The Whig leaders having declined to re-open the question of electoral reform, a document was drawn up at a conference between a few Radical members of Parliament and the representatives of the Working Men's Association, formulating the demands made on behalf of the proletariate. Universal male suffrage, annual Parliaments, vote by ballot, abolition of the property qualification required at that time from a member of Parliament, payment of members, and equal electoral districts, were the six points insisted on; of which three, it will be seen, have since been practically carried into effect. "There is your Charter!" exclaimed O'Connell, handing it to the secretary of the Working Men's Association; "agitate for it, and never be content with anything less." The term took the popular fancy; the programme became known as the Charter, and those who supported it were hereafter known as Chartists. Not a very formidable programme after all, nor one that might not be advanced by constitutional means, but one that, like many other popular agitations, fell into dangerous paths by the imprudent zeal of some of its advocates, and still more, by the violence of the discontented, unfortunate, or predatory waifs of civilisation, ever ready to promote any social change for the sake of what plunder it may bring within their reach. [Sidenote: Riots at Newport and elsewhere.] In November 1839 the miners of the Newport district of Monmouthshire assembled to the number of 10,000 under a tradesman called Frost and attempted to release from gaol one Vincent, who had been imprisoned for using seditious language. The mayor and magistrates of Newport, with a handful of soldiers, offered a gallant resistance; the rioters were dispersed with a loss of ten killed and fifty wounded, the mayor, Mr. Phillips, receiving two gunshot wounds. Frost and two others were afterwards convicted of high treason and sentenced to death. But the dawn of milder methods of government had begun: the death sentence was commuted by the Royal mercy to one of transportation for life: even that was subsequently relaxed, and Frost was allowed to return to England some years later to find himself and the Chartists an unquiet memory of the past. [Illustration: STEAMER POINT, ADEN. The Peninsula of Aden was added to Her Majesty's dominions by conquest in 1839. Its situation at the mouth of the Red Sea, on the direct route to India and the East, makes it invaluable as a coaling-station both for naval and mercantile purposes. In this district rain falls only about once in three years. The town is supplied with wells and storage tanks cut in the solid rock, the construction of which cost over £1,000,000.] But in spite of the punishment of the Newport rioters, and hundreds of others in different places, Chartism continued to spread until it became merged in the more intelligent and fruitful agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws.