The grievance of the Chartists was really the grievance of the working classes. Their alliance and support enabled the middle classes to wring from the Crown and the Peers the Reform Bill of 1832. But the middle class alone profited by that Bill, which transferred political power from the aristocracy to the shopocracy, leaving the artisans and manual toilers unenfranchised. Why their persistent agitation for political privileges since 1832 should have led people to believe that revolution was impending in 1848, has been considered a mystery, especially as the outbreak on Kennington Common was a _fiasco_. Yet there was good reason for this panic. From Lord Grey’s correspondence it is now clear that the country was on the brink of civil war in 1831, when the King resisted Reform. But from 1831 to 1848, the resistance to an extension of the franchise had come not from the Crown, but from the House of Commons. When, however, the House of Commons obstructs progress in England--and it is apt to do so whenever it gets the chance--the situation becomes serious. Obstruction from the Sovereign, if unreasonable and malignant, can always be met by the power of the Commons to stop supplies. Obstruction by the Upper House can be met by the power of the Crown to create new Peers. For obstruction by the House of Commons, [Illustration: BRIDGE AND CASTLE, NEWPORT, MON.] however, it was felt that there was no real remedy but argument or revolution--argument if the people were comfortable and patient, revolution if they were hungry and impatient. The Chartist organisation of 1839--which collapsed with the Newport riots--was really a gigantic secret society. It was organised by Major Beniowski, a Polish teacher of mnemonics, three working men--Cardo, a shoemaker, Warden, a gardener, one Westropp (occupation unknown)--and a mysterious individual, said to be a foreign police spy. On a given hour, on a given day, twenty cities were to be burned to the ground, and a reign of terror was to be inaugurated. The late Mr. David Urquhart claimed to have discovered the conspiracy, and to have broken it up by demonstrating to some of the leading workmen implicated that two of its chiefs were Russian agents, who had some time before planned a similar outbreak in Greece. Suspecting they were being used as tools of a Foreign Power, the English conspirators countermanded the order for a simultaneous rising, and thus it came to pass that the outbreak in Wales, where Beniowski was in command, was the sole result of the movement. There is good reason to believe that the Chartists were working [Illustration: JOSEPH STURGE.]