When all was over, she threw herself back in the coach, called to him that she followed him, and as she spoke, died. Another gathering on Kennington Common might have had more wholesale consequences. The Chartists met there in 1848. Feargus O'Connor was their leader, and he and the petition which the delegates were to take to the House of Commons went out in two large cars. The petition went first, drawn by four horses, and piled up like bales of cotton; the car was decorated with flags, banners, and mottoes, and so were the horses. Then came O'Connor and the delegates, equally superb in bunting. They drove down Holborn and across Blackfriars Bridge, and on Kennington Common an enormous crowd, between 15,000 and 50,000, the different accounts say, received the banners and the delegates with loud cheers. But no bloodshed followed. O'Connor was informed that the crowd could not be allowed to march to the House of Commons, where, indeed, they would have found the Duke of Wellington with cannon. The Chartist leader made two eloquent speeches, and the chairman declared the meeting at an end. The delegates' horses were whipped up so hurriedly that the delegates fell to the bottom of the cart; three cabs drove up and took charge of the bales of petitions, and the meeting was at an end. One detail which the contemporary historian gives of the finish has a fascinating echo half of Ainsworth, half of Dickens. "The horses became restive and began to kick. Then was distinctly heard from many quarters the peculiar cry of the young London thieves." What was it like? Can anybody do it to-day? The great crowds at Kennington to-day come to see better sights than carts and banners. Surrey cricket has focussed itself at Kennington; rather curiously, it has happened that Surrey plays cricket to-day on no other ground. Kent and Sussex, two neighbours, play their county matches on three grounds or four; Surrey, which has traditions at Mitcham and Dorking, has shrunk back to Kennington only. And Kennington, long ago, was nearly lost to cricket. A year after the Chartists had crowded over the Common, the County Club was in debt for L70. The story of the paying of the debt and the revival of the club has the real ring. The club met and were in despair; they could not hope, with such a debt, to play matches. The Bishop of Tasmania, in his entertaining little _History of Kennington_, tells (in 1889) the story:--