Other subjects that occupied the attention of Parliament during the year were, besides various points of foreign policy, Church Rates, Religious Tests in the Universities, Religious Disabilities in various offices in Ireland, Increase of the Episcopate, National Education, the Factory Acts and their possible extension, the Agricultural Gangs, and the Right of Meeting in the London Parks. In the second and extraordinary Session of Parliament, which was called together in the autumn to vote supplies for the Abyssinian expedition, a few other matters were brought forward; but the principal concern of that short Session was the subject that had called the House together. That, however, is a matter that may fairly be left until we come to speak of the year 1868, when the whole story of the causes, circumstances, and results of the expedition will be told. On the other questions we have mentioned little actual legislation was achieved, but the tendency of future legislation was foreshadowed.
The Oaths and Offices Bill had for its object the removal of the restriction that prevents a Roman Catholic from being Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and of various small disabilities, relics of the old penal laws, which Roman Catholics still suffered in Ireland. The Bill was passed after some discussion. Mr. Coleridge's Bill for abolishing religious tests required from members of Oxford University in taking certain degrees and in being elected to certain offices, was not so fortunate. The House of Lords rejected it after it had been passed by the Commons—and passed in an extended form, applying to Cambridge as well as to Oxford. The Lords seem to have thought that their concessions on the subject of Reform were as much as could be expected from them in one Session. Nor did they accept with any unanimity Lord Lyttelton's Bill for extending the Episcopate; and the Bill had to be withdrawn. National Education was approached, but no more, in a Bill brought in by Mr. Bruce, a prominent member of the Opposition. Mr. Bruce based his Bill upon many of the same statistics that afterwards lent strength to Mr. Forster's advocacy of a similar proposal—as, for instance, where he showed that in the diocese of London, containing 361,000 children who ought to be at school, only 182,000 (almost exactly one half) were actually at school. The Bill was in some points singularly like Mr. Forster's Bill of 1870, and in many points unlike it; it showed the same favour to the local system, and proposed the appointment of "school committees" with the functions, or nearly the functions, of the school boards afterwards established; and it showed the same regard for religious education. It was not proposed with any intention of being carried into law; it was only an instance of the common Parliamentary device of inviting a Government to declare itself, and of showing to the Opposition, in case of an unsatisfactory Government answer, what the tactics of their own leaders would be if they were to be restored to power. Other measures especially affecting the wage-earning classes that were carried into law were measures for extending the operation of the Factory Acts to certain occupations not included in them, and thus increasing the protection afforded to women and children in the great towns; and also strong legislative restrictions upon what is known as the "gang system." This last, which prevailed especially in the eastern counties, was the system by which children of both sexes were gathered together in gangs by a contractor, or "ganger," and let out to the farmers to work in the fields at weeding or sowing. It is obvious that a system of this kind was full of danger, both to the physical and moral well-being of the children. Too often the contractors were hard men, whose one object was to make as much money as possible out of their gangs; and for this they would overwork the children's bodies and leave them morally uncared for. An Act was passed applying the same principles to the agricultural gangs as had been applied to the factories, and asserting the right of Parliament to protect the children and limit the powers of the gang-masters. It laid down hours beyond which it was unlawful for the children to work, and imposed other restrictions on the employment of girls. It worked well even at first; and later, when supplemented by the Elementary Education Act of 1870, it put it still more out of the power of parents to sell their children's whole time, to give them up body and soul, to the weary drudgery of farm labour.
"GANG SYSTEM" OF FARMING. (See p. [452].)
The time of Parliament was further occupied with discussions on the Right of Meeting in the Metropolitan Parks. The way in which, in 1866, the populace and Mr. Beales took this question into their own hands and marched into Hyde Park across the ruins of the railings has already been recorded; and it has been said how keenly Mr. Secretary Walpole felt the distress of the situation. Again in this year the Reform League was active. The conduct of Government with regard to Reform had not, at least early in the Session, pleased the ardent Reformers; they distrusted Mr. Disraeli's obscure eloquence, they thought the "system of checks and counterpoises" was far too clever to be satisfactory. Accordingly, it was resolved by the leaders of the League to hold another meeting in the Park, on the 6th of May. But on the 1st of May a proclamation appeared whereby all persons were warned and admonished to abstain from attending, aiding, or taking part in any such meeting, or from entering the Park with a view to attend, aid, or take part in any such meeting. This was an instance of the "spirit of conciliation and compromise" English statesmen are so fond of, which succeeds so poorly in times of high excitement. Government intended to leave the Park gates open, and not to attempt to disperse the meeting by force, and yet it "admonished" people not to attend. Of course, the proclamation excited much discussion in Parliament; and Mr. Bright made an energetic statement of his belief that the parks were "public places," and an energetic protest against the proposal to swear in special constables—a measure which, he said, always tends to promote class hostility, and to create breaches between the divisions of the people. With this declaration of "the Tribune" to back them, the Reform League carried out its plan in the face of the Government admonition. Seventy thousand persons formed the audience of the speakers in the Park; a hundred thousand more, drawn partly by real interest in Reform, and partly by curiosity, filled the approaches and the open spaces; and "the Ring" was filled with the carriages of rich people, who had come to look on. There was absolutely no disturbance. The O'Donoghue, Mr. Beales, Colonel Dickson, Mr. Odger, Mr. Lucraft, and other well-known Reformers made speeches, and the meeting quietly dispersed at dusk, with no occasion for the 5,000 police and the soldiers who were in readiness close by to come in and restore order. But Government felt that they had received a check. Mr. Walpole resigned, "in consequence of the onerous duties imposed upon him," and his place was filled by a man of less susceptibility and more energy—Mr. Gathorne Hardy. He made many attempts during the remainder of the Session to pass a Government Bill abolishing the right of public meeting in the parks, but without success. The Reform Bill occupied too exclusively the time of the House; and it was felt that there was a certain invidiousness in passing a measure that would seem to be directly aimed at the prominent Reformers at the very time when their demand for Reform was being granted. Immediately after the passing of the Representation of the People Act, Parliament was prorogued; but before the year was over it was convoked again for an extraordinary Session, to be described when we come to speak of the Abyssinian War.
The first occurrences outside Parliament that demand our attention are those connected with the Fenian outbreak, which this year were marked by a rare audacity, and occasioned great alarm in the public mind and severe retributive measures. We have already said that in February a rising took place in the county of Kerry. In December a martello tower near Cork was attacked, and the arms were carried away; and in several places gunsmiths' shops were broken into and robbed of their contents. But the alarm caused by these outbreaks on Irish soil was as nothing compared with that caused by certain outbreaks of Fenianism in England. The first of these was a supposed attempt to take Chester Castle and make off with the arms and ammunition contained in it.
Chester Castle is a mediæval fortress, and in 1867 it was used as a garrison for a small number of troops, and a storehouse for arms. As was afterwards discovered, a meeting had been held in New York early in the year, in which it had been decided to attempt a rising in Ireland; and a band of fifty men was sent over in detachments to the United Kingdom to organise the rising. A central "Directory" of fifteen members was understood to be established in London, and branch directories were placed in many of the great towns. In obedience to orders from these authorities, a movement was made upon Chester on February 11th. The Castle contained at the time 9,000 stand of Enfield rifles, 4,000 swords, 900,000 rounds of ammunition, and some arms belonging to the militia; and the only guard consisted of a handful of men belonging to the 54th Regiment. During the night of the 10th information was given to the Chester authorities by the Liverpool police that an ex-officer in the American service—himself a Fenian—had come to them, and made known the Fenian design, which was to assemble in large numbers in Chester the next day, seize the Castle, carry off the arms, break the telegraph wires, and tear up the rails on the railway, and themselves escape, viâ Holyhead, to Ireland with their booty. Very early in the morning the information began to be verified, and large numbers of young men, apparently of the artisan or labouring class, kept arriving by every train from Manchester, Liverpool, Stalybridge, Preston, and other manufacturing towns. Meanwhile, the civil and military authorities of Chester were actively employed; telegrams were passing between them and the Assistant Adjutant-General at Manchester, and Government and the Commander-in-Chief were also kept informed. Early in the morning the volunteers were called out; and Mr. Walpole having telegraphed instructions that they ought not to be employed as soldiers in putting down a riot, but that they might as individuals assist the authorities, and even, if necessary, use their arms, they were sworn in as special constables. Still the invaders kept massing in the town. For some reason, though their errand was very well known, they were not arrested in detachments in the places from which they started, but were allowed to come to Chester unimpeded. By five o'clock the strangers amounted to 1,500 in number, and yet the only force at the disposal of the authorities was a company of soldiers of the 54th, some of the county constabulary, and the volunteers as special constables. Yet, by extraordinary good fortune, this most inadequate force was not put to the test of fighting. The Fenians, seeing that some preparations had been made for their reception, suspected that others might have been secretly made. So no attack was made upon the Castle, although, between six and seven o'clock, when all the invading force was present, and the great reinforcements had not arrived for the defence, there were abundant opportunities, and good hopes of success. During the evening a public meeting of the "friends of order" was held, and 500 special constables were sworn in—a poor defence against thrice their number of desperate men armed with revolvers. But the special constables patrolled the town throughout the night, and by the morning it was found that the Fenians had melted away. They had walked off in small batches to Warrington and the other large towns in the neighbourhood. After they had gone some relics of their visit were found, in the shape of two haversacks containing privately-made ball-cartridges, and there were other indications that they were prepared to fight. During the morning of the 12th a battalion of 500 Foot Guards arrived from London—too late to have prevented the attack, supposing the Fenians had made it when they had so fair a chance; but not too late to relieve the anxious minds of the inhabitants of Chester from the alarm and terror of the past day. It is enough to add that sixty-seven "suspicious characters," all of them probably members of the invading force, were arrested at Dublin, on the morning of the 12th, as they landed from the Holyhead steamer. Nothing very conclusive was found upon them to illustrate the history of the Chester fiasco; but the authorities, acting on the powers conferred by the Act that suspended the Habeas Corpus, kept them in safe custody in Richmond Bridewell. Finally some of the ringleaders, among whom was Michael Davitt, were condemned to terms of imprisonment.
For some months after this Fenianism lay comparatively inactive, and the public alarm had time to subside. But in September England was again unpleasantly reminded of it by an event that took place at Manchester, and which, in the audacity of its design and the desperate manner of its execution, was sufficiently startling. The Manchester police, about the 10th of the month, arrested two men who were behaving in a suspicious manner at dead of night, and on each of them was found a loaded revolver. From communications held with the Irish police, it was discovered that these men were Fenians of considerable military rank in the brotherhood—Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasey. They were remanded at the police-court on their arrest; and on the 18th, after their second examination, they were to be removed in the ordinary police-van to the city gaol. As they were about to enter the van, the police saw two more suspicious-looking men loitering about, and a constable seized one of them, who attempted to stab him. This caused the police to handcuff Kelly and Deasey, and they then entered the van. Seven policemen rode outside and four more followed in a cab; but none of these were armed except with the usual policeman's staff. The van drove off along its accustomed route, over Ardwick Green and along the Hyde Road, in the outskirts of Manchester. There is a railway-bridge that crosses this road; and the van approached this bridge about four o'clock. As it did so, a tall fair-haired young man ran out in front of it into the road, and presenting a revolver at the driver summoned him to stop. A large body of men made their appearance at the same moment; and then fired several shots at the driver and the other policemen on the roof, shot the horses one after another, hurled a stone that brought the driver from his seat, and clambered up to the roof of the van to be in readiness to break it open if the door could not be forced. The small body of unarmed constables made a brave defence of the door; but axe and crowbar were being vigorously employed, and forty or fifty men armed with revolvers were carrying on the attack and firing without mercy. A crowd began to gather, but the Fenian revolvers kept them back for the most part. Two of the constables, Bromley and Trueman, were wounded; a civilian named Sprossen was shot in the ankle. Still the door resisted; a hole had been made in the roof, and stones had been let fall on the head of Sergeant Brett; he had been summoned to give up the keys, but he steadily refused. Then a panel of the door gave way, and one of the assailants, the tall young man who had led the attack, and who was afterwards identified as William O'Meara Allen, presented his revolver at the wounded policeman with a fresh demand for the keys. When this was refused, he fired at the lock of the door and blew it open. Again he demanded the keys—for the cells of the van were each of them locked—and again was refused. Then he fired point blank at the head of Brett, who fell mortally wounded, the bullet having passed straight through the skull. The keys were now secured, the doors unlocked, the two prisoners released. As a witness at the trial swore, Allen said to one of them, "Arrah, Kelly, I'll die for you before I'll deliver you up!" Then Kelly and Deasey made off, Allen threatening to shoot any one who followed. The Fenians then dispersed, running across the fields or into the town; and all of them escaped for the time with the exception of four, including Allen, who were run down. Brett died very soon after receiving the shot.