Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland

NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY BAKER AND SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU ST. AND 36 PARK ROW, 1850.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1849, by HENRY B. STANTON, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.
S. W. BENEDICT, Stereo. and Print., 16 Spruce St.
This Book aims to give a summary view of the most important general Reforms, which have been effected or attempted in Great Britain and Ireland, from the period of the French revolution down to the present time. Neither history nor biography has been attempted, but the work aspires to be only what its title indicates— Sketches . Large parts of it have recently appeared, from time to time, in the National Era , of Washington; no expectation being then entertained that it would assume any other form of publication. The present occasion has been embraced to revise and reärrange the whole, and by condensation and pruning off repetitions, to make room for considerable additions to the list of subjects discussed, and individuals noticed. It is even now incomplete, many men and things, which deserve a place here, being left out—some because I may underrate their relative importance—others because the limits of this work will allow only of selections. Still, it is believed that no important subject has been wholly omitted; though, on account of the vast number of those worthy to be called Reformers, it has been found impossible to make special mention of many able and excellent individuals. Though it may contain errors of fact and opinion, yet, as it is confined to those phases of events, and incidents in the lives of persons, which history too seldom dwells upon, it may be found not wholly valueless to those who would examine the most interesting and instructive period in the recent annals of England.
The chronological plan of the work is, generally, to notice prominent popular movements in their order of time, and, in connection with each, to give sketches, more or less full, of persons who bore a leading part in it. But such slight regard has been paid to chronological arrangement, that each subject stands by itself, having only a general connection with what precedes or follows it.