It happened that just at this time there was to be a grand Chartist demonstration in Sloville. At any rate, so it seemed good to the editor of the _Trumpet of Freedom_, who found the sale of his paper falling off, and subscriptions for the national testimonial to be presented to himself not coming in so abundantly as he could wish. At any rate, the demonstration would serve to keep his name before the public, and that was something. Accordingly, the proper machinery was put in motion, and he got himself invited down, coming in a post-chaise—there were few railways then—with his secretary, as hungry a looker-out for power and pelf as himself. They put up at the best hotel in the town, and took good care not to starve either in the matter of eating or drinking. The excitement in the place was intense. There was a lean and hungry mob all day long opposite the hotel, to cheer the great man whenever he came to the door or put out his head at the window. The local leaders seemed as busy as if the nation’s welfare depended on them. Angry posters glared on you from every wall, which the police in vain tried to pull down. The great London newspapers sent down reporters; and not a little was the indignation aroused when a myrmidon of the law managed to serve the editor with a writ for debt, which was explained to be a political dodge on the part of the Government to muzzle the great man himself, whose invective on the subject it did all the people good to hear. The Whigs were denounced as base, bloody, and brutal; the Tories were the devils in hell. The time had come for tyrants and oppressors to tremble. Sloville was to be the first to raise the standard, to strike off its fetters, to emancipate the country from the grasp of a hireling soldiery, a tithe-fed clergy, and a bloated aristocracy. There was a good deal of brandy-and-water in the posters, and there was a good deal of the same refreshing beverage in the speeches of the orators. A Chartist tailor took the chair—a man who had at one time done well, but who, since he had taken to politics and drink, had lost all his business, and who naturally cast an envious eye on his more successful fellow-tradesmen. He hinted at a plan for the equal division of property, which was received with immense applause, and which he assured his intelligent hearers would be realized as soon as the Charter was the law of the land. A Chartist shoemaker followed. At home he was a terrible tyrant, dreaded by his much-suffering wife and his much-to-be-pitied children: but that was no reason why he should not denounce the tyranny of Government, which he did at some length, and with much physical exaggeration and emphasis, to his own delight and that of his hearers.