And there were already effected, or just about to be effected, three immense reforms, the like of which the nation had never seen before, which are together working for a Revolution of Peace, not of war, greater than contemplated by the most sincere and most disinterested of the French Revolutionaries. The first was the Reform of the Penal Laws. In the beginning of the century the law recognised 223 capital offences. A man might be hanged for almost anything: if he appeared in disguise on a public road; if he cut down young trees; if he shot rabbits; if he poached at night; if he stole anything worth five shillings from a person or a shop; if he came back from transportation before his time; a gipsy, if he remained in the same place a year. In fact, the chief desire of the Government was to get rid of the criminal classes by hanging them. It was Sir Samuel Romilly, as everybody knows, who first began to attack this bloodthirsty code. He was assisted by the growth of public opinion and by the juries, who practically repealed the laws by refusing to convict. [Illustration: IN THE QUEEN’S BENCH] It was not, again, until the year 1836 that counsel for a prisoner under trial for felony was permitted to address the jury. In the year 1834, there were 480 death sentences; in 1838, only 116. In 1834, 894 persons were sentenced to transportation for life, and in 1838 only 266. Remember that this wicked severity only served to enlist the sympathies of the people against the Government. The second great step was the repeal of the Acts which forbade combination. Until the year 1820, the people had been forbidden to combine. Their only power against employers who worked them as many hours a day as they dared, and paid them wages as small as they could, who took their children and locked them up in unwholesome factories, was in combination, and they were forbidden to combine. When the law--an old mediæval law--was repealed, it was found that any attempt to hold public meetings might be put down by force; so that, though they could not combine, the chief means of promoting combination was taken from them. The third great step was the Extension of the Suffrage, so that now there is no Briton or Irishman but can, if he please, have his vote in the government of the nation. It is not a great share which is conferred by one vote, but it enables every man to feel that he is himself a part of the nation; that the government is not imposed upon him, but elected and approved by himself. Considering all these things, have we any reason to be surprised when we learn that, on the Queen’s Accession, there was among the people no loyalty whatever? Attachment to the Sovereign, personal devotion to the young Queen, rallying round the Throne--all these things were not even phrases to the working class. For they never heard them used.