In London and in all our large cities were men who felt deeply their misery and poverty, and were labouring earnestly for the removal of their wrongs and the attaining of their rights. But there were professional agitators as well, paid agents of agitation, many of them mercenary wretches, who fattened on this state of things—men who preferred to talk rather than earn an honest living. They made the best of their opportunity. Many of them were sots, and had a fine time of it in public-houses; few of their characters would bear a very close inspection. They travelled down into the country, and sowed seed, which fell upon prepared ground. It was truly sad to see the decent, sober workman, living at his best on starvation wages, keeping his wife and family, not by work, but by pawning every bit of household furniture, every superfluous article of apparel, dressing himself in rags. ‘Sunday come again, and nothing to eat,’ said one, while the poor babe sought its mother’s breast in vain. ‘Ah,’ said another, with a frenzied air, and with language too vehemently blasphemous to be repeated, ‘I wish they would hang me. I have lived upon cold potatoes that were given me these two days, and this morning I have eaten a raw potato from sheer hunger. Give me a bit of bread or a cup of coffee, or I shall drop.’ There were riots, of course, for men in that state had little to fear. Now and then a parson’s house was burnt down, or a magistrate had to fly for his life, or the agent of some great landlord or millowner was in danger. The orators worked up the passions of the people to fever heat. Now and then appeared on the scene a stray Irishman, with a tremendous tongue, or a wandering Pole, with the latest device for blowing up houses, setting fire to mills, or destroying the attack of a hostile force. There was much talk of a chemical composition by which London was to be fired in five places, and which would burn stone itself. These schemers and dabblers assumed to speak in the name of the Chartists, and the Chartists assumed to represent the people of England. Never was a greater sham than the agitation for the Charter. It was all wind and fury, and utterly brainless; the concoction of journeymen printers, patriotic tailors, heaven-taught stonemasons, and one or two Methodist preachers and obscure journalists, eaten up by vanity, and urged on by the belief that a revolution in England was impending, and that they were to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm. How they raved—like the madmen that they were—of the terror that would give wings to British capital to fly to other climes; of the middle-class population of our country, broken down by bankruptcy and insolvency; of the destruction of our commerce; of the awful doom of farmers, manufacturers, and landlords! We hear now of the bitter cry of outcast London; that is nothing to the cry that came from all parts of the country then.