A great gain for humanity was made in Lord Ashley's successful bill for the restriction of work done by women and children in mines and collieries. Under the leadership of O'Connell's former Irish rival, Feargus O'Connor, the agitation for a People's Charter was revived. On May 2, another monster petition, containing nearly three and a half million signatures, was rolled into Parliament. Too voluminous to pass through the doors, it had to be cut up and carried into the hall by sixteen men. A motion to consider it was violently opposed by Macaulay. Once more the petition was rejected by 287 over 49 votes. Now followed one of the most singular labor strikes of England. This was the so-called sacred month, or thirty days' idleness to be enforced throughout the United Kingdom. Within a few days the Chartists could boast that for fifty miles round Manchester every loom was still. The attempt to extend the strike to London was followed by the arrest of O'Connor and nearly a hundred of his associates. They were tried and convicted, but owing to a flaw in the indictment sentence could not be carried out. The agitation was made to appear more serious by two attempts to assassinate the Queen in May and July, but the young Queen was not deterred thereby from making her first visit to Scotland. [Sidenote: Chinese opium war] [Sidenote: Fall of Chapoo] [Sidenote: Shanghai occupied] [Sidenote: Assault of Chinkiangfoo] [Sidenote: China brought to terms] [Sidenote: Treaty ports designated] [Sidenote: Opium forced upon China]