the working man for him
to become enthusiastic about trifles, and indulge in
jubilation about matters which have no direct and
immediate interest for him. There was not much
in any of the measures of Parliamentary reform
successively produced by Lord John Russell, Mr,
Bright, and Mr. Locke King, to prompt the work-
men of London and the large towns, which lead the
van in such movements, to shout and throw up their
caps. Every measure that made rating a necessary
preliminary to registration could be regarded by
working men as only an exemplification of "how
not to do it.^'

2/5

CHAPTER XYII.

THE LAST YEARS OF PALME ESTON^S DICTATORSHIP.

The climax of Parliamentary subserviency to the
Minister, which the constituencies acquiesced in by
condoning, seemed to be reached when a deputation
of the House of Commons, composed of men calling"
themselves Liberals, waited upon Lord Palmerston
with a humble request that he would diminish the
pressure of taxation. The dictator reminded them,
with almost contemptuous curtness, and in words
which might have been more strongly emphasized,
and yet been made pardonable by their truthfulness,
that tJiey were the guardians of the public purse,
and that they had sanctioned the expenditure which
caused the pressure of taxation of which they com-
plained. If those men had been real representatives
of the people, and had done their duty, they would
have reduced the estimates, and thus rendered a
diminution of taxation possible, instead of voting
the expenditure without opposition, and then beg-
ging the Minister to relieve the nation from the
pressure of taxation.

T 2

276 Forty Years Recollections.

Nothing could have shown more plainly than this
incident the need of Parliamentary reform ; and the
symptoms of a revival of popular agitation vi^ere
significant enough to induce Lord Palmerston to set
in motion the machinery by which the scare of a
French invasion was got up, as a means of diverting
public attention from a crisis which both parties in
that corrupt Parliament wished to defer as long as
might be possible. It is a curious chapter of the
national history, and one not very pleasant to con-
template, upon which I am looking back while
writing these observations. Whether there were
wire-pullers on the French side of the Channel as
well as on this may never be known, but the
relations between PalmerSton and Buonaparte render
it very probable that the gasconading of certain
French colonels was the result of collusion. There
can be no doubt, however, that the chief promoter
of the scare did not believe that there was any
reason for it, and that many of the magnates of the
land either shared his non-belief or disliked the
idea of French conquest less than that of democratic
rule.

When the scare produced the volunteer move-
ment, Lord Palmerston, who proposed to expend
ten millions upon coast defences, endeavoured to
throw a wet blanket upon the national enthusiasm,
though there were in England only a tenth of the

Last Years of Palmer sto7ts Dictatorship . 277

troops which Sir John Burgojne had pronounced to
be necessary for any resistance to invasion that
could be made with the slightest prospect of
success. Prominent members of the aristocracy
evinced the utmost hostility to the movement.
WTien Henrv Drummond and others, who argrued
that, if the danger really existed, the people should
be armed to meet it, proposed to enrol all who
offered ; to uniform them in belted gaberdines or
Garibaldian shirts, and arm them with pikes until a
sufficient number of rifles could be provided; the pro-
position produced a thrill of fear throughout ihe up-
per ten thousand. The late Lord Lyttelton protested
against the admission of working men into volunteer
corps, which would have constituted a useless expense
without them ; and the Duke of Rutland declared
that, if working men were armed, he would plant
cannon before Belvoir Castle, and raise a corps for
its protection among his dependents. Patriotism
prevailed over aristocratic fears, however, and the
volunteer force remained when the scare was for-
gotten.

Close upon the volunteer movement came the
excitement produced by the rejection by the House
of Lords of the bill for the repeal of the paper
duties. Since the time when the first Reform Bill
was rejected by that assembly — a time which the
pi'ogress since achieved seems to have pushed back

278 Forty Years Recollections.

into the dark ages — no question had produced such
a profound agitation in political circles. The im-
pression that the Lords had infringed upon the
privileges of the Commons was very general, and the
situation was felt to be a grave one. Very strong-
language was used in some of the Liberal jour-
nals. I remember using some myself; for, though
the Commons represented only a minority of the
people^ the minority and the majority were of one
mind for once, and it was obvious that a collision
between the two Houses, if pushed to extremity,
must tend to the advantage of the unenfranchised.

But the strongest language used by the press was
equalled, if not exceeded, by that held by some at
least of the speakers at a gathering of Liberal
members of the House of Commons, privately con-
vened at the King's Arms Tavern, in New Palace
Yard. The room was crowded, and, with three
exceptions, only members of the Lower House were
present. The exceptions were Lord Teynham, Mr.
Lucraft, and myself. The meeting had been so
hastily and quietly convened that I had heard of it
only an hour before the members assembled, and
there was a stir of surprise when a young man
with an earnest and intelligent countenance stepped
upon the hearthrug, and announced the unknown name
of Lucraft, since well-known as that of an active
and popular member of the London School Board.

Last Years of Palmer stons Dictatorship. 279

Mr. Lucraft was listened to with an attention
which one of his order would not have received
from such a gathering, at that time, under other
and less exceptional circumstances. His speech,
both as to matter and manner, was certainly one of
the best, if not the very best, that was delivered on
that occasion. He was earnest, without being
hurried by his enthusiasm into intemperate language
such as was used by an Irish M.P., now a peer,
who, immediately recollecting that I was taking
notes, turned his head over his left shoulder, and
said to me, in a subdued tone, " Don't put that
down."

The storm passed by, and Parliament again took
up the church-rate question, which had been urged
upon its attention any time within memory. I had
few opportunities of attending the debates at that
period, and I heard the greatest orators of the
House of Commons for the first time on one of the
Wednesday afternoons devoted to the consideration
of bills introduced by independent members. Mr.
Disraeli displayed more brilliance than depth or
solidity; he seemed to be aiming at a rhetorical
display, rather than earnestly striving for a principle,
or assiduously labouring to convince his opponents.
Mr. Gladstone disappointed me ; his manner was
cold and constrained, and his calmly flowing periods
were neither embellished with the rhetorical graces

28o Forty Years Recollections.

of the Conservative leader, nor made eloquent by
the earnestness which was impressed upon every
sentence of the powerful oration of Mr. Bright.
But the honourable member for Birmingham electri-
fied me. He impressed me with the idea that he
was the only speaker who felt sufficient interest in
the issue of the debate to speak earnestly; and the
man who is in earnest is always eloquent, however
uncultured his mind and rude his language.

'* He is the greatest orator in the House/' 1
remarked to a Liberal journalist, on leaving the
gallery. " If there was really a Liberal party in
the House, he ought to be its leader ; and he might
be, if the few real Liberals would separate them-
selves from the sham one's, and form a popular
party, before which the shams would have to retire,
or coalesce with the Conservatives."

"What would be gained?" rejoined the gentle-
man to whom I made this remark. "The House
cannot be better than the nation it is taken from,
and the more you widen the basis of representation
the more depressing will be the dead level of medio-
crity which the House will present."

"That result would not follow as a matter of
course," said I. " But if it did, an assembly of
mediocrities representing the whole of the people
would be infinitely better for the well-being of the
nation than an assembly of master-minds represent-

Last Year's of Palmerston s Dictatorship. 281

ing only a small minority. Desirable as it is that
the representatives of the people should be of
intellect and culture, it is still more desirable that
the people should not be misrepresented by clever
men who do not understand the social questions
which are pressing for solution, and whose views
and feelings can never harmonize with those of the
masses. Mr. Disraeli is one of the cleverest men in
the House ; but, if you concede, as you must, that
he knows less of the wants and wishes of the people
of Lambeth than Mr. Williams, you must admit
that Mr. Williams is a better representative of
Lambeth than Mr. Disraeli would be."

I have reproduced this conversation because the
view expressed by myself is one which is apt to
escape the cognizance of cultured minds, and which
will require earnest consideration in the future.
Manhood suffrage will undoubtedly give us an
assembly of mediocrities, if men of int^^Uect and
culture do not make themselves acquainted with the
social economics of the working classes, and thus
quahfy themselves to deal with the questions which
must soon come to the front.

At the time of which I am writing, however, the
franchise question seemed to be shelved by general
consent until the death of Lord Palmerston should
break the spell with which he seemed to have bound
the House of Commons, and which should and may

282 Forty Years Recollections.

have caused the unenfranchised to pray daily that
he might be speedily released from the cares and
troubles of this life.

Journalists, with rare exceptions, endeavour to
follow, rather than to direct, the current of public
opinion, except when the latter course is recom-
mended to their consideration by golden arguments.
During the dull years immediately preceding the
death of Lord Palmerston, when the invasion scare
had subsided, and the political vitality of the nation
remained dormant, it often became necessary to
explore the untrodden fields of blue-book literature
in quest of suggestions for articles, foreign affairs
being always safe subjects, and commercial questions
always welcome to a commercial people. To wade
through hundreds of pages of most uninviting
matter, perhaps heavily charged with statistics, is
not a congenial task ; but it is sometimes possible
to gather the raw material of a very readable article
from one of those azure-covered volumes, or even
from the small fry of Parliamentary issues known
as " white papers."

I had at this time transferred my services from a
Birmingham to a Liverpool journal, the Liberalism
of which was of a much less advanced type ; and
hence arose a more frequent employment of my pen
upon commercial questions and foreign affairs.
One day, when I was at the office of the Consul-

Last Years of Palmcrstons Dictatorship. 283

general of the republic of Uruguay, his excellency
entered the room in which I was sitting, with a
note in his hand, which, being very busy, he asked
me to answer, as the messenger was waiting.

The note informed me that a gentleman in the
hydrographical department of the Admiralty being
puzzled as to the geographical position of Colonia,
had sent a messenger across to the offices of the
Geographical Society, in Whitehall Place, for the in-
formation required, which it might have been thought
would have been procurable there, if anywhere. There
was no one there, however, who could say where
Colonia was to be found on the map, and hence the
application to the Monte Yidean consulate. I wrote
a brief note, informing the hydrographical gentleman
that Colonia was a port of Uruguay. This did not
suffice, however, for the messenger presently returned
with a second note, asking for the further informa-
tion, whether Uruguay was an independent State,
or a province of the Argentine Confederation !

The official ignorance of American geography
which was thus brought under my notice, and which
suggests that the examination of candidates for
Government clerkships might have been introduced
at a much earlier period with advantage to the public
service, was the cause at one time of a serious dispute
between the British Government and the republic of
Honduras. As the questions involved are not gene-

284 Forty Years Recollections.

rally known, and I acted at the time as the secretary
of the accredited agent of Honduras in London, a
brief statement of them may not be uninteresting
to some of my readers, and will not be altogether
irrelevant to the narrative.

The reader knows, of course, that there is a British
possession called Belize, but more commonly British
Honduras ; and a glance at any map of Central
America will discover, in the Gulf of Honduras, a
small island called Roatan, distant about a hundred
and fifty miles from Belize, and less than fifty from
the coast of Honduras. This little island was un-
inhabited until, some years before the dispute in
question arose, a score or so of coloured people from
Jamaica settled upon it; and when, shortly after-
wards, a British frigate happened to touch at it to
obtain supplies, the captain, finding it occupied by
British subjects, and being ignorant of its history,
took possession of it in the name of the Queen, and
hoisted the British flag upon it. On his report to
the Admiralty of what he had done, the matter was
communicated to the Colonial Office, and thereupon
the island was formally declared a British colony,
and a dependency of British Honduras.

The Government at Comayagua, on being informed
of what had taken place, at once claimed the island,
on the ground that it had been, under the Spanish
dominion, a dependency of the province of Honduras,

Last Years of Pa Inter st on s Diciatorship. 285

which was included in the viceroyalty of Guatemala ;
and, consequently, that it must follow the fortunes
of Honduras, and not those of Belize, which had
originally been a province of the viceroyalty of
Mexico.

Many communications on the subject passed
between the Earl of Clarendon, who then held the
seals of the Foreign Office, and the representative
of the republic of Honduras in this country. It was,
at the outset, contended by the former that the island
of Roatan pertained to Belize, and had belonged to
Great Britain from the time when that territory was
ceded by Spain. It was shown, however, from old
maps and official documents, that this was a mistake,
and that the term British Honduras, which had
contributed, if it did not directly lead, to the error,
was an official misnomer. The evidence was too
clear to be resisted, and Lord Clarendon negotiated
a treaty between the United Kingdom and the
republic of Honduras, by which the island of Roatan
was surrendered to its rightful owners.

It is not easy, however, to obtain a hearing for
the correction of geographical errors, and Belize
continues to be called British Honduras. But then
our statesmen have not been required to pass an
examination in geography by the Dean's Yard
examiners, and, as Cobden long ago complained,
they have learned more at the universities and public

286 Fo7Hy Years' Recollectio7ts.

schools about Troy and the Ilissus than about Central
America.

It was while my pen had to range over events in
progress all over the world, from the interminable
Schleswig-Holstein question to the war in Paraguay,
through the dearth of home subjects which interested
Liverpudlian readers, that I became concerned in
one of the most extraordinary transactions with
which my journalistic experiences ever made me ac-
quainted. I was asked by the London correspondent
of the journal upon which I was engaged to write
an article advocating the doubling of the duty on
chicory, in order to check its excessive use in the
mixture with coffee which had been authorized by
the Treasury warrant referred to in a former chapter.
Having reported the Parliamentary inquiry into
the adulterations of food, beverages, and drugs,
which had been presided over by Mr. Scholefield, I
was conversant with this subject, and able, therefore,
to write intelligently about it. On the appearance
of the article, slip copies of it were sent to the London
daily papers, most of which inserted it. Then I was
asked to write another, which was similarly made to
go the round of the press, urging the advantage of
the proposed augmentation of duty to the trade and
revenue of the country, as the importation of coffee
would increase in the same ratio as that of chicory
would diminish.

Last Years of Palmerston s Dictatorship. 287

When the question had been ventilated in the
newspapers for some time, a deputation of wholesale
dealers in coffee waited upon Mr. Gladstone, who
was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and repre-
sented to him the advantages that would accrue to
the revenue, the trade, and the consumers from the
proposed augmentation of duty to the extent of 1 00
per cent. An agitation for an increase of taxation
is, I believe, unique ; and Mr. Gladstone might have
been excused if he had suspected that a keen regard
for other interests than those of the revenue and the
public was at the bottom of the movement. He was
ignorant, it is to be presumed, of the real facts of
the case, which were known to only a few persons,
and were not allowed to transpire. He acceded,
therefore, to the request of the deputation, and the
duty on chicory was doubled.

The largest importer of chicory in this country
had a very large stock of that commodity at the
time when the policy of doubling the duty was first
mooted, and he had conceived the idea of makinsr a
fortune at one stroke by obtaining possession of all
that was procurable, and then forcing up the price.
The first step to that end was the creation of a
certain amount of public opinion in favour of the
augmentation of the duty through the agency of the
press j the second was the bringing a gentle pressure
to bear upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer through

288 Forty Years Recollections.

the medium of some of the principal importers of
coffee, whose commercial interests made them, con-
sciously or unconsciously, the ready instruments of
the speculator.

The Budget resolutions having been adopted by
the House of Commons, the merchant who had
been chief wire-puller in the business paid the old
rate of duty on his immense stock of chicory, which
he afterwards sold at the enhanced price to which
the commodity was raised by the doubling of the
duty, the profits of the transaction amounting,
according to a statement that was made to me by
a gentleman likely to be well informed, to no less
than 70,000^

289

CHAPTER XYIII.

THE DAWN OP A NEW ERA.

The death of Lord Palmers ton dissolved the spell
which had hung over the Liberal party for so many
years, and had held even large sections of the nation
in its thrall. Its announcement was like a thunder-
clap, startling old Whigs and Tories from the rest
for which Lord Russell had exhorted them to he
thankful, and clearing the political atmosphere of
the miasma engendered by so long a period of un-
healthy stagnation. The nation roused itself as from
a Rip Van Winkle slumber of years, shook oflf the
dews that stiffened its limbs, and entered upon a
new term of existence.

The ministerial changes consequent upon the
veteran statesman's demise occupied every jour-
nalistic pen on the day after its announcement.
TTiough the event had been expected for several years,
it found few persons prepared to indicate his suc-
cessor with any degree of confidence.

'' Who can tell ? " said the London correspondent

u

290 Forty Years' Recollections.

of a Liverpool paper, when I sought to elicit his
views on the subject. '' His death will break up the
Liberal party, and let loose the forces he has so
long restrained ; but as to a Grovernment that would
last three months, I don^t know how it can be
formed/'

" I expect Lord John Russell will be the man,"
I observed.

" If the Queen is allowed to consult her own
inclinations, her choice will be Lord Granville,^'
said he.

" Lord Granville is an admirable President of the
Council," I rejoined, "but he has not the stuff in
him that is required in a Prime Minister. Gladstone
is the coming man, I think ; but his time has not
come yet. In the present situation, the most likely
man seems to be Lord Russell."

" It is precisely because he seems the most likely
that it will not be him," returned my colleague.
"Nothing happens but the unforeseen."

Some of my journalistic brethren must have felt,
after they had written their leaders and London
letters, as doubtful of the event as the sporting
prophets who have indicated the probable winner of
the Derby or the St. Leger, and find that they have
named horses not selected by any other of the
fraternity. My own selections were Lord Russell
■for the Premiership, Lord Clarendon for the Foreign

The Dawn of a New Era. 291

Office, and Mr. Gladstone for the Chancellorship of
the Exchequer; and the announcement accurately
foreshadowed the event.

To myself, and to many thousands, the assumption
by Mr. Gladstone of the leadership of the Liberal
party in the House of Commons seemed to promise
the inauguration of a new era. It was known that
he was as favourable to the revision and enlargement
of the representation cf the people in Parliament as
Palmerston had been opposed to such changes, and
the working classes hailed his accession to the
Premiership with gladness and hope. Those ame-
liorations of the laws for which they had looked in
vain during so many years of Whig rule, when
electoral reform was said to be deferred in favour
of legal reforms that -were only talked about, had to
be preceded by the enfranchisement of the class
whose welfare required them ; and Mr. Gladstone,
on his part, was conscious that he could not carry
the important measures which he contemplated
without first strengthening his hands by a con-
siderable extension of the franchise and redistribu-
tion of seats.

The situation differed very materially, however,
from that which existed in 1831-2. Then the Com-
mons and the people were agreed, and the only
obstacle to the realization of the Ministerial scheme
of Parliamentary reform was the antagonism of the
u 2

292 Forty Years Recollections.

Lords, whicli, if pushed to extremity, could be over-
come by the creation of Peers who would support
the propositions of the Government. In 1866 the
Commons were as much opposed to electoral changes
as the Lords ; and, if they persisted in their an-
tagonism to changes which the people desired, the
Constitution would be tied up in a Gordian knot
which might have to be severed by the sword.

This was a possible contingency, however, which
it was too early to touch upon in type, while the
measure of Parliamentary reform to be proposed by
the Russell-Gladstone Ministry was unknown, and
the pliability of the House of Commons untested.
My hope of the immediate success of a reforming
policy was very faint, however, for it was easy to
foresee that any measure that was small enough to
find favour with the worst House that was ever
elected would prove too small to satisfy the un-
enfranchised majority of the people. What the
Radicals most feared was, that the measure would be
made small enough to induce the House to accept
it, in view of the alternative of having to accept a
much more comprehensive one in the following
session; and that then, in the absence of any efficient
organization of the unenfranchised, the question
would be considered settled for another quarter of a
century.

It appeared to me more probable, however, that

The Dawn of a New Era. 293

Mr. Gladstone would not consent to the production
of a measure so small as to be self-stultifying, and
that the coming Reform Bill would be only just
small enough to enable its promoters to claim for it
the character of a moderate measure, and yet large
enough to cause the House of Commons to reject it.
Regarding the fall of the Ministry as a less serious
calamity than the indefinite postponement of the com-
plete enfranchisement of the people, I thought much
more of the probable consequences of the rejection
of the measure than of the possible results of its
becoming law. Would the responsible advisers of
the Sovereign counsel her to dissolve Parliament ?
Was there any prospect of a Radical majority being
elected by the existing constituencies ? If the
House, representing the minority of the nation,
would not yield, would the majority submit to their
exclusion ? These were some of the questions which
I asked myself.

The measure produced was a very moderate one.
Mr. Gladstone probably thought that it was mild
enough to be accepted by the most reactionary
House that had ever been elected by that genera-
tion, and that it would suffice to give him a majority
that would enable him to deal successfully with the
Irish question. But the Ministerial majority that
Palmerston had commanded would not give its
adhesion to Mr. Gladstone, unless he would consent

294 Forty Years' Recollections.

to walk in his predecessor's footsteps. Mr. Horsman,
Mr. Bouverie, Mr. Lowe, and thirty or forty more,
seceded from the Iriberal ranks, and proclaimed
their resolve to oppose to the utmost any proposi-
tion for the enfranchisement of the working classes.

Mr. Bright compared the seceders to the followers
of David when he retired to the cave of Adullam ;
'^ and every one that was in distress, and every one
that was in debt, and every one that was discon-
tented, gathered themselves unto him.'^ ^ As the
new Tory-Whig party had no leader, witty Mr.
Bernal Osborne likened it to a Skye terrier. "You
can't tell," said he, " which is the head, and which
is the tail." The reactionists would perhaps have
been without a name even, as well as ■ without a
leader, if Mr. Bright's description of them had not
suggested the term Adullamites, which I believe I
was the first to apply to them, in an article which I
wrote for the Liverpudlian organ of moderate and
independent Liberalism on the day after the de-
bate.

The bill being defeated by the combination of the
Conservatives and the Adullamites, the Russell-
Gladstone Ministry resigned, and left their oppo-
nents to stand or fall before the current of popular
feeling which was beginning to set in.

The diluted character of the Liberalism of the
' 1 Samuel xxii. 2.

The Dawn of a Neij Era. 295

middle classes of Liverpool rendered it a matter of
some difficulty for me to treat the question of
Parliamentary reform in a satisfactory manner.
Both the Conservatism and the Liberalism of the
Liverpudlians are of a very moderate type, and
Lord Stanley would probably have been a more
acceptable Minister to them at that time than either
Lord Salisbury or Mr. Gladstone.

" Gladstone is not popular in Liverpool/' I was
told. '^ Dwell upon the muddle into which the
conflict of parties is bringing the question, and the
anomahes which the bill would leave untouched.
All that will be safe ; but deal very cautiously with
the ' flesh and blood ' argument. Indeed, the safest
way will be to give no opinion of your own at all ;
but contrast the conflicting opinions expressed in
Parliament, so as to show the impracticability of
settling the question.''

At this time, however, I was also writing the
leaders for a Shrewsbury journal, representing the
moderate Liberalism of the district, which was of a
rather Whiggish type, qualified by the extent of its
circulation in the border districts of Wales, where
the Methodistic tendencies of the population in-
fluenced in some degree its treatment of Church
questions. In discussing the situation, both before
and after the resignation of the Russell-Gladstone
Ministry, for my Salopian and Welsh readers, the

296 Forty Years Recollections.

disorganization whicli had been created in tlie
ranks of the Liberal party by the Adullamite seces-
sion was favourable to the direction in which I
aimed at guiding them. Before, they could recover
from the stunning effects of such successive blows
as the death of Palmerston, the promulgation of a
Eeform Bill, the disruption of their party, and the
defeat of its leaders, I had, I believe, convinced
them that Parliamentary reform was a necessity of
the times, and that the Adullamites were the worst
enemies of the Constitution and the Crown,

After the Russell-Gladstone Ministry had re-
signed, I ventured to draw attention, in the Liver-
pool paper, to the possible danger of a House of
Commons representing only a small minority of the
nation refusing to enact measures demanded by the
majority. I argued that, if the opposition to such
measures came from the Crown, it could be over-
come by the power of the Commons to refuse
supplies ; and if it proceeded from the Lords, as in
1831, by the creation of new peers, pledged to
support the Ministerial propositions ; but, if it came
from the Commons, there was no remedy short of
revolution, the theory of the Constitution being
that that House represented the entire nation.

This argument was a novel one, to that generation
at least, and it attracted considerable attentionj
both in and beyond the district in which the journal

The Daw 71 of a New E7'a. 297

circulated that gave it publicity. Thoughtful men,
whether Liberals or Conservatives, who had studied
the working of the Constitution, acknowledged its
cogency ; Eadicals, whether thinkers or not, were
pleased with it as one that would be likely to
impress the minds of the ruling classes with a due
sense of the danger of an obstinate resistance to the
popular will.

David Urquhart did me the honour of republish-
ing the article in the Diplomatic Review, and makmg
it the ground of a characteristically intemperate
attack upon me in that publication, in which I was
stigmatized as " either an imbecile or a traitor."
The House of Commons, according to Urquhart,
was powerless ; so was the House of Lords ; so was
the Crown. The only real power in the State was
that of the Minister, who was a tool of the Cabinet
of St. Petersburg.

Knowing that the publication in which this
outrageous attack appeared had a very limited
circulation, being read by very few persons outside
the Foreign Affairs Committees, I took no notice of
it ; but some years afterwards, when I called at the
office to make an inquiry concerning the manner in
which Urquhart proposed to deal with my letter on
the extraordinary statements of the Abbe Defourny,
mentioned in a former chapter, I recalled the matter
to the mind of the gentleman whom I met there.

298 Forty Year's' Recollections.

and informed him that I was the writer of the
article upon which Urquhart had poured out the
vials of his wrath.

" You were given a choice of epithets/^ he
observed, with a smile.

'* That is of no consequence/' I rejoined. " The
serious aspect of the charge consists in the light
which it throws upon the manner in which the like
accusation has been hurled by Mr. Urquhart against
more distinguished men. By an 'imbecile or a
traitor' it was intended to be conveyed that I was
either too shallow-minded to be conscious that I
was playing into the hands of Russia, or that I had
taken a bribe from that Power. Now, if Mr.
Urquhart can be so egregiously mistaken in my
case, may he not be equally wrong with regard to
Palmerston, Kossuth, Cavour, and Mazzini ? "

" Every one," was the reply, '^ who acts so as to
serve the purposes of Russia, whether consciously or
unconsciously, is a Russian agent."

" That is intelligible," said I. " It is a pity that
the explanation is not appended, as a note, to every
denunciation fulminated from East Temple Cham-
bers. It would serve to show the value of the
denunciation, which may be the reason why the
explanation is not given. But, by the same process
of reasoning, Mr. Urquhart might, in a certain con-
catenation of circumstances, be stigmatised as a

The Dawn of a New Era. 299

Russian agent, as ' an imbecile or a traitor/ with as
much justice as he has accused others of being tools
of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg/'

" I can't imagine such a case," he observed.

" Suppose," said I — " it requires a little straining
of probabiHties, I admit — suppose the patriotic
labours of the Foreign Affairs Committees resulting
in the restoration to the Privy Council of the functions
exercised by that body in the days of the Tudors,
and the intestine troubles that might be expected to
result from the change prompting Russia to avail of
that opportunity to invade England."

"That is a view of the matter which I cannot
admit," he rejoined. " We advocate a return to the
ancient form of the Constitution, which would prevent
or punish treason ; while you support a system which
gives impunity to treason by substituting a Minister,
responsible only to men the majority of whom are
his avowed and pledged partisans, for Councillors
responsible to the Crown."

" But not to the people," said I.

" Oh, you are mistaken ! " he returned quickly,
and with an air of superiority of knowledge. '' The
will of the people was successfully asserted again
and again."

" The will of the barons was," I rejoined. " When
the masses strove to assert their rights, king and
barons combined to put them down. "What gua-

300 Forty Years Recollections.

rantee was there tliat legislation would be in accord-
ance with either the will or the welfare of the nation ?
Whether the Cabinet be an innovation or not^ is it to
be taken for granted that the system of government
by the Crown^ with the advice of the Privy Council,
would be as applicable to the England of the nine-
teenth century as to the England of the sixteenth ?
What legislation in the interests of the people would
be possible under that system ? '^

" What would be the difficulty ? '' he asked.
'^ Parliament," I continued, " has now to deal
with questions which the Tudors and the Stuarts
would not allow to be discussed ; and the House of
Commons would not submit to be snubbed now as
it was by Elizabeth. The Cabinet represents the
House, as the House, in theory at least, represents
the people; but the Privy Council might represent
only the minority of the House. Even if all parties
were represented in it, every important measure
would be the result of a compromise."

" It would probably be a very moderate measure,"
he admitted.

" Take the question of Parliamentary reform," I
continued. " Suppose the Crown and the majority
of the Council to be opposed to it, and a bill to be
brought in and carried in the Commons. The Lords
might reject it, and the Crown refuse to overcome
their opposition by creating new peers ; or they

The Dawn of a New Era. 30 1

might pass it, and the Crown interpose its veto.
The result would be a revolution."

"Just so/' he rejoined. "In such a case, we
admit the sacred right of insurrection."

" Your ideal perfect system of government, then,
is an absolute monarchy, tempered by impeachments
and revolutions," I said.

" Do you forget that the Commons have the power
of stopping the supplies ? " he asked.

" Oh no, *' I replied. " But the consequences of
such a step on their part would be the downfall of
the monarchy. Every department of the State
would be thrown into anarchy and confusion. The
clerks would leave their stools, there would be no
postal service, the army would be disbanded, our
ships would be without seamen, and no sound of
adze or hammer would be heard in the dockyards.
Then the Republicans would be at work, asking the
people whether monarchy was worth preserving at
such a price; and we should have a revolution as
surely as we should if the Commons had not the
power of refusing supplies."

There the conversation dropped, for neither of us
was likely to be convinced by the arguments of the
other.

Have I exaggerated the probable result of the
system which Urquhart advocated ? It was possible
only while the Constitution existed only in theory.

302 Forty Yeai's' Recollections.

and the House of Commons submitted to be told^ as
it was by Elizabeth, that its function was to vote
supplies, that its duty was to vote such as were asked
for, and that it should not meddle in the affairs of
the State. That system was shaken under the first
of the Stuarts, and broke down, di'agging the mon-
archy with it, under his successor.

303

CHAPTER XIX.

THE STORY OF THE HYDE PARK RAILINGS.

While the question of Parliamentary reform was
occupying men's minds in this country, almost to
the exclusion of every other topic,, events were in
progress on the continent of Europe which both my
professional duties and my political sympathies caused
me to watch with great attention. I had studied,
through all its phases, the question out of which
they arose, and which every journalist was expected
to write about, and did write about, whether he
understood it or not ; and the Dano-German war of
1865 had invested it with a degree of interest for me
which it had never had before.

My acquaintance with the interminable Schles-
wig-Holstein question had commenced nearly twenty
years previously, when I learned the views of the
German Liberals concerning it through my con-
nexion with the Fraternal Democrats. There was
not a member of the German section of that associa-
tion who did not regard the Elbe duchies as natu-

304 Forty Years Recollections.

rally forming a part of the Germany of the future ;
but the question was not regarded from the same
point of view in Downing Street and in Drury Lane.
The diplomatists made a much more tangled skein of
it ; and it was impossible for me, as a journalist, to
ignore their views and conclusions, though the pro-
blem involved in them was decidedly of a brain-
turning tendency.

'' This grows interesting," I said to my colleague,
when the news came of Prussia's secession from the
Bund. '' This act of the Prussian Government raises
a question far larger than that of the Danish succes-
sion and the shadowy claims of Russia."

*' Nothing will come of it," rejoined my colleague.
"The Prussian Ministers are puppets moved by
wires pulled by Prince Gortschakoff. The Bund
may be broken, but there will be only another
shuffling of the cards by hands bound to play the
game of Russia."

*^ I credit Count Bismarck with more patriotism
than the German sovereigns have ever shown," said
I, "and with foresight enough to perceive that
the unity of Germany is ' looming in the future /
and, as the means by which that long-felt aspiration
of the German people can be realized are limited,
by the nature of the obstacles to be overcome, to
war and revolution, there can be no doubt as to
which King William and his ministers will choose."

Ttie Story of the Hyde Park Railings. 305

" German unity is a dream," observed the London
correspondent, with a yawn.

"You said that of Italian unity/' I rejoined.
" Two steps have been taken towards making the
unity of Germany a reality already. The wresting
of the Elbe duchies from Denmark was the first ;
the refusal of Prussia to submit to the decision of
the Diet constitutes the second. The disruption of
the Bund, preparatory to the formation of a new
one, of which Prussia shall be the head, must follow,
if the unity of Germany is to be accomplished by
war, instead of by revolution."

" I think you are wrong," said the London cor-
respondent. " Mr. Urquhart says there will be no
war, and I have never found him wrong. Eussia
does not wish for war ; and Bismarck and Beust,
and the rest of them, being her tools, there will
consequently be no war."

Whether Urquhart knew, or only guessed, that
Russia did not wish to see hostilities between Prussia
and Austria, it is probable that he was correct in his
representation of the views of the Court and
Cabinet of St. Petersburg at that period. That
his prediction was falsified by the event was due to
the fundamental error of his political creed, which
attributed to the Russian Foreign Ofl&ce, by whom-
soever directed, an all-pervading and all-powerful
influence in every Court and Cabinet, from Lisbon

X

3o6 Forty Years Recollections.

to Pekin. Russia had no reason to wish for war,
because she had no desire either to see Prussia
prostrate at the feet of Austria, or the German Bund
broken up, and a new and stronger confederation
erected upon its ruins.

So far Urquhartwas right. But Count Bismarck
was not likely to betray German interests in order
to serve the aims of Russia, or of any other foreign
Power ; and it was by supposing the contrary that
Urquhart was led into the utterance of a prediction
that was not to be fulfilled.

I was assured, however, that his confident an-
ticipation of the maintenance of peace was shared
by the German merchants in Liverpool, and that
only a few days before the Prussian armies poured
through the defiles of the Bohemian mountains.
The wish was probably father to the thought ; for
commercial considerations stand before all others in
Liverpool, as much now as they did in the bad old
slave-dealing days.

" They care for nothing but cotton/' said a
gentleman who was well acquainted with the
Liverpudlian mind. " They would have the Queen's
speech left out of the paper rather than a consular
report on the capabilities of a new cotton-field."

It is not an easy task for a journalist, whatever
his politics may be, to express convictions that will
harmonize at all times with the tendencies of

The Story of the Hyde Park Railings. 307

thought in Liverpool, and especially as regards
foreign politics. War and revolution must not be
hinted at, or announced as imminent, because such
events interfere with the operations of commerce.
When they occur, they must be treated with special
reference to the cotton trade. The civil war in the
United States was strictly iahoo to me on that
account. The Schleswig-Holstein question was one
that any number of columns might have been
written about ; but the larger German question that
grew out of it had to be touched very tenderly.

Hostilities commenced within a week after the
announcement of the founder of the Foreign Affairs
Committees that there would be no war, because
Russia wished for peace, was communicated to me
by his friend and disciple. I watched their progress
with great interest, not only on account of the poli-
tical questions involved, but also for their bearing on
the views which I had expressed in type five years
previously as to the value of fortresses for coast and
frontier defence. I was anxious to see whether the
Prussian generals would repeat the errors of the
great Frederick a hundred years previously, and
stand knocking their heads against the walls of
Koniggratz and Josephstadt a longer time than it
would take them to march to Vienna. The results
showed that Von Moltke was a better tactician than
Mr. Carlyle's hero, and that the views I had
X 2

3o8 Forty Years Recollections.

expressed wlien discussing tlie Palmerstonian pro-
ject of defence were as sound as they could have
been if I had studied in the best military colleges ;
perhaps much more so, for the reason that explains
the discomfiture of a skilled fencer by one who has
never handled foil or sword before.

I was soon recalled to questions of more im-
mediate interest, however, by the agitation for
Parliamentary reform, which during the autumn of
1866 began to once more assume a threatening
character. The period between the resignation of
the Eussell-Gladstone Ministry and the opening of
Parliament in the following year was one of such
excitement and suspense as the nation had not
known since 1848. No one could tell how far we
were from the verge of revolution. We were not
far from it on the evening when the Hyde Park
railings wei'e demolished. The sterling common
sense of Englishmen availed, however, to avert a
collision and a crash that in France would have
been inevitable. Mr. Beales remonstrated with a
strong force behind him ; Mr. Walpole shed tears,
and yielded. The police were withdrawn from a
position which they could not have held long,
unless supported by troops, and the mob surged
triumphantly over the park.

The demolition of the Hyde Park railings has
generally been ascribed to the Reformers, and there

The Story of the Hyde Park Railuigs. 309

can be little doubt that it was the work of men who
sympathized with them, aided by the " roughs "
who assemble upon every occasion that promises
riot and disorder. But there is an error in the sup-
position that the long breach in the railings was
made by the men who marched to Hyde Park with
bands and banners, with the intention of making a
demonstration there in favour of Parliamentary re-
form.

I was on my way to the park on that eventful
evening, some time before the assault on the rail-
ings, and met the procession in Grosvenor Place,
marching four abreast, and in admirable order, with
bands playing the quaint air known as John Brown's
Hymn.

'' What is up ? " I asked, as I fell into the rear of
the column.

" The park gates are closed/* was the reply of the
man I addressed.

" Where to now ? " was my next question.

" Trafalgar Square," was the concise response ;
and on we tramped.

At the bottom of Grosvenor Place a halt was
called, for the purpose of communicating the change
of purpose to the marshals of another column which
was there met, and enabling it to effect a junction
with the one I had joined. Some obstruction to
the traffic was created by this halt before we got

3IO Forty Years Recollections.

into motion again, but^ as many of the processionists
fell out to obtain refreshments, and no disposition
to impede traffic unnecessarily was shown, no vehicle
was delayed more than a minute or two, I assisted
in making a passage for more than one carriage in
which there were ladies, and met with no obstruc-
tion in doing so ; nor did I hear an offensive ex-
pression addressed to any one, whatever impatience
was manifested by those who were impeded in their
progress.

It was while the Reformers were on their way to
Trafalgar Square that the sympathizers with the
movement who had not joined the procession, the
men and women who were on their way to the park,
as on other evenings, and the " roughs '^ and idlers
whom the throng about the park gates caused to
congregate, attempted to force their way into the
park, and, after several skirmishes with the police,
overthrew the railings, and burst into it like a
torrent.

The Derby-Disraeli Ministry saw that they must
either yield to the popular pressure, expose the
country to the risk of revolution, or resign. They
yielded, and the result was the Representation Act
of 1867, which fulfilled my prediction of thirteen
years previously, that the adoption of a rating fran-
chise would involve the repeal of the Rating Acts. The
majority in the House of Commons were committed.

The Story of the Hyde Pa 7'k Railings. 3 1 1

by their votes upon Mr. Gladstone's bill, to the
principle of a rating franchise, and Mr. Disraeli's bill
brought the compound householder question to the
front as soon as it was propounded. If a householder
rated at five pounds, and paying the rates direct to
the collector, was to be enfranchised, why not the
occupier of a ten pound house the rates of which
were included in the rent ? No answer to this query
could be found, and the House drifted into household
suffrage as the inevitable consequence.

Another advance towards manhood suffrage and
uniform electoral districts was made by this measure,
proposed by a Conservative Ministry, and adopted
by a reactionary House of Commons. The next step
will be the assimilation of the county and borough
franchises, already " looming in the future," to quote
an expression of Lord Beaconsfield's many years ago,
and then the carving out of the country into electoral
districts of uniform pattern and equal population, on
the plan laid down in the People's Charter, will
become ine\"itable.

Always regarding political power as a means to
an end, and that end the amelioration of the condi-
tions of life, or, as Bentham expressed it, "the
greatest happiness of the greatest number," I
expected much from the Act of 1867, followed
as it was next year by the return to office, and for
the first time as First Minister of the Crown, of Mr.

312 Forty Years Recollections.

Gladstone. I need scarcely say that I was disap-
pointed. Mr. Gladstone either failed to comprehend
the requirements of the new situation created by the
'' leap in the dark " of his predecessors in office, or
he could not resolve at the right moment to adopt
the only course by which his popularity could be
maintained. He made, in some instances, a bad
selection of colleagues, notably in the case of Mr.
Lowe, who had not only done everything in his
power to prevent that enfranchisement of the people
which had made the Gladstone Ministry a necessity,
but had grievously insulted the working classes
during the debate on Mr. Disraeli^s bill by the
assertion that every man might have a vote if he
would live in a decent house instead of squandering
his wages upon gin and beer.

But the popular Premieres mistakes were not
confined to the original one of a bad choice of col-
leagues. The true policy, since 1867, for any Ministry,
whether called Liberal or Conservative, was, and is,
the amelioration of the laws affecting the working
classes by the removal of the blots which the toiling
millions naturally regarded as the consequences
of their exclusion from political power. But Mr.
Gladstone failed to perceive this. The one-sidedness
of the law of employer and employed was left to be
partially amended by a Conservative Ministry. The
removal of one of the blackest blots in the law of

The Story of the Hyde Park Railings. 3 1 3

landlord, tenant, and lodger was not effected by a
Ministerial measure, but was due to the independent
action of Lord Shaftesbury. The law of husband
and wife, which has been amended by wrong-headed
philanthropists in the interests of the so-called
weaker vessel until it has become a source of mon-
strous injustice to the natural head of the family —
the law of divorce, from the benefit of which the
working classes, who most need it, are practically ex-
cluded—these were left untouched, and remain a
source of constant irritation and growing discontent.
While I was watching, with a growing feeling of
disappointment, the course pursued by Mr. Gladstone
on his return to office with advantages on his side
which he had never possessed before, my attention
was drawn to the under-currents of foreign politics
by the discovery of a mysterious connexion between
Urquhart and the ultramontane Eomanists. I had
never met the former, and knew him only by repute
as the persistent denouncer of Palmerston and pro-
mulgator of the idea that the Ministers of the State
should be merely the private secretaries of the
Sovereign, the inevitable tendency of that system to
despotism being corrected by the power of im-
peaching and beheading Privy Councillors who gave
the Sovereign unconstitutional advice, and the right
of rebelling against Sovereigns who refused to be
guided by advice in accordance with the Constitution.

314 Forty Years Recollections.

In 1868 I did not know whether Urquhart was a
Protestant or a Romanist, a Voltairean or a Mussul-
man, though his admiration of everything Turkish
had at one time led me to suspect that his mind had
received a Mohammedan tinge during his residence
at Constantinople and his travels through Ottoman
territories. But when I saw the pages of the
Diplomatic Review filled, month after month, with
abuse of every political celebrity who was not either
a Romanist or a Turk, mingled with extravagant
eulogy of the Pope and mysterious references to
some council that was to settle all the outstanding
questions of the day, I could not avoid the conclusion
that the writer must be either a Romanist or a rival
of the eccentric Ackerly/

That he was not a Romanist I was assured by a
journalist who was both a member of that communion
and his friend and disciple. But I was not long in
discovering that the Council was the CEcumenical,

' The present generation may require to be informed that
Ackeily was an eccentric naval lieutenant who claimed to have
invented a wonderful lamp, which possessed the property of
curing all diseases, and was named by him the " Lamp of Life.'
He sometimes made an appearance on the platform at political
meetings, whence he spoke for a few minutes on the question of
the occasion, but invariably strayed from it to the " Lamp of
Life." Mysterious advertisements in cipher were occasionally
inserted by him in the evening journals, these also referring, as
far as they were intelligible, to his alleged discovery.

The Story of the Hyde Park Railings. 3 1 5

from which so much was expected at that time bv the
friends of the Papacy. My attention was directed
by the discovery to the proceedings of that assembly,
the objects of which were declared, by the bull con-
vening it, to be the securing of the integrity of the
Catholic faith, the enforcement of respect for religion
and the ecclesiastical laws, the improvement of public
morals, the establishment of peace and concord, and
the removal of all the evils that afflict society.
Grand aims were some of these, and worthy of the
support of all good men; but the true meaning cf
the language in which they were announced could
be read between the lines.

The Council met towards the close of the fol-
lowing year. What was the product of its labours ?
Did it improve public morals, establish peace and
concord, and remove all the evils that afflict society ?
Did it accomplish any one of those objects, or even
propound any feasible plan for its realization ? On
the contrary, its sole outcome was the doctrine
of Papal infallibility, the promulgation of which
brought about the Old Catholic schism in Germany,
and was followed, immediately after the rising of the
Council, by a decree of the Vatican which was at
once a challenge and a menace. The Papal bull
hatcB sententice was a spiritual lasso cast about the
throat of every Catholic, who found himself thence-
forward unable to read any book, the perusal of

3i6 Forty Years' Recollections.

which was forbidden by the Pope, or to question
any utterance of the Vatican oracle upon any subject,
without rendering himself liable to excommunication .

Three or four years afterwards, when the struggle
between the Romish clergy and the State reached
Switzerland, and caused dissension and strife at
Berne and Geneva, an appeal was addressed by the
former to foreign Catholic Powers in terms which
brought it under the notice of the Federal Govern-
ment. Urquhart, who was then residing at Geneva,
and the Abbe Collet, an ultramontane French priest,
also staying in that city, were arrested on suspicion
of being the authors and promulgators of the appeal,
whereupon the Abbe Defourny, who had taken care
by remaining at Beaumont not to put himself within
the reach of the Swiss police, addressed a letter to
the President of the Republic, acknowledging that
he was the author of the document. Urquhart was
discharged; but the Abbe Collet, who was proved to
have circulated the appeal from Geneva, was ex-
pelled forthwith from Swiss territory.

The Protestantism of David Urquhart (if he was
a Protestant) must have been of a very peculiar
type. It never prompted him to advocate the cause
of Protestantism, or of a Protestant State. Those
who came under his ban were invariably Protestants,
or Catholics whom the priests would not acknowledge
as being within the fold of the Romish Church.

M

CHAPTER XX.

THE POPULAR LITEEATUEE OF THE PRESENT DAY.

During a temporary cessation of my journalistic
occupations, I renewed my connexion with the
periodical press, as a contributor of stories of adven-
ture to publications circulating very extensively
among boys and young men, and subsequently con-
tinued it for a time as the editor of one of them. A
great improvement had been effected in this depart-
ment of our most popular literature during the
interval which had elapsed since my former con-
nexion with it. The enormous multiplication of
readers, and the success which had rewarded the
publishers who enlisted in their services such writers
of fiction as Miss Braddon and Mr. W. H. Ains-
worth, had given the incentive, at the same time that
they increased the profits of the proprietors and
raised the rate of remuneration to authors.

The obscure writers for the preceding generation
had been succeeded, as contributors of fiction to the
penny periodicals, by the authors just named, and by

3i8 Forty Years Recollections.

Thomas Miller, one of the best descriptive poets of
the age, as well as a novelist of more than average
ability; Watts Phillips, the dramatist; Captain
Mayne Reid, whose exciting stories of life and ad-
venture among the wild tribes of the American
prairies are read by boys with such avidity ; Mr.
Percy St. John and Mr. Vane St. John, brothers of
the author of '' Purple Tints of Paris ; " Mr. Edmund
Yates, the author of numerous novels to be found
on the shelves of Mudie's library; Mr. James
Greenwood, the author of '' Low Life Deeps," who
had achieved a peculiar distinction a few years pre-
viously by undergoing the ordeal of a night in the
casual ward of Lambeth workhouse, in order to
qualify himself to relate his experiences in the
ccV-nin3 of an evening journal ; Townsend, the
veteran dramatist; Mr. Charles H. Ross, editor of
Judy ; and, last, though not least in repute or talent
Mr. G. A. Sala.

Townsend and Hildyard, both deceased, the two
St. Johns, Mr. Greenwood, and Mr. Ross, were
among the contributors of serial stories to the
publications with which I was connected at the
period referred to in the beginning of this chapter.
The literary quality of the stories was very much
superior to that of the fictions issued forty years
ago, though the latter were read more by adults
than by boys; and the former were written especially

Popular Literahire of tlie Present Day. 3 1 9

for the hundreds of thousands of boy readers whom
the increased diffusion of a taste for reading had
called into existence during the interval. Without
any lowering of the moral tone, they presented more
faithful transcripts of real life ; while they avoided
equally the sensualism of the school of Eugene Sue,
and the mawkish sentimentality of the Minerva
library novels of our fathers' days, they abounded
in the sensational element.

Persons who regard the reading of even the best
works of fiction as at the least a waste of time that
might be better employed seem to regard sensational
incidents as peculiar to what they call " penny
dreadfuls," and even many novel readers have a
vague belief in the existence of a sensational school
of fiction, of which they regard Miss Braddon as
the founder. Perhaps they have not read Godwin's
novels, or the romances of Anne Radcliffe; or, to
go back to the early years of the English novel,
Smollett's " Count Fathom," a perusal of which
would convince any reader that the introduction of
the sensational element did not await Miss Braddon.
No chapter of modern fiction is more sensational
than Smollett's description of the storm in the forest,
which Ferdinand takes shelter from in the hut of
a gang of robbers, and finds the still warm corpse
of one of their victims concealed beneath some
straw ; the placing of the corpse in his own bed.

320 Forty Year's' Recollections.

"which saves his life, and his escape from the hut,
guided by an old hag- whom he compels to accom-
pany him through the forest.

What, too — coming down to a later date than
Smollett's time, or even Godwin's, and yet before
the publication of " Lady Audley's Secret " — what of
Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth's romances ? of "Rook-
wood,'' "Guy Fawkes," and "Old St. Paul's"?
What of Lord Lytton's " Paul Clifford," " Eugene
Aram," " Lucretia," and that splendid creation of
genius, " The Last Days of Pompeii " ? There are
few novels worth reading, indeed, that are devoid
of sensation ; both because the quality of a work of
fiction must be tested by its fidelity to real life, and
there are few lives that are unmarked by some
sensational incident ; and because the genius that
can evoke interest out of lives that have been from
birth to death unmarked by anything more exciting
than the first throb of the tender passion is of the
rarest order.

That there is a larger amount of the sensational
element in the fiction of the last fifty years than in
the novels of any earlier period is, however, indis-
putable ; and one of the causes is so intimately con-
nected with the periodical form of publication that
it ought not to be passed over. Writers of fiction
for magazines are placed at a disadvantage, com-
pared with those whose works are issued complete,

Popular Literature of the Present Day. 32 1

in two or three volumes, in having their work
judged by its monthly instalments ; and this remark
applies, as a matter of course, with fourfold force to
those whose stories appear at weekly intervals, and
in much smaller instalments, in the columns of a
periodical. They are compelled, by the require-
ments of that mode of publication, to work up the
interest to as high a pitch as possible at the close of
each instalment, and to keep the reader's curiosity
ungratified until the appearance of the next, or a
later one. This can be accomplished only by creat-
ing a succession of sensational incidents and effective
situations. Two or three numbers consecutively
•without excitement, whatever might be the author's
talent in the description of scenery or the delineation
(as apart from the development) of character, would
ruin the sale of the work, and damage the writer's
reputation both with the publisher and the public.
The fictionist who writes for a periodical requires,
therefore, a greater power of working up to
dramatic situations, as well as a larger share of
constructive skill, than one who believes only in
three- volumed novels at a guinea and a half, and
depends upon the circulating libraries.

When Mr. Wilkie Collins, more than twenty
years ago, announced his discovery, somewhat late,
of " a reading public of three millions which lies
right out of the pale of literary civilization," draw-

Y

32 2 Forty Years Recollectiofis.

ing, in so doing, a not very obvious distinction
between twopenny and penny publications, he ex-
pressed the opinion that the existing generation of
readers of the latter were unable to distinguish
between good and bad stoines, using the adjectives
with reference to their literary merits, and not to
their moral tone ; at the same time coupling with it
his conviction that "the very best men among living
English Avriters will one Of these days be called on,
as a matter of necessity, to make their appearance
in the pages of the penny journals. Meanwhile,"
he added, *•' it is perhaps hardly too much to say
that the future of English fiction may rest with this
Unknown Public, which is now waiting to be taught
the difference between a good book and a bad. It
is probably a question of time only. The largest
audience for periodical literature, in this age of
periodicals, must obey the universal law of progress,
and must, sooner or later, learn to discriminate.
When that period comes, the readers who rank by
millions will be the readers who give the widest
reputations, who return the richest rewards, and
will therefore command the services of the best
writers of their time. A great, an unparalleled pro-
spect awaits, perhaps, the coming generation of
English novelists. To the penny journals of the
present time belongs the credit of having discovered
a new public. When that public shall discover its

Popular Literature of the Present Day. 323

need of a great wrker, the great writer will have
such au audience as has never yet been known."

With regard to the strictures of Mr. Wilkie
Collins on the literary taste of the masses, the truth
seems to be that, while the very highest order of
genius is appreciated only by a comparatively small
number of readers, the authors whose works are
most in request among the subscribers to Mudie's
are also those which stand highest in the favour of
the readers of penny periodicals, so far at least as
they have been brought within their reach. Educa-
tion makes a considerable difference, not only in the
preference of one author to another, but in the
preference of one work to another of the same author.
Thus, the under-current of metaphysics in some of
Lord Lytton's novels, the knowledge of history
which is necessary to the complete appreciation of
his historical romances, make him a greater favourite
with the cultured few than with the many. Even
among the educated " Ernest Maltravers '^ is, as a
rule, preferred to " Rienzi " and '' The Last Days
of Pompeii." The masses who were reading the
" Dick Turpin " and " Jerry Abershaw ^* of Mr.
Miles when the educated classes were revelling in
Mr. Amsworth's "Rookwood" and "Jack Shep-
pard," and Lord Lytton^s " Paul Clifford,^' now
prefer one of Dickens's stories. Yet Dickens, in his
own walk, was as great a genius as Lord Lytton.
T 2

324 Forty Years' Recolledioits.

Theirs are tlie only two names wliicli can be placed
in the first rank among writers of the generation
that is passing away ; and they are the two whose
works have been most frequently reprinted, in every
form, even to numbers at three-halfpence, and,
therefore, the most extensively read by all classes.
Until another Dickens or another Lytton arises,
and writes for a penny periodical, who can say that
the best works of fiction ai-e not appreciated by the
millions ?

It is very doubtful whether authors of the stamp
of Lord Lytton and Charles Dickens will be more
numerous in the next generation than in the pre-
sent, but there will be no lack of writers of the
moderate amount of literary ability, which, com-
bined with adequate knowledge of the world,
suffices for the production of an interesting story.
The literary class multiplies in the ratio of the
increase of readers, though the proportion of authors
who obtain a hearing to the aspirants who fail is
very small. Those who have had no experience of
editorial duties would be surprised to find how
large is the number of persons who aspire to a
literary status, and imagine that they possess
the necessary qualifications. Still more surprised

would they be to find that the majority of tl ^?

et \
young persons who are attacked with the cacoetK, \

scribendi entertain the delusion that they are quali' ^

Popular Literature of the Present Day. 325

fied to shine in the departments of fiction and
poetry.

The manuscripts submitted to me during my
year's experience as the editor of a penny periodical
consisted almost entirely of stories and poetry, or
rather verses. The writers were, as a rule, unknown
to fame, and a large proportion of them were not
merely unpractised in authorcraft, but had not even
cultivated the essential studies of grammar and
composition. A short story, the writer of which
had not attempted to depict phases of life with
which he was unacquainted, or a little poem which
did not take too lofty a flight, could sometimes be
selected from a pile of manuscripts ; but the
majority had to be rejected. As the longer stories
were calculated to run through a dozen or fifteen
numbers of the periodical, the reading of them
would have been a terrible infliction if a large pro-
portion had not betrayed, in the first or second
chapter, an amount of incapacity for novel-writing
sufiicient to preclude the necessity of reading the
remainder. I never rejected a manuscript on the
ground of its being avowedly a first attempt, or
because the writer was unknown ; but inexperience
was generally the least fault exhibited by the stories
which were submitted to me. Impossible incidents,
colourless or conventional characters, vapid or ex-
travagant dialogue, often marred stories that indi-

326 Forty Years^ Recollections.

cated some idea of the manner in which a story
should be told, and did not offend very seriously on
the score of grammar and style ; and, as a rule,
incapacity to construct a natural plot and develope
character in a life-like manner was greater in the
same proportion as the story was longer and more
pretentious.

Editors would be spared much trouble, and aspi-
rants to record on the muster-roll of fame much
disappointment, if those who aim at the honours of
type in the department of fiction could be convinced
that there is much that is essential to success, be-
sides the desire to write a story, and the fancy that
they are capacitated to produce one that will not
carry its condemnation on its face. The would-be
novelist must first learn to write grammatically, and
to express his ideas intelligibly upon paper; and
when these acquirements have been mastered, he or
she would do well to go through a course of reading,
not necessarily of works of fiction (which it would
perhaps be best to avoid), but of the best pro-
ductions of the great masters of English compo-
sition. Having thus prepared himself, the aspirant
may attempt a story, though it is very unlikely,
unless he possesses qualifications for the task far
above the average, that his first production will ever
be printed; unless, indeed, he should achieve a name
by subsequent stories, and be so unconscientious as

Popular Literahire of the Present Day. 327

to publish such a crudity on the strength thereof,
and be rendered callous to criticism by the know-
ledge that his repute will carry to the libraries any
rubbish that bears his name on the title-page.

His chances of success will be greatly improved,
however, if he refrains from attempting to depict
phases of life with which he has no acquaintance,
and resolutely abjures conventional types of charac-
ter. Many a story that might have been pronounced
fairly good if the author had adopted this rule is
marred by its neglect, which invariably stamps it
with an air of unreality. The portrayal of charac-
ter requires the development of the faculties of
observation and delineation in a degree that is rare
even among experienced fictionists; but embryo
novelists would avoid those absurdities which editors
are often asked to accept as representations of
modern life and manners, if they would aim at
depicting only the section or sections of humanity
with which they are best acquainted. The man or
woman who can write tolerable English may, by
observing this precaution, produce a story that may
be deemed worthy of acceptance, and even achieve a
fair degree of success ; while its neglect may cause
the manuscript to be laid aside on the perusal of a
chapter or two, because the author betrays ignorance
of the manners and language of the classes or
vocations from which he has selected his characters.

J

28 Forty Years Recollections.

If the poetry, or rather the verses which the
writers supposed to be poetry, tried my patience
less than the crude efforts of would-be novelists, it
was only because the task of reading was sooner got
through. A score of songs, odes, and sonnets could
be read in a comparatively short time, even when the
caligraphy was feminine. But, oh ! the bad rhymes,
the defective metres, the sacrifices of sense to sound,
the absence of anything in the language or the ideas
to atone for such faults ! I sometimes mended both
rhyme and metre, when a poem was a little above the
average in other respects ; but such rhymes as
" mine '' and " time,^^ which represent one of the
most frequent faults of that kind, would be cor-
rected in vain when there is not a poetic idea, or the
smallest grace of language, in the verses which they
help to disfigure.

The correspondence column of a popular periodical
is, perhaps, more amusing to the editor than to the
reader*, who, however, may derive instruction from
the perusal, though he may not find it very enter-
taining. The questions addressed to the editor of a
periodical are multifarious, and all the works of
reference on his shelves, or in the reading-room of
the Museum, will not always enable him to answer
them. He will be asked, for instance, how to train
a dog, without being told what the animal is to be
trained for ; what the cost of binding a volume of
the periodical will be, without any style being

Popular Literature of the Present Day. 329

specified ; what he thinks of the writer's hand-
writing, the letter looking as if it had been carefully
written at the commencement, and finished in a
hurry; which of two specimens of caligraphy is the
best, the two being so much alike that they appear
to have been written by the same hand ; which is
the best colony to emigrate to, no information being
given as to the writer's occupation, means, or
pursuits ; and many equally varied questions, with
the like absence of the information without which
they cannot be answered.

Some of the letters received from boys are rather
amusing. " Sur," writes one, who was supposed to
be a machine-boy, upon the circumstantial evidence
afforded by the impression on the envelope of a
finger soiled with printing-ink. '^ I wont to be a
midshipman, but I dont no how to git apinted.
Will you plese tell me in yure next wot I must do.
I ham neerly fifteen, and no a little of sea life, as I
have red lots of nortical tales/'

''Dear sir," writes another, in the plain, bold
caligraphy of a schoolboy, "can you tell me why
apples make me red in the face when I eat them ?
I am very fond of apples, especially Ribstone pippins,
but when I eat many I get red in the face directly,
and feel hot and uncomfortable."

" Sir," says a third, whose education seems to
have been no better cared for than that of the
would-be midshipman, " Plese tell me what you

330 Forty Years Recollections.

think of the enclosed play, wich I have rote all
myself. I think it ort to be sensayshunal enuf for
any think, and if you think its propper, plese send it
to any theayter were you nose the guvner, and have
it brought hout. You mite say that all the boys at
hour shop will go and see it." This last epistle
accompanied the manuscript of a drama of the most
original and extraordinary character — a melodrama
of the old Adelphi school, and certainly fulfilling the
writer's description of it as '' sensayshunal enuf for
anythink."

Many correspondents write only to express their
approval or otherwise of the current serial stories,
and I once received a communication to the following
effect, written upon a dirty quarter sheet of post : —
" Mr. Editor, — If you dont give us a good highway-
man story, we shant take your pub. any longer.
So take notis. Jack Sheppaed, Dick Turpin, Tom
King, Claude Duval, Jack Eann, Jem Dalton,
Job Blake, Paul Clifford, Tom Rain.'' The
young gentlemen who had signed this collective
missive, probably a knot of machine-boys at some
neighbouring printing-office, were informed that
their wishes could not be complied with, and received
at the same time a friendly warning, founded upon
the names they had assumed, which, it may be
hoped, has not been without its intended influence
upon their lives.

CHAPTER XXL

THE FALL OF THE GLADSTONE MINISTRY.

During tlie time that I combined the occupation
of a contributor to periodicals with the task of writing
articles upon political and social questions for pro-
vincial newspapers^ I had little difficulty in shaping
my journalistic course so as to express my convictions
without clashing with the views or offending the
susceptibilities of the moderate Liberals, as the
Gladstone Ministry was as far from being satisfactory
to the Whigs as it was to the Radicals. It is a
curious fact, indeed, that I was more uniformly
successful in writing for a Whig journal, as the
Shrewsbury paper was, than in the articles written
for the Liverpudlian organ of independent Liberalism.
The cause seemed to be that the principles of the
former were more distinctly defined than those of the
latter, which were liable to modification from local
and personal influences.

There came a time, however, when an important
section of my Salopian readers questioned the sound-
ness of my arguments and rejected my counsel. The

332 Forty Years^ Recollections.

movement of the agricultural labourers for an advance
of wages was at tliat time fluttering the minds of the
farmers^ some of whom (the wish being father to the
thought^) consoled themselves with the reflection
that it would result in failure, while the more thought-
ful among them remembered my prophecy on the
subject, and shook their heads.

Years before the farm labourers' unions were
formed, or the name of Joseph Arch had been heard,
I had told the farmers of Shropshire that the time
was near when their labourers would follow the
example of the workmen in towns, and organize
themselves for the promotion of the interests, or what
they might conceive to be theinterests, of their class.
The prediction had now been fulfilled, and the
farmers were face to face with a difficulty which
their fathers had never experienced, or even contem-
plated as possible.

When strikes began to occur, and the farmers
were suS'ering inconvenience from the suspension of
ao-ricultural labour, I endeavoured to remove from
their minds the fallacy that the relations between
capital and labour are different in the case of agricul-
ture from those existing in the case of manufactures.
I argued that the position of the farm labourer, with
regard to the wages question, was precisely the same
as that of the urban artisan or factory operative, and
that the issue would be determined by the same

The Fall of the Gladstone Ministry. "^^iZ

conditions. If the labourers were demanding higher
wages than the state of the labour-market justified,
their movement would fail ; but if the farmers could
not replace the men on strike by equally competent
labourers at the existing rates of wages, the rise
would have to be conceded.

The soundness of this reasoning would have been
recognized at once by London builders or Lancashire
cotton-spinners ; but the argument was new to the
farmers of Shropshire, and it equally surprised and
angered them. At a meeting held at the Raven
Hotel, Shrewsbury, in March, 1 872, my views were
severely criticized by some of the bucolic speakers,
and the politico-economical grounds on which they
were based were questioned as broadly as they had
ever been by workmen in the early days of trades
unionism, when workmen were much less intelligent
and more imperfectly educated than those of the
present generation. The farmers could not see their
way to any increase of wages unless the owners of
the land would consent to recoup them by accepting
reduced rents ; and rent, I had told them, was as
much a question of supply and demand as labour.

I had warned them that, if the labourers' movement
failed, there were men among them intelligent
enough to discover the cause, and that discovered,
they would prepare for a renewal of the struggle by
organizing an extensive emigration. If it succeeded.

334 Forty Years Recollections.

whether then or later, and the farmers quitted their
farms, as they had stated they must do in that event,
the rent of land would be lowered through the
diminution of the demand for farms ; but they must
not expect any reduction of rent, whatever rate of
wages they might have to pay, while the demand for
farms remained undiminished.

As the effervescence subsided, I availed of such
opportunities as were afforded by new applications
of steam to agricultural purposes, or the expression
of large views by eminent agriculturists, to draw the
attention of the farmers to the new conditions which
steam cultivation was introducing into agriculture,
and to advocate co-operative farming as the only
means by which, with advanced rates of wages and the
augmented value of land, farmers of small capital
could compete successfully with their richer neigh-
bours. But the fruits of the suggestion are as yet
indiscernible.

The Gladstone Ministry, from which so much had
been expected by the working classes, was, in the
meantime, tottering to its fall. The Education Act
having, to some extent, disappointed the expectations
of the people, both by its permissive character
and by the inapplicability of its provisions to districts
where they were most needed, what was there in the
other measures of Mr. Gladstone to compensate for
its shortcomings ? From the point of view of the

The Fall of t lie Gladstone Ministry. 335

newly enfranchised working man — who, as well as
his father before him, had been for years waiting for
the result of Parliamentaiy reform in the ameliora-
tion of the laws which injuriously affected the moral
and material welfare of their class — nothing.

That is the true solution of the waning of ^Ir.
Gladstone's popularity and the recovered ascendancv
of the Conservatives, who, under the educative
process of Mr. Disraeli, had shown themselves so
pliable, that working men, caring nothing for party,
did not hesitate to throw the weight of their numbers
into the same scale with the Tory-Radical statesman's
genius and Lord Derby's sound common sense. Mr.
Gladstone showed himself as unable to understand
that his popularity was diminishing as he had been
to perceive the necessity of surrounding himself with
Radical colleagues, and introducing measures for the
amelioration of the laws affectinor the working
classes, when political power had been given to the
masses by the Act of 1867. While the Parks Bill
and Ballot Bill were in progress, and when it was
rumoured that Parliament would be dissolved as
soon as they had been passed, Mr. Monk took
occasion to note the increasing divergence of the
Government from the views of their supporters.

"I certainly think," he observed, "that their
policy has not been very successful; in fact, the
results of recent elections show how far it has

^$6 Forty Years' Recollections.

succeeded. They have not gained, but have lost
several able men since the last general election ; and,
unless they turn their attention to more important
measures, which are less obnoxious to the country,*
I am afraid that, when the next general election
takes place, not even the Ballot Bill will save them
from the disagreeable necessity of crossing to the
other side of the House/'

How much this apprehension coincided with the
popular feeling on the subject of the Gladstonian
policy was soon afterwards demonstrated ; but the
Premier viewed the consequences of the divergence
commented upon by Mr. Monk with as light a heart
as M. OUivier carried with regard to that fatal march
Rhineward which was to have terminated at Berlin,
but was rolled back with crushing disaster upon
Paris. '' Some of the questions raised by the honour-
able member for Gloucester," he observed, with irony
so marked that it occasioned a laugh, " are really of
great magnitude, and such as I hardly feel myself
in a position to enter into a discussion upon at this
moment."

I have quoted from Mr. Monk's speech and Mr.
Gladstone's reply because I made them the text of
an article written for my Liverpool readers, but ex-
cluded by the pressure of local and commercial
matter, from which I extract a few passages to show
1 Referring to the Parks Bill.

The Fall of the Gladstp7te Ministry. 337

how the situation was regarded by me, and I believe
by the majority of the nation.

''The remarks made by the honourable member
for Gloucester," I wrote, " represent so truthfully
the actual state of the case that the manner of their
reception by the Premier cannot have failed to make
an impression upon the public mind most detrimental
to the right honourable gentleman's position. It is
so incredible that Mr. Gladstone should be ignorant
of the nature of the measures expected from a
Liberal Ministry, as the natural result of the mea-
sures which he and his supporters assisted the
Derby-Disraeli Administration to pass in 1867, that
the working classes may be excused if they regard
him as a statesman who, having succeeded in reaching
the highest position under the Crown by popular aid,
is now disposed to kick over the ladder by which he
has mounted. These classes now form so large a
proportion of the constituencies that the existence
of such a feeling on their part would justify the
warning of Mr. Monk, while the manner in which
the warning was received must cause the political
prospect to be regarded by men of modenite views
with no small degree of anxiety."

After referring to the rumoar of a dissolution as
soon as the Ballot Bill had become law, I went on
to observe that " the disappointment which has
been suffered by the working-classes, and which

SS^ Foriy Years Recollections.

manifests itself more plainly every day, may help
to give a numerical preponderance to the Conserva-
tives in the next House of Commons ; but euch a
result, unless in the improbable event of Mr. Disraeli
being not only better disposed than Mr. Gladstone
to propose the ameliorative measures which have
been expected, but also to ' educate ' his followers
to the point of accepting them, would tend only to
hasten that disruption and reconstitution of parties
which is ' looming in the future.'

'' Before many years have passed, we shall prob-
ably see many ranged under the Conservative banner
who now support Mr. Gladstone, while the opposite
side of the House will be occupied by a new Liberal
party, acknowledging another chief than Mr.
Gladstone, unless he should find reason to amend
his view of the situation. Who the leader will be,
and what the extent of the changes demanded, if
the masses should be urged by Ministerial neglect
into the exertion of all the resources of industrial
organization for the purpose of creating a new
party in the House of Commons, are questions
which cannot be answered, whatever the anxiety
with which they may well be regarded.^'

These passages throw some light upon the causes
of Mr. Gladstone's rapid decline in popularity after
attaining the Premiership, and the restoration of
the Conservatives to power by the largest vote ever

The Fall of t lie Gladstone Ministjy. 339

recorded, except in 1868. It was not so much by
the estrangement of the religious profession by the
Education Act, or of the beer trade by the Licensing
Act, that the Gladstone Ministry fell, as by the
inclusion of Mr. Lowe in the Cabinet and the
neglect of those social questions the solution of
which had been regarded by two generations of
working men as the first fruits of the attainment of
political power by their class.

In looking back upon the period covered by these
recollections of an active life, and comparing the
present with the past, the progress which has been
achieved during that time in all that tends to the
moral and intellectual dignity of humanity is so
great, that I should be deemed the dreamer I was
thought to be forty years ago if I attempted to
depict the probable state of the world, political and
social, even a quarter of a century hence. When I
consider the rapidly developing intellect of the
nations that are foremost in civilization, the amount
of political power already possessed by them, and
the unrivalled capacity for organization of the Teu-
tonic race in particular, I cannot doubt that the
future of those nations is in their own hands, or
that, though there may be some mistakes and
failures by the way, they wiU so mould the future
structure of society, that the Europe of 1900 will
exceed, in all that makes the true greatness of
z 2

340 Forty Years Recollections.

Bations, the Europe of to-day even more than that
which we now see excels the condition of the same
nations half a. century ago.

The true greatness of a nation must be mea-
sured by the condition of the masses. Eome fell
because the masses of the Empire were poor,
ignorant, enslaved. This standard will be more and
more the criterion of national power and influence
as the working classes advance in education, so-
bi-iety, and union. Those classes everywhere con-
stitute the majority of the population, and the ratio
of their numbers to those of the distributing and
other non-producing classes will continually increase
as the progress of the co-operative movement, and
the constant tendency to employ larger capitals in
business, gradually diminish the number of the
small shopkeepers, always the least progressive
portion of the community.

The increased power of the masses will constitute
the best guarantee for the maintenance of peace
between nations, so essential to their progress, by
uniting the working men of all countries in a great
league of universal brotherhood, which will render
it impossible for rulers to array one nation against
another for the gratification of their own ambition
or territorial greed. The vox 'pojpuli will be heard
in louder tones year by year as the badge of political
inferiority is worn by fewer and fewer of the people.

The Fall of the Gladstone Ministry. 341

as education becomes more widely diffused, and the
intellectual powers more fully developed. It will
be heard more frequently and potentially in the
House of Commons, and then there will be an end
of the fallacies which now escape detection, and the
blunders that are made and listened to with as much
gravity as if they were the utterances of an oracle,
whenever questions affecting the moral or material
interests of the masses come under legislative con-
sideration.

Legislators, from whatever class selected, will
have forced upon them the necessity of acting in
accordance with the views and wishes of their
constituents, or of resigning their seats when they
cannot conscientiously do so ; and the result wiU be
those ameliorations of the laws which are requisite
for the moral and material well-being of the people,
and which have hitherto been neglected by Parlia-
ments composed of men who neither understand the
requirements of the people, nor appreciate rightly
their own position as representatives. "When that
time comes — may it come soon ! — the world will
understand all that was involved in the watchword
of the more intelligent and thoughtful of the
working classes at the time from which the earliest
of these recollections dates : — " The Charter is the
means ; social happiness the end.^'

INDEX.

AcKKBLT, Lieut., and the Lamp of

Life, 314.
AduUamites, origin of the party

term, 294.
Anti-Corn Law League and the

Chartists, 26.

Bailey, James Napier, the Socialist
lecturer, 16.

Barmby, John Goodwyn, founder of
the Communist Church, 54.

Beniowski, Major, and the Chartists,
109.

Bethnal Green, mission work in, 210.

Blackaby, James, the shoemaker-
poet, 30, 121, 141, 166.

Bright, Mr., on the franchise ques-
tion, 273.

on the church-rate question,

280.

Burdett, Sir Francis, and the O'Con-
nors, 171.

Bussey, Peter, one of the conspira-
tors of 1839, 112.

Campbell, Colin Murray, a Con-
cordist, 46.

\ Cardo, one of the conspirators of

I 1839, 109.

j Cassell, John, the publisher, 226.

Caxton communitorium, an unreal-
' ized project, 64.
I Chambers, William and Robert,
publishers, 195.
Charter Assoeiation founded, 101 ;

new organization adopted, 143.
Charter- Socialists, views of the, 40.
Chartist conspiracy of 1848, 143.

demonstration on Kenning-

ton Common, 135.

meetings, how reported by

opponents, 120.

movement, origin of the, 96.

Chartists, the, and the Anti-Com-

Law League, 26.
Christian Socialists, origin and views

of, 40.
Chicory, extraordinary transactioQ

in, 286.
Cleave, John, politician and pub-
lisher, 83,
Cobden, Richard, and the shoe-
maker, 36.
Communist Church, organization of
the, 54.

■ propaganda in England, 53.

344

Index.

Communist periodicals forty years
ago, 55, 72.

Communitive experiments in Eng-
land, 21, 50, 56.

Concordist community at Ham Com-
mon, 41.

Concordium, a visit to the, 44.

Conspiracy Bill, Lord Palmerston
and the, 269.

Cousins, Benjamin, and the Penny
Satirist, 84.

Croydon fifty years ago, 2.

Cuffay, William, one of the con-
spirators of 1848, 149, 162.

Defoueny, Ahbe, on the conspiracy
of 1839, 105.

Denvil, Mrs., widow of the tragedian,
86.

Disraeli, Mr., on the church-rate
question, 279.

Drummond, Henry, and the volun-
teer movement, 277.

Duncan, James Elmslie, the Socialist
poet, 49.

Duncombe, Mr. T. H., in error con-
cerning the Kennington Common
demonstration, 138.

Easthope, Sir John, and Feargus

O'Connor, 176.
Egan, Pierce, the novelist, 86.
Elliott, Ebenezer, the Corn-Law

Rhymer, 100.
Etzler's communitive paradise, 55.

Fall of the Gladstone Ministry, 334.

Farm labourers' unions and strikes,

332.
Finance, a curious chapter in, 286.
Fleming, George Alfred, journalist,

183,
Fraternal Democrats, organization

of the, 125.
Fraternization of Chartists and

foreign refugees, 129.
French spies in London, 271.

invasion, scare of a, 276.

Friswell, James Hain, a note from,

234.
Frost, John, and the conspiracy of

1839, 115.
Fussell, John, the Chartist agitator,

146.

Galpin, William, a vegetarian So-
cialist, 47.

Geography, official ignorance of, 283.

Gladstone, Mr., on the church-rate
question, 279; his Reform Bill,
293 ; his failure as Premier, 311,
334.

Greaves, James Pierrepont, the
psychological mystic, 41.

Grosvenor, Lord Robert, and the
Sunday Bill, 257.

Habmony Hall, socialist experiment
at, 18.

Harney, George Julian, journalist,
102, 183.

Hill, James, a co-operative experi-
mentalist, 63.

Hume, Joseph, denounced as a re-
actionist, 209.

Index.

345

Hont, Stephen, reporter and novelist,

87.
Hyde Park railings, story of the,

303, 308.
Sunday riots in, 256.

iTALiAlf refogees in I^ondon, 125,
264.

JoSES, Anna Maria, the novelist, 86.
Ernest Charles, poet and

journalist, 151, 183.

KiNGSLEY, Charles, and the Char-
tist petition, 130.

Meteyard, Eliza, anecdote of, 235.

MCes, Mr. H. D., journalist and
novelist, 86.

Mission work in Bethnal Green, 210.

Monk, Mr,, on Mr. Gladstone's posi-
tion in 1874, 335.

Moreville communitorium, Hanwell,
56.

Mnllins, the Home Office spy, hanged
for murder, 167.

Napoxeox III., unrecorded incident
of his visit to London, 262.

National Convention of 1839, 101.

Night march of Chartists, 1-45.

Noah's ark, curious discussion con-
cerning, 217.

LiNDKiDGE, James, an unknown

novelist, 87.
Literary institutions at Croydon,

197.
Little Bentley community, in Hants,

47, 54.
Lloyd, Mr., and the Salisbury Square

press, 84.
Lovett, William, author of the

People's Charter, 98.
Lowery, a Chartist conspirator, 111.
•Lucraft, ^Ir., on the paper duty

question, 278.
Lyttelton, Lord, and the volunteer

movement, 277.

Macdouall, Dr., his escape from
Chester Castle, 145.

Macmanus, Terence Bellew, an emis-
sary of Young Ireland, 148.

Oastleb, Richard, not a Chartist,
114.

Oborski, Colonel, a veteran revolu-
tionist, 128.

O'Connor, Feargus, his account of
the conspiracy of 1839, 112; at
Kennington Common, 137 ; his
early life in Ireland, 169 ; alleged
connexion with the White Boys,
173; Ufe in York Castle, 178;
last years, 182.

Oldham, William, the Concordist, 41.

Orange Tree, arrests at the, 163.

Owen, Robert, his personal appear-
ance, 14 ; libels upon, 18 ; founder
of infant schools, 24.

Owenian Socialist movement, 13.

Page, David, correspondence with,
186, 193.

A a

346

Index.

Palmerston, Lord, reported death of,
268; his Conspiracy Bill, 269;
last years of his dictatorship, 275 ;
his death, 289.

Paper duties, repeal of the, 277.

Parliamentary Reform Association,
203 ; proposal to stir up rural
districts, 205 ; conference in St,
Martin's Hall, 208.

Peel, Sir Robert, at St. Martin's
Hall, 247.

People's Charter, its origin, 98.

Petition, the great, 1848, 118;
truth about the fictitious signa-
tures, 133.

Popular literature forty years ago,
6, 77 ; of the present^ay. 317.

Powell, the Home Office spy, 150,
166.

Prest, Thomas, song writer and
novelist, 86.

Prince Consort, the report of his
arrest, 266.

Privileges of Parliament, a breach
of the, 248.

Provincial journalism and journal-
ists, 239.

newspaper proprietor, con-
versation with a, 241.

Public Schools Commission and the
Times, 253.

Rational Society, collapse of the,

62.
Reform Bill, Lord John Russell's,

244 ; Mr. Gladstone's, 293 ; Mr.

Disraeli's, 310.
Conference in St. Martin's

Hall, 208.

Roatau, a story of a blunder, 284.

Roebuck, John Arthur, and the
Chartist movement, 98.

Rose, one of the conspirators of
1848, 151, 165.

Russell, Lord John, and Parlia-
mentary Reform, 244.

Rutland, Duke of, and the volunteer
movement, 277.

Salisbtjey Square school of fiction,

89.
Schapper, Carl, a refugee artist, 128.
Schleswig-Holstein, a diplomatic

puzzle, 303.
Scripture readers' associations, 213,

221.
Seven Dials, projected barricades at,

165.
Stephens, Joseph Rayner, not a

Chartist, 114.
Strike and outbreak of 1842, 35.
Sunday question iu Parliament and

in Hyde Park, 256.

Tayloe, John, the Philhellenist,
102.

Peter Alfred, a letter from,

118.

Tillotson, John, author and journal-
ist, 231.

Ukqtjhaut, David, and the Foreign
Affairs (i)mralttee, 103, 108 ; his
denunciation of the author, 297 ;
his prediction of peace, in 1866,
305 ; connexion with the ultra-
montane Romanists, 313.

Index.

;47

Vegetabian dinner at Alcott House, AVbite Friends, their couiuionities

45. in Ireland, 55.

Vincent, Henry, the lecturer, 100. NVilliams, pioneer of sanitary reform

in bakehouses, 151.
Wilson, James, and the Assay Com-
mittee, 248 ; the story of a Trea-
Wak demonstration in St. Martin's sury warrant, 252.

Hall, 246.
Warden, one of the conspirators of YorsG Ireland, an emissary from
1839, 109. 148.

THE END.

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"We should be glad if any words of ours could help to bespeak a large circula-
tion for this handsome attractive book." — Illustrated Times.

The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Written by Sir Philtp
Sidney. Edited with Notes by Author of " The Gentle Life." ']s. 6d.
"All the best things are retained intact in Mr. Friswell's edition." — Examiner.

TJie Gentle Life. 2nd Series, 8th Edition.

" There is not a single thought in the volume that does not contribute in some
measure to the formation of a true gentleman."— ZJaz'/y News.

TJie Silent Hour: Essays, Original and Selected. By the
Author of "The Gentle Life." 3rd Edition.
"All who possess 'The Gentle Life ' should own this volume." — Standard.

Llalf-Length Portraits. Short Studies of Notable Persons.

By J. Hain Friswell. Small post 8vo, cloth extra, 6^.
Essays on English Writers, for the Self-improvement of

Students in English Literature.

"To all who have neglected to read and study their native literature we would

certainly suggest the volume before us as a fitting introduction." — Examiner.

List of Publications. 13

The Gentle Life Series {continued) : —

Other Peoples Windows. By J. Hain Frisavell. 3r(i Edition.

"The chapters are so lively in themselves, so mingled with shrewd \-iews of
human nature, so full of illustrative anecdotes, that the reader cannot tail to be
amused." — Morning Pest.

A Man's Tlioughts. By J. Hain Friswell.

German Primer. Being an Introduction to First Steps in

German. By M. T. Preu. 2s. ed.
Getting On in the World; or, Hints on Success in Life. By

W. Mathews, LL. D. Small post 8vo, cloth, 2j. 6^/. ; gilt edges, y. 6J.
Gilpin's Forest Scenery. Edited by F. G. Heath. Large

post 8vo, with numerous Illustrations. Uniform with "The P'eru

World " and ' ' Our Woodland Trees. " 12s. fxl.

"Those who know Mr. Heath's Volumes on Ferns, as well as his 'Woodland

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in the boudoir as well as in the library.'' — Saturday Review.

Gordon {J. E. H.). See " Four Lectures on Electric Induc-
tion," " Physical Treatise on Electricitj-," &c.

Gouffe. T7ie Royal Cookery Book. By Jules Gouffe ; trans-
lated and adapted for English use by Alphonse Gouff£, Head
Pastrycook to her Majesty the Queen. Illustrated with large plates
printed in colours. 161 Woodcuts, 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, 2/. 2s.

Domestic Edition, half-bound, \os. 6d.

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Gouraud [Afdlle.) Four Gold Pieces. Numerous Illustrations.

Small post 8vo, cloth, 2s. dd. See also Rose Library.
Government of M. Thiers. By Jules SiMox. Translated from

the French. 2 vols., demy 8vo, cloth extra, 32J.
Great Artists. See Biographies.
Greek Grammar. See Waller.

Guizofs History of France. Translated by Robert Black.
Super-royal 8vo, very numerous Full-page and other Illustrations. In
5 vols., cloth extra, gilt, each 24r.

" It supplies a want which has long been felt, and ought to be in the hands of all
students of history." — Tim<!S.

Masson's School Edition. The

History of France from the Earliest Times to the Outbreak of the
Revolution ; abridged from the Translation by Robert Black, M.A..
with Chronological Index, Historical and Genealogical Tables, &c
By Professor Gustave Masson, B.A., Assistant Master at Harrow
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I vol., demy 8vo, 600 pp., cloth extra, loj. fid.

14 Sampson Low, Mars ton, 6^ Co.^s

Guizofs History of England. In 3 vols, of about 500 pp. each,
containinc; 60 to 70 Full-page and other Illustrations, cloth extra, gilt,
24^. each.

" For luxury of typography, plainness of print, and beauty of illustration, these
volumes, of which but one has as yet appeared in English, will hold their ov/n
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not excepted." — Ti7ties.

Guy on {Aide.) Life. By Upham. 6th Edition, crown Svo, ds.

ZJANDBOOK to the Charities of London. See Low's.

of Embroidery ; which see.

to the Pf'incipal Schools of Efigland. See Practical.

Half-LIours of Blind Man's Holiday ; or. Summer and Winter

Sketches in Black & White. By W. W. Fenn. 2 vols., cr. Svo, 24?.
Half-Length Portraits. Short Studies of ^ Notable Persons.

By J. Hain Friswell. Small post Svo, 6s. ; Smaller Edition, 2s. 6d.
Hall{W. W.) How to Live Long; or, 1408 Llealth Maxims,

Physical, Mental, and Moral. By W. W. Hall, A.M., M.D.

Small post Svo, cloth, 2s. Second Edition.

Hans Brinker ; or, the Silver Skates. See Dodge.

Have La Vote? A Handy Book for the Use of the People,

on the Qualifications conferring the Right of Voting at County and

Borough Parliamentary Elections. With Forms and Notes. By

T. H. Lewis, B.A., LL.B. Paper, 6d.
Heart of Africa. Three Years' Travels and Adventures in the

Unexplored Regions of Central Africa, from 1868 to 187 1. By Dr.

Geokg Schweinfukth. Numerous Illustrations, and large Map.

2 vols., crown Svo, cloth, i^s.
Heath {Francis George). See " Fern World," " Fern Paradise,"

"Our Woodland Trees," "Trees and Ferns;" "Gilpin's Forest

Scenery," " Burnham Beeches," " Sylvan Spring," &c.
LLeber's {Bishop) Illustrated Edition of Hymns. With upwards

of 100 beautiful Engravings. Small 4to, handsomely bound, 7^. dd.

Morocco, iSj. 6d. and 2\s. An entirely New Edition.

Hector Servadac. 5^^ Verne. loi-. 6^. and 5.?.

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History and Handbook of Photography. Translated from the
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best Permanent Processes. Second Edition, with an Appendix by
the late Mr. Henry Fox Talbot. Cloth extra, 6j.

List of Publications. 1 5

History of a Crime ( The) ; Deposition of an Eye-witness. By
Victor Hugo. 4 vols., crown 8vo, 42J. Cheap Edition, i vol., 6j.

England. See GuizoT.

France. See GuizoT.

of Russia, ee Rambaud.

Merchant Shipping. See Linds.a.y.

United States. »S^^ Bryant.

Ireland. Standish 0'Gr.\dy. Vols. I. and II., yx. dd.

each.

American Literature. By M. C. Tyler. Vols. I.

and II., 2 vols, 8vo, 24J.
History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Poiver. With
several hundred Illustrations. By Alfred Barlow. Royal 8vo,
cloth extra, i/. fj. Second Edition.

Hitherto. By the Author of " The Gayworthys." New Edition,

cloth extra, 3^-. bd. Also, in Rose Library, 2 vols., is.
Home of the Eddas. By C. G. Lock. Demy 8vo, cloth, 1 6s.
How to Live Jiong. See Hall.

Hou) to get Strong and ho7v to Stay so. By William Blaikie.
A Manual of Rational, Physical, Gymnastic, and other Exercises.
With Illustrations, small post 8vo, 5j.
" Worthy of erery one's attention, whether old or young." — Graphic.

Hugo ( Victor) ^'•Ninety-Three!' Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 6j.

Toilers of the Sea. Crown 8vo. Illustrated, ds.; fancy

boards, 2j. ; cloth, 2s. 6d. ; On large paper with all the original
Illustrations, los. 6cL

. See " History of a Crime."

Hundred Greatest Men {The). 8 vols., containing 15 to 20
Portraits each, 2IJ. each. See below.

" Messrs. Sampson Low & Co. are about to issue an important ' International'
work, entitled. -THE HUNDRED GRE.\TEST MEN;' being the Lives and
Portraits of the lOo Gre.itest Men of History, divided into Eight Classes, each Class
to form a Monthly Quarto Volume The [ntroductions to the volumes are to be
written by recognized authorities on the diflferent subjects, the English contributors
bein^ Dean Stanley, Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Froude, and Professor Max
MCller: in Germany, Professor Helmholtz; in France, MM. Taine and
Renan ; and in America, Mr. Emerson. The Portraits are to be Reproductions
from fine and rare Steel Engravings." — Academy.

Hygiene and Public Health {A Treatise on). Edited by A. H.
Buck, M.D. Illustrated by numerous Wood Engravings. In 2
royal 8vo vols. , cloth, one guinea each.

Hymnal Companioii to Book of Common Prayer. Su

KlCKERSTETH.

1 6 Sampson Low^ Marston, &» Co.'s

TLLUSTRATED Text-Books of Art- Education. A Series
•* of Monthly Volumes preparing foi publication. Edited by Edward
J. PoYNTER, R. A., Director for Art, Science and Art Department.

The first Volumes, large crown %vo, doth, y. 6cl. each, will be issued in the
following divisions : —

PAINTING,
Classic and Italian. j French and Spanish.

German, Flemish, and Dutch. | Eng-lish and American.

ARCHITECTURE,

Classic and Early Christian. | Gothic, Benaissance, & Modern.

SCULPTURE.

Classic and Oriental, | Renaissance and Modern.

ORNAMENT,
Decoration in Colour. | Architectural Ornament.

Illustrations of China and its People. By J. Thompson
F.R. G. S. Four Volumes, imperial 4to, each 3/. y.

In my J?idian Garden. By Phil Robinson. With a Preface
by Edwin Arnold, M. A., C.S.I., &c. Crown 8vo, limp cloth, 3^. dd.

Involu?2tary Voyage {An). Showing how a Frenchman who
abhorred the Sea was most unwillingly and by a series of accidents
driven round the World. Numerous Illustrations, Square crown
8vo, cloth extra, 'js. 6d.

Irish Bar. Comprising Anecdotes, Bon-Mots, and Bio-
graphical Sketches of the Bench and Bar of Ireland. By J. Roderick
O'Flanagan, Barrister-at- Law. Crown 8vo, 12s. Second Edition.

yACK and Jill. By Miss Alcott. Small post 8vo, cloth,
gilt edges, 5^.
Jacqueniart (A.) History of the Ceramic Art. By Albert
Jacquemart. With 200 Woodcuts, 12 Steel-plate Engravings, and
1000 Marks and Monograms. Translated by Mrs. Bury Palliser.
Super-royal 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, 28j.

Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore. See Alcott.

jy'AFIRLAND : A Ten Months Campaign. By Frank N.
■*■ ^ Streatfield, Resident Magistrate in Kaffraria, and Commandant

of Native Levies during the Kaffir War of 1878. Crown 8vo, cloth

extra, "js. 6d.

Keble Autograph Birthday Book (The). Containing on each left-
hand page the date and a selected verse from Keble's hymns.
Imperial 8vo, with 12 Floral Chromos, ornamental binding, gilt edges,
15J.

List of Publications. 1 7

Khedive's Egypt ( TJie^ ; or, T7ie old House of Bondage under
Isew Masters. By Edwin de Leon. Illustrated. Demy 8vo, 8s. 6J.

King's Rifle ( The) : From the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean ;
Across Unknown Countries : Discovery of the Great Zambesi Affluents,
&a By Major Serpa Pinto. With 24 full-page and about 100
smaller Illustrations, 13 small Maps, and i large one. Demy Svo.

Kingston (IV. H. G.). See «' Snow-Shoes."

Child of the Cavern.

Two Supercargoes.

With Axe and Rifle.

Begum's Fortutie.

Heir of Kilfinnan,

Dick Cheveley.

T ADY Silverdalis Sweetheart, ds. See Black.

Lenten Meditations. In Two Series, each complete in itself.
By the Rev. Claude Bosanquet, Author of "Blossoms from the
Kingfs Garden." i6mo, cloth, First Series, ls.6d. ; Second Series, zr.

Lentils. See " Food for the People."

Licsegang (Dr. Paul E.) A Manual of the Carbon Process of
Photography. Demy Svo, half-bound, with Illustrations, 4J.

Life afid Letters of the Honourable Charles Sumner {Thi).

2 vols., royal Svo, cloth. Second Edition, 36J.
Lindsay ( W. S.) History of Aferchant Shipping and Ancient

Commerce. Over 150 Illustrations, Maps and Charts. In 4 vols.,

demy Svo, cloth extra. Vols, i and 2, 2 u. ; vols. 3 and 4, 24J. each.
Lion Jack : a Story of Perilous Adventures atnongst Wild Men

and Beasts. Showing how Menageries are made. By P. T. B.\RNUM.

With Illustrations. Crown Svo, cloth extra, price 6s.

Little King ; or, the Taming of a Young Russian Count. By
S. Blandy. 64 Illustrations. Crown Svo, gilt edges, 7^. dd. ; plainer
binding, 5j.

Little Mercy ; or, For Better for Worse. By Maude Jeaxxe
Franc, Author of "Marian," "Vermont Vale," &c., &c. Small
post Svo, cloth extra, 4^. Second Edition.

Long {Col. C. Chaille) Central Africa. Naked Truths of
Naked People : an Account of Expeditions to Lake Victoria Nyanza
and the Mabraka Niam-Niam. Demy Svo, numerous Illustrations, iSj.

Lost Sir Massingberd. New Edition, crown Svo, boards, coloured
wrapper, 2J.

1 8 Sampson Low, Marston, 6^ Co.^s

Load's Gennan Series—'

1. The Illustrated German Primer. Being the easiest introduction

to the study of German for all beginners, is.

2. The Children's own German Book. A Selection of Amusing

and Instructive Stories in Prose. Edited by Dr. A. L. Meissner.
Small post 8vo, cloth, is. 6d.

3. The First German Keader, for Children from Ten to

Fourteen. Edited by Dr. A. L. Meissner. Small post 8vo,
cloth, I J. 6d.

4. The Second German Reader. Edited by Dr. A. L. Meissner.

Small post 8vo, cloth, is. 6d.

BuchheinC s Deutsche Prosa. Two Volumes, sold separately : —

5. Schiller's Prosa. Containing Selections from the Prose Works

of Schiller, with Notes for English Students. By Dr. Buchiieim,
Small post 8vo, is. 6d.

6. Goethe's Prosa. Selections from the Prose Works of Goethe,

with Notes for English Students. By Dr. Buchheim. Small
post 8vo, y. 6d.

Low's International Series of Toy Books. 6d. each ; or
Mounted on Linen, is.

1, Little Fred and his Fiddle, from Asbjornsen's "Norwegian

Fairy Tales."

2, The Lad and the North Wind, ditto.

3, The Pancake, ditto.

Low's Standa7-d Library of Travel and Advettture. Crown 8vo,
bound uniformly in cloth extra, price 7^. bd.

1. The Great Lone Land. By Major W. F. Butler, C.B.

2. The "Wild North Land. By Major W. F. Butler, C.B.

3. How I found Living-stone. By H. M. Stanley.

4. The Threshold of the Unknown Kegrion. By C. R. Mark-

ham. (4th Edition, with Additional Chapters, loj-. dd.)

5. A Whaling' Cruise to Baffin's Bay and the Gulf of Boothia.

By A. H. Markham.

6. Campaig-ning: on the Oxus. By J. A. MacGahan.

7. Akim-foo : the History of a Failure. By Major W, F.

Butler, C.B.

8. Ocean to Ocean. By the Rev. George M. Grant, With

Illustrations.

9. Cruise of the Challeng-er. By W. J. J. Spry, R.N.

10. Schw^einfurth's Heart of Africa. 2 vols., 15^.

11. Throug-h the Dark Continent. By II. M. Stanley. I vol.,

izs. 6d.

List of Publications. 1 9

Lov/i Standard Novels. Crown 8vo, 6j. each, cloth extra.

My Lady Greensleeves. By Helen Mathers, Authoress of
" Comiii' through the Rye," "Cherry Ripe," &c.

Three Feathers. By William Black.

A Daughter of Heth. 13th Edition. By W. BLACK. With
Frontispiece by F. Walker, A. R. A.

Kilmeny. A Novel. By W. Black.

In Silk Attire, By W. Black.

Lady Silverdale's Sweetheart. By W. Black.

History of a Crime : The Story of the Coup d'Etat. By Victor
Hugo.

Alice Lorraine. By R. D. Blackmore.

Loma Doone. By R. D. Blackmore. 8th Edition.

Cradock Nowell. By R. D. Blackmore.

Clara "Vaughan. By R. D. Blackmore.

Cripps the Carrier. By R. D. Blackmore.

Erema ; or My Father's Sin. By R. D. Blackmore.

Innocent. By Mrs. Oliphant. Eight Illustrations.

Work. A Story of Experience. By Louisa M. Alcott. Illustra-
tions. Se^ also Rose Library.

The Afghan Knife. By R. A. Sterndale, Author of " Seonee."

A French Heiress in her own Chateau. By the author of " One
Only," "Constantia," &c Six Illustrations.

Ninety-Three. By Victor Hugo. Numerous Illustration*.

My Wife and I. By Mrs. Beecher Stowe.

Wreck of the Grosvenor. By W. Clark Russelu

Elinor Dryden. By Mrs. Macquoid.

Diane. By Mrs. Macquoid.

Poganuc People, Their Loves and Lives. By Mrs. Beecher
Stowe.

A Golden Sorrow. By Mrs. Cashel Hoey.

L(m/s Handbook to the Charities of London. Edited and
revised to date by C. Mackeson, F.S.S., Editor of " A Guide to the
Churches of London and its Suburbs," &c. \s.

^/TACGAHAN {/. A.) Campaigning on the Oxus, and the
■^ '-^ Fall of Khiva. With Map and numerous Illustrations, 4th Edition,
small post 8vo, cloth extra, jj. (>d,

Macgregor {John) "Rob Roy" on the Baltic. 3rd Edition,
small post 8vo, 2s. 6d.

A Thousand Miles in the "Rob Roy" Canoe, nth

Edition, small post 8vo, 2j. 6d.

Sampson Low, Marston, d?' Co.^s

Macgregor {Jolui) Description of the ^^Rob Hoy" Canoe, with
Plans, &c , is.

— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl " Rob Roy." New

Edition, thoroughly revised, with additions, small post 8vo, ^s. ;
boards, 2s. 6d.

Mackenzie (Z>). The Flooding of the Sahara. By Donald
Mackenzie. 8vo, cloth extra, with Illustrations, los. 6d.

Macquoid {Mrs .) Elinor Dry den. Crown 8vo, cloth, ds.

Diane. Crown 8vo, 6j.

Magazine {Illustrated) for Young People. See "St. Nicholas."

Markham (C. R.) The Threshold of the Unknown Region.
Crown 8vo, with Four Maps, 4th Edition. Cloth extra, \os. 6d.

Maury {Co7n?nander) Physical Geography of the Sea, and its
Meteorology. Being a Reconstruction and Enlargement of his former
Work, with Charts and Diagrams. New Edition, crown Svo, 6^.

Memoirs of Madame de Ranusat, 1802 — 1808. By her Grand-
son, M. Paul de Remusat, Senator, Translated by Mrs. Cashel
HoEY and and Mr. John Lillie. 4th Edition, cloth extra. This
work was written by Madame de Remusat during the time she
was living on the most intimate terms with the Empress Josephine,
and is full of revelations respecting the private life of Bonaparte, and
of men and politics of the first years of the century. Revelations
which have already created a great sensation in Paris. 8vo, 2 vols. 32^.

Men of Mark : a Gallery of Contemporary Portraits of the most
Eminent Men of the Day taken from Life, especially for this publica-
tion, price is. 6d. monthly. Vols. I., II., III., and IV., handsomely
bound, cloth, gilt edges, 25^. each.

Michael Strogoff. los. 6d. and 5J, 6*^^ Verne.

Mitford {Miss). See " Our Village."

Montaigne's Essays. See " Gentle Life Series."

My Brother Jack ; or, The Story of Whatd'yecallem. Written
by Himself. From the French of Alphonse Daudet. Illustrated
by P. Philippoteaux. Imperial i6mo, cloth extra, gilt edges, is. 6d. ;
plainer binding, ^s.

My Lady Greensleeves. By Helen Mathers, Authoress of
"Comin' through the Rye," "Cherry Ripe," &c. i vol. edition,
crown Svo, cloth, 6s.

List of Publications.

Afy Rambles in the New World. "By Lucien Biart, Author of
"The Adventures of a Young Naturalist." Numerous full-page
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, "js. dd. ; plainer
binding, 5^.

Mysterious Island. By Jules Verne. 3 vols., imperial 1 6mo.
150 Illustrations, cloth gilt, 3^. dd. each ; elaborately bound, gilt
edges, 7j. dd. each. Cheap Edition, with some of the Illustrations,
cloth, gilt, 2J. ; paper, \s. each.

ATARES {Sir G. S., K. C.B) Narrative of a Voyage to the
•^ ' Polar Sea during 1875-76, inH.M.'sShips "Alert"and "Discover)'."
By Captain Sir G. S. Nares, R. N. , K C.B. , F. R.S. Published by per-
mission of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. With Notes on
the Natural History, edited by H. W. Feilden, F.G.S., C.M.Z.S.,
F.R.G.S., Naturalist to the Expedition. Two Volumes, demySvo, with
numerous Woodcut Illustrations, Photographs, &c. 4th Edition, 2/. zs.

National Music of the World. By the late Henry F. Chor-
LEY. Edited by H. G. Hewlett. Crown 8vo, cloth, Sj-. 6</.

" What I have to offer are not a few impressions, scrambled together in the haste
of the moment, but are the result of many years of comparison and experience." —
Ftotn the Authors "Prelude."

Ne7v Child s Play {A). Sixteen Drawings by E. V. B. Beauti-
fully printed in colours, 4to, cloth extra, izr. 6d.

New Guinea (A Pew Months in\ By Octavius C. Stone,
F.R.G.S. With numerous Illustrations from the Author's own
Drawings. Cro^vn 8vo, cloth, \2s.

New Ireland. By A. M. Sullivan, M.P. for Louth. 2 vols.,
demy 8vo, 30?. Cheaper Edition, i vol., crown 8vo, Zs. 6d.

New Novels. Cro^vn 8vo, cloth, los. 6d. per vol. : —

Mary Anerley. By R, D. Blackmore, Author of " Loraa Doone,"

&c. 3 vols.
The Sisters. By G. Ebers, Author of "An Egyptian Princess."

2 vols., i6mo, 2J. each.
Countess Daphne. By RiTA, Authoress of ".Vivienne " and " Like

Dian's Kiss." 3 vols.
Sunrise. By W. Black. In 15 Monthly Parts, is. each.
"Wait a Year. By Harriet Bowra, Authoress of "A Young

Wife's Story." 3 vols.
Sarah, de Berangrer. By Jean Ingelow. 3 vols.
The Braes of Yarrow. By C. GiBBON. 3 vols.
Elaine's Story. By ^LA.UD Sheridan. 2 vols.
Prince Fortune and His Friends. 3 vols.

22 Sampson Low, Marston, 6f Co.'s

Noble Words and Noble Deeds. Translated from the French of
E. MuLLER, by Dora Leigh. Containing many Full-page Illustra-
tions by Philippoteaux. Square imperial i6mo, cloth extra, 'js. 6d.

North American Review {The). Monthly, price 2s. 6d.

Notes on Fish and Fishing. By the Rev. J. J. Manley, M.A.
With Illustrations, crown 8vo, cloth extra, leatherette binding, los. 6d.

Nursery Playmates {Prince of ). 217 Coloured pictures for
Children by eminent Artists. Folio, in coloured boards, 6s.

QBERAMMERGAU Passion Play. See "Art in the

^~^ Mountains."

Ocean to Ocean : Sandford Flemings Expedition through
Canada in 1872. By the Rev. George M. Grant. With Illustra-
tions. Revised and enlarged Edition, crown Svo, cloth, 7^. dd.

Old-Fashioned Girl. See Alcott.

Oliphant {Mrs.) Innocent. A Tale of Modern Life. By Mrs.
Oliphant, Author of "The Chronicles of Carlingford," &c., &c.
With Eight Full-page Illustrations, small post Svo, cloth extra, 6j.

On Horseback through Asia Minor. By Capt. Fred Burnaby,
Royal Horse Guards, Author of "A Ride to Khiva." 2 vols.,
Svo, with three Maps and Portrait of Author, 6th Edition, 3SJ. ;
Cheaper Edition, crown Svo, ioj. 6d.

Our Little Ones in Heaven. Edited by the Rev. H. Robbins.

With Frontispiece after Sir Joshua Reynolds. Fcap., cloth extra,
New Edition — the 3rd, with Illustrations, 5^.

Our Village. By Mary Russell Mitford. Illustrated with
Frontispiece Steel Engraving, and 12 full-page and 157 smaller Cuts
of Figure Subjects and Scenes. Crown 4to, cloth, gilt edges, zis.

Our Woodland Trees. By F. G. Heath. Large post Svo,
cloth, gilt edges, uniform with "Fern World " and " Fern Paradise,"
by the same Author. 8 Coloured Plates (showing leaves of every
British Tree) and 20 Woodcuts, cloth, gilt edges, \2s. dd. Third
Edition.

" The book, as a whole, meets a distinct need ; its engravings are excellent, its
coloured leaves and leaflets singularly accurate, and both author and engraver
appear to have been animated by a kindred love of their subject." — Saturday
Review.

List of Publications. 23

pAINTERS of All Schools. By Louis Viardot, and other
■^ Writers. 500 pp., super-royal 8vo, 20 Full-page and 70 smaller
Engravings, cloth extra, 2$s. A New Edition is issued in Half-
crown parts, with fifty additional portraits, cloth, gilt edges, 31J. 6d.

Palliser (Afrs.) A History of Lace, from the Earliest Period.
A New and Revised Edition, with additional cuts and text, upwards
of 100 Illustrations and coloured Designs. I vol. 8vo, i/. is.

" One of the most readable books of the season ; permanently valuable, always in-
teresting, often amusing, and not inferior in ail the essentials of a gift book." — Times.

• Historic Devices, Badges, and War Cries. 8vo, i/. \s.

•^— — The China Collector's Pocket Companion. With up-
wards of 1000 Illustrations of Marks and Monograms. 2nd Edition,
with Additions. Small post 8vo, limp cloth, 5J.

Petites Leqons de Conversation et de Grammaire : Oral and
Conversational Method ; being Lessons introducing the most Useful
Topics of Conversation, upon an entirely new principle, &c. By
F. JULIEN, French Master at Kang Edward the Sixth's School,
Birmingham. Author of "The Student's French Examiner," "First
Steps in Conversational French Grammar," which see.

Phillips (Z.) Dictionary of Biographical Reference. 8vo,

l/. 1 1 J. (yd.

Photography {History and Handbook of). See Tissandier.

Physical Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. By J. E. H.
Gordon, B.A. With about 200 coloured, full-page, and other
Illustrations. Among the newer portions of the work may be
enumerated : All the more recent investigations on Striae by Spottis-
woode, De la Rue, Moulton, &c. An account of Mr. Crooke's recent
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List of PiiUications. 25

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28 Sampon Low, Marston, 6>* Co.'s

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31

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32 Savips0n Low, Marston, dr* Co.^s List of Publications.

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