A YEAR OF SPLENDID LEGISLATION
The year 1833 was, as measured by quantity and in part by quality, a splendid year of legislation. In 1834 the Government and Lord Althorp far beyond all others did themselves high honour by the new Poor Law Act, which rescued the English peasantry from the total loss of their independence. Of the 658 members of Parliament about 480 must have been their general supporters. Much gratitude ought to have been felt for this great administration. But from a variety of causes, at the close of the session 1834 the House of Commons had fallen into a state of cold indifference about it.
He was himself destined one day to feel how soon parliamentary reaction may follow a sweeping popular triumph.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] Henry James's Act (1883).
[55] Thuc. i. 84, § 7.—'We should remember that man differs little from man, except that he turns out best who is trained in the sharpest school.'
[56] Proposed by Sir R. Inglis and seconded by George Denison, afterwards the militant Archdeacon of Taunton. He was on the committee from 1834 to 1838, and he withdrew from the Club at the end of 1842.
[57] Sadler is now not much more than a name, except to students of the history of social reform in England, known to some by a couple of articles of Macaulay's, written in that great man's least worthy and least agreeable style, and by the fact that Macaulay beat him at Leeds in 1832. But he deserves our honourable recollection on the ground mentioned by Mr. Gladstone, as a man of indefatigable and effective zeal in one of the best of causes.
[58] Memoir of Althorp, p. 471.
[59] Lord George Bentinck, chapter xviii. p. 324.