The Press.
London, England, 1855-06-09 00:00:00

physical force was violently threatened, ban-
ners were borne exhorting the people to
arms, and violence insisted upon as a duty.
It was at this time that Lord John Russell
chose at Liverpool to consider these meetings
as constitutional and right. After Feargus
O'Connor had arranged the election of a
Convention at Birmingham that should be
" stronger than the Law and the Constitution,"
and at the meeting of which he would
tell them, but not till then, what he meant to
do, Lord John remarked that " there were
" some, perhaps, who would put down such
" meetings, hut that was not his opinion nor
" that of the Government with which he
" acted. He thought the people had a right
"to meet." Accordingly, " the people" did
meet, and " the Government with which he
" acted" sent the metropolitan police to meet
them at the Bull Ring, in Birmingham. The
following is Mr. Gaminage's description of a
portion of the results of the constitutional
meetings which Lord John thought it wrong
to prevent :
Things continued much in this state until Monday the
15th, when the pent-up feelings of the outraged people
burst forth with terrific fury. About eight o'clock crowds
of people began to assemble in the liull Ring, and the
police issued forth in order to disperse them. The sight
of this force only tended the more to exasperate the public
feeling, and at nine o'clock the cry arose of " Put out the
gas !" The utmost confusion ensued. The police were
powerless. Some of the shopkeepers had rendered them-
selves obnoxious to the people, who set the house of
Messrs. Bourne, grocers, on fire. The buildings of
Messrs. Leggett, wholesale and retail feather and bed•tick
dealers, were next in flames. Mr. Banks, druggist,
Messrs. Dakin and Naden, grocers, Mr. Horton, silver.
smith, next had their houses fired. On Snow-hill fires
also raged with fury. The desperation of the people knew
scarcely any bounds. They entered the shops, com-
pletely gutted them of their contents, brought them into
the Bull Ring, and committed them to the devouring
flames, not permitting an engine to come near the spot.
Then catne the riots in Wales, when the
Government with which Lord Joey acted
transported FROST, WILLIAMS, end JONES, and
their Attorney and Solicitor-General, CAMP
BELL and WILDE, managed to show that the
people had not precisely a right to meet in
the manner described. Chartism for some
time after this is traced in attacks upon pro-
perty and prosecutions before the tribunals—
in detailing which the writer of this work
treats the matter as a war of two high belli-
gerent powers—a war, however, which we
fancy must always end in one result. With
the revolutionary mania of 184 S Chartism, of
course, identified itself. The very indefinite
nature of its final objects left it sufficiently
open to every new wind of political doctrine.
In that year it made the extraordinary al
fiance with the Irish malcontents—Romanism
and what the French revolutionists called
" Reason " being for the first time united.
After the 10th of April, however, and the
Whig persecutions which followed it, the
history of Chartism ends. Even in Mr. GAM-
IIAOE'S work it seems to consist of certain
personal squabbles and recriminations.
On the whole, it is a painful story. The
extravagrtncies of people suffering from great
evils do not need the stimulus of the profli-
gacy of a political party seeking to gain
place by misleading, and to keep it by punish.
ing them. Whenever the episode of the
Chartists shall he noticed in our domestic
history, the moralist cannot well refrain from
the duo condemnation of those who raised,
Used, and persecuted them.