Thirty years had passed since the reign of this potentate, and a change had come over the spirit of the people of Barhampton. There were many great reformers in the place--men who sighed for a complete change in all things--who stood up for the rights and liberties of the people; who would have all men permitted to sell gin and cordial compounds from any hour at which they chose to begin, to any hour at which they chose to end; who corrected municipal abuses, and castigated corrupt parish officers; who worried the mayor, tormented the aldermen, bored the county magistrates and members of parliament, abused the overseers, and set even the beadle at nought. But in the mending of their ways they still forgot to mend the ways of the city: that did not come under their notions of reform. They refused a church-rate, and therefore could not be expected to vote a paving and lighting rate. They objected to all taxes of all kinds, and most of all they objected to tax themselves. They evaded imposts wherever they could; paid grumblingly those they were compelled to pay; cheated the customs by prescription, and the excise by cunning; and thought themselves pure and immaculate if they only defrauded the state and escaped the law. How often is it with men, that punishment rather than crime is considered disgraceful! But I must not moralize upon the little community of Barhampton. Things went on increasing and prospering with the reformers. At first they were moved apparently by nothing but the pure spirit of innovation; but there were some men of more mind amongst them than the rest; and having all agreed upon the necessity of great and sweeping changes in church, state, and municipality, they proceeded to inquire what sort of changes were desirable. They instructed themselves in what other people demanded, and thus the reforming part of the population divided itself into three distinct portions, consisting of Whigs, Radicals, and Chartists. Amongst the former were some of the most respectable and dullest men of the town: the Radicals comprised the great body of the mob-ocracy. The Chartists were men of enthusiastic temperaments, sincere and eager characters, and in many instances, of considerable powers of mind. They saw great social evils, magnified their extent by the force of imagination, and, unaccustomed to any of the details of public business, perceived but one remedy for the sickness of the state, and imagined that remedy to be a panacea for all ills. Moral force was a good thing in their eyes, but physical force they thought a better. They believed themselves prepared for all contingencies; they imagined themselves ready to shed their blood in support of that which they never doubted to be good; they dreamed of the crown of martyrdom in their country's service; and, in short, they were political fanatics, though not a small portion of true patriotism lay at the bottom of their yearnings for revolution.