person, he agreed with the manager of the _Leicestershire Mercury_ to accept a reporter's place at a small remuneration, and in November, 1840, he went to reside in his native town and prepare himself for his "destiny." In London he had met with his old friend Thomas Miller, who was then writing "Lady Jane Grey;" and here at Leicester he discovered another Gainsborough youth, Joseph Winks, who had been his companion and rival in the Improvement Society, and was now "a printer and bookseller, a busy politician, Baptist preacher, and editor of three or four small religious periodicals."[66] [66] The _Children's Magazine_ (next to the _Teacher's Offering_ the first magazine for children published in this country), the _Christian Pioneer_, the _Child's Magazine_. He was also editor of the _Baptist Reporter_ for many years. Sent one night by the manager of the _Mercury_ to attend and report a Chartist lecture, he was introduced for the first time to those poor but desperately earnest politicians who were at that time making their pathetic and passionate voices heard throughout the Midland and Northern Counties. From that night Thomas Cooper was a Chartist; and for the next three years his best powers were devoted to the cause of the suffering operatives and his life-interests bound up in the Chartist movement. Nothing could be more pitiable than the condition of the Leicester "stockingers" at this time. The average weekly wages of a man who worked hard were four-and-sixpence! Ground down to the point of starvation by "frame-rent," payment for "standing," for "giving-out," and for the "seamer," and, worst of all, obliged to pay the full week's rent when working on half-time, it is no wonder that his spirit was galled to madness, and that he looked to something like a political revolution for a redress of his wrongs. Lord Byron, in the only speech he ever delivered in the House of Lords, had spoken eloquently and generously in behalf of these suffering operatives of the Midland Counties.