One cannot wonder that a man like Cooper, who had known the pinchings of poverty, should have felt his soul stirred within him. His sympathies and views soon drew him into writing and speaking for the Chartists. This was an offence in the eyes of his employers of the _Mercury_, and led to his severance from them. He now, at the request of the factory hands of Leicester, became their political leader, and the editor of their paper, the _Midland Counties Illuminator_, which fell into his own hands after a few weeks, and was changed in style and title, and made a new appearance as the _Chartist Rushlight_, and afterward as the _Extinguisher_. In the midst of the dispute between Whigs and Tories, Cooper was "nominated" by the Chartists as their candidate, not with any hope of being carried at the poll, but rather as a means of spiting the Whigs, against whom the working-men were intensely bitter, on account of their unwillingness to support "The People's _Charter_." Endeavoring to turn his leadership of the Chartists to some account apart from politics, he added to the task of regular addresses in the open air the conduct of a Sunday adult school and Sunday-evening meetings; and, when the winter came on, gathered his friends together, and sought to lift their thoughts above their daily care, and awaken in their minds a desire for reading, by a course of lectures on literature and science. But the bad times of 1842 put a stop to all this. The condition of the stockingers grew worse and worse, and Cooper took to supplying bread on sale or loan, to meet the wants of the poor starving creatures, and ran into debt by so doing. The poorhouse, or _Bastile_, as the working-men always called it, was crowded to excess, and riots broke out now and again; but with these neither Cooper nor the Chartist Association had anything to do. In August of the same year he was appointed by this body as a delegate to the Chartists' Convention at Manchester. On the way thither he lectured or spoke in the open air at Birmingham, Wednesbury, Bilston, Wolverhampton, and at length came to Hanley, where he addressed a vast crowd of men at "the _Crown Bank_." His subject was the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt do no murder," in which he spoke of the violations of this law by conquerors and legislators, and by masters who oppressed the hireling in his wages. The men were now out on strike, and the excitement produced by this and another address on the following night was intense. He counselled perpetually "peace, law, and order," and bade the men hold out in their strike until the People's Charter became the law of the land. Riot and incendiarism broke out in a short time, for which Cooper was in no way directly responsible, but had, on the other hand, distinctly endeavored to dissuade them from. He was taken prisoner on his return from Manchester, and having been tried for the crime of arson, was acquitted, having pleaded his own case so