CHAPTER II—THE PROSPECT OF LONDON LIFE
“Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain.”
“The blind mole casts
Copp’d hills toward heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d
By man’s oppression and the poor worm doth die for’t.”
IT is during the hungry years of the thirties and forties of the nineteenth century that the great body of Englishmen and Englishwomen reveal themselves most nobly and clearly in their national character. They were years of hunger and strife but it is good to see with what ceaseless, persistent bravery they fought for their ideals year after year, generation after generation, never losing hope or courage but steadily working and waiting for the passage of that great Reform Bill, which would open the door for their recognition at least as members of the body politic.
Yet this Reform Bill terrified the aristocracy and great land holders and they were sure that its passage would sweep away both the monarchy and the House of Lords. What else could be looked for if the franchise was given to the laborer and the mechanic? The Bill had been well received by the House of Commons, but rejected by the House of Lords on the twentieth day of the previous October; and the condition of the country was truly alarming.
Madam Annis reminded her daughter of this fact but Katherine was not to be frightened. “Your father,” she said, “has just told us about the riot and outrages at Derby and the burning of Nottingham Castle by a frantic mob and the press says—‘the people in London are restless and full of passion.’ Still more to be wondered at is the letter which Thomas Attwood, the great banker, has just sent to the Duke of Wellington. In this letter he dared to threaten the government, to tell them he would march on London with a hundred thousand men, in order to inquire why the Reform Bill was hindered and delayed. This morning’s paper comments on this threat and says, The Duke of Wellington is not afraid of this visit, but would rather it was not paid.’ All the way up to London there is rioting. It is not a fit journey for thee to take. Mind what I say.”
“Oh, mother, only think! I might have been in the Ladies’ Gallery, in the House. I might have heard Mr. Macaulay’s answer to the Lord’s denial, with his grand question to the Commons, ‘Ought we to abandon the Reform Bill because the Lords have rejected it? No! We must respect the lawful privileges of their House, but we ought also to assert our own.’ No wonder the Commons cheered, and cheered, and cheered him. Oh, how gladly I would have helped them!”