Undoubtedly there had been bad times in Sloville before. The farmers, according to all accounts, never had been able to make both ends meet, and the poor had to live on the rates, a fact which rather increased than diminished the evil, as the people who had the most children got more than their fair share, and a pauper had a poor chance of decent wages, unless he at once got married, and begot as many sons and daughters as the rest. But now there was a real crisis, as the mills had stopped, and the manufacturers and capitalists went about with as long faces as the farmers. Unfortunately, just at this time, the leading banker in the place failed, or rather took himself off with his family to the Continent, leaving his creditors to suffer greatly for their misplaced confidence, many poor tradesmen and windows losing their all. A good many of the chapel people took it as a dispensation of Providence, and in many a place the event was improved in that way. The Lord was angry with them on account of the general wickedness of the town. A new leaf was to be turned over. There was to be less trust in man—less pride in human intellect—less confidence in the spread of intelligence—a better observance of the Sabbath—a more frequent attendance at the means of grace. A good many of Hannah More’s good-meaning tracts were reprinted and distributed gratis. Alas! the times were out of joint, and some of the people refused the tracts. They said they should prefer something to eat, and all pious Sloville turned from them in horror and despair. It was actually whispered that there were people in the place who had been seen reading Tom Paine, and were not ashamed to talk of the Rights of Man. It is not much to be wondered at that such was the case. In the old unreformed times, it was seldom that politicians, whether Whigs or Tories, took much notice of the state of the people. There was no law then to stand between the mercenary millowner and his white victim. The rich made the laws, and all that the people had to do was to obey. Labourers were even punished for combining to get decent wages if possible. Wentworth, as a young man, was especially touched with a sense of the hardships inflicted on the factory children and women. The Church—I mean by it the religious of all sects—stood by the masters. It was natural, but awful nevertheless.
‘Give these poor people,’ said Wentworth, ‘more food and more justice, and we shall have a better chance of making them Christians.’
The deacons did not see it in that light at all. They were shopkeepers, and did not want to offend their best customers.
Out of this burning and undying sense of wrong on the part of the poor naturally arose the Chartist agitation. Men were taught to believe that all the ills of life would vanish—that every man, however idle and indifferent in character, would have a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work, if they did but have annual parliaments, vote by ballot, the payment of members, equal electoral districts, and the abolition of the property qualification for members of Parliament. Orators laid hold of the people’s hearts as they waved and shouted for the Charter.
‘If you give up your agitation for the Charter, to help the Free Traders,’ said all of them, both on the platform and in the press, ‘they will not help you to get the Charter. Don’t be deceived by the middle classes again. You helped them to get votes; you swelled the cry of “The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill;” but where are the fine promises they made you? Gone to the winds. They make dupes of you. That is all they aim at. They want now to get the Corn Laws repealed, and that not for your benefit, but their own. They cry cheap bread, but they mean low wages. They parade the big loaf before you, but, at the same time, you will find your share in it as small as ever. Don’t listen to their cant, and claptrap, and humbug. Stick to the Charter and Feargus O’Connor. You are slaves and fools if you don’t. Have votes, and then you will be your own masters. Down with the Whigs—down with the Corn Law Repealers—down with the mill-owners!’
Such were the favourite sentiments at Sloville. Nor is it much to be wondered at that men with empty pockets and bellies were ready not only to proclaim and believe such doctrines, but to fight, in their rough and imperfect way, for them. People of property were alarmed. The Government shut up a few of the leaders of the Chartists in gaol, though that did not make matters much better.
At Sloville, the poor people, instead of going to church and chapel on a Sunday, to listen to parsons who preached obedience to their betters, met to hear Chartist speeches and to sing Chartist songs.
‘Let us be patient,’ said one of the hearers, who had not outlived the religious teaching of his youth. ‘Let us be patient a little longer, lads. Surely, God Almighty will help us soon.’
Scornfully and loudly laughed his hearers.
‘Talk no more about thy God Almighty,’ was the reply. ‘There is not one. If there was one, He would not let us suffer as we do.’