Bean got away for a time, but was, afterwards, captured and tried, found guilty, and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment in Millbank Penitentiary.
The old Duke of Cambridge (the Queen’s uncle) had a fright, on the 6 July, when he was at a fête at Jesus College, Cambridge, for he lost the diamond star from his breast, valued at £500. Everybody thought it had been stolen by an expert thief, but it was afterwards found by a Police Inspector, in the gardens, much trodden on, and with three diamonds missing; so it was “All’s well that ends well.”
There was great distress in the manufacturing districts, and disturbances originating in a strike for higher wages, were inflamed by the Chartists, and other political agitators. Beginning in Lancashire, the riots spread through Cheshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Yorkshire, and, finally, extended to the manufacturing towns of Scotland, and the collieries of Wales. There were conflicts with the military, and people were killed; altogether, matters were very serious.
It was better in London. On 19 Aug. a Chartist meeting was to be held on Clerkenwell Green, but plenty of police
were there to meet them. Most of the mob were discouraged, and went home, but the police were obliged to arrest some 50 of them, and some banners were captured. Then they went to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and in Long Acre, they came into collision with the police, and some damage was done. So serious was the outlook, that all the military in the Metropolis and the suburbs were kept under arms, and there were large reserves of police at every Station House; and, next day, the magistrate, at Bow Street, had a busy day, hearing cases arising from this outbreak. On the 22nd Aug. there were Chartist meetings at Clerkenwell Green and Paddington (the latter numbering upwards of 10,000), but the worst cases were managed by the police, and no very great harm came of them.
On 22 June, Sir Robt. Peel’s Bill, imposing an Income Tax, received the Royal sanction. It is 5 and 6 Vic., c. 35: “An Act for granting Her Majesty Duties on Profits arising from Property, Professions, Trades, and Offices, until the 6th day of April, 1845.” We see that it was imposed only for three years, but the Old Man of the Sea, once on the popular back, has never come off; and, in all probability, never will. It began at 7d. in the pound, has been as high as 16d., and as low as 2d. There is in Blackwood’s Magazine for Aug., 1842:
“The Income Tax.
An excellent New Song.All you who rents, or profits draw,
Enough to come within the law,
Your button’d pockets now relax,
And quickly pay your Income Tax.A pleasant medicine’s sure to kill,
Your only cure’s a bitter pill:
The drugs of base deluding quacks
Made Peel prescribe the Income Tax.You can’t enjoy your pint, or pot,
And then refuse to pay the shot;
You can’t pursue expensive tracks
With a toll, or Income Tax.Ye Quakers, clad in sober suit,
And all ye Baptist tribes to boot,
’Twas right, perhaps, to free the blacks,
But, thence arose this Income Tax.Ye bagmen bold, ye lovers fond,
Who daily like to correspond,
Remember, as you break the wax,
Cheap postage means an Income Tax.Ye noisy fools, who made a rout
To try and keep the Tories out,
The blunders of your Whiggish hacks
Have brought us to this Income Tax.Old Cupid’s [194] wish to crush the Czar
Has cost us, in the Afghan war,
Both English lives and Indian lacs,
And hastened on the Income Tax.Regardless of the price of teas,
They anger’d, too, the poor Chinese,
The Mandarins have shown their backs,
But war soon brings an Income Tax.Yet now I hope the new tariff
Will something save in beer and beef;
If that be so, you’ll all go snacks,
And half escape your Income Tax.At least, we poor folks fear no shock
At hearing the collector’s knock;
His jest, the poundless poet cracks
On him who calls for Income Tax.”
The day of reckoning for the Rioters of August duly came, and both at York and Salford Assizes many were punished, and at the end of September Feargus O’Connor was arrested in London for sedition, as were other Chartist leaders at Manchester and Leeds. In October, more rioters were tried, and sentenced, at Stafford and Liverpool.
Even women meddled with Chartism, and on 17 Oct. a
meeting of female Chartists was held at the National Charter Association in the Old Bailey, to form a female Chartist Association to co-operate with the original society. A Mr. Cohen created some dissatisfaction by speaking against the interposition of women in political affairs; he “put it to the mothers present, whether they did not find themselves more happy in the peacefulness and usefulness of the domestic hearth, than in coming forth in public, and aspiring after political rights?” Miss Inge asked Mr. Cohen, did he not consider women qualified to fill public offices? it did not require much “physical force” to vote! Mr. Cohen replied with an argumentum ad fœminam:—He would, with all humility and respect, ask the young lady, what sort of office she would aspire to fill? If she would fill one, she would fill all? He was not going to treat the question with ridicule; but he would ask her to suppose herself in the House of Commons, as Member for a Parliamentary Borough, and that a young gentleman, a lover, in that House, were to try to influence her vote, through his sway over her affections; how would she act? whether, in other words, she could resist, and might not lose sight of the public interests? (Order! Order!) He wished to be in order. He was for maintaining the social rights of women; political rights, such as he understood that meeting to aspire to, she could never, in his opinion, attain. This drew forth an energetic speech from Miss Mary Anne Walker; she “repudiated, with indignation, the insinuation that, if women were in Parliament, any man, be he husband, or be he lover, would dare to be so base a scoundrel as to attempt to sway her from the strict line of duty.” Miss Walker was much applauded; and, after the business of the evening, she received the thanks of the meeting.