The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-14 00:00:00

CHARTISMIN BILSTON.

On Saturday morning, at about eleven o'clock, the
Public-office of this town was surrounded by about five
or six hundred working men, drenched to the skin, the
rain having fallen in torrents, and the poor fellows un-
able to gain admittance. It appears a public meeting
was called by the High Constable, in compliance with a
requisition, signed by the Gentry, Clergy, Magistrates,
&c., for the purpose of presenting a congratulatory ad-
dress to her Majesty and Prince Albert, on the late aus-
picious event of the birth of a young Prince ; eleven
o'clock was the hour appointed.

The HIGH CONSTABLE proposed the Rev. S. H.
Fletcher to the chair, which was seconded by one of the
great unwashed, a Mr. Baldwin, Magistrate and iron-
master, amidst great confusion.
Mr. STIRAN moved as an amendment, that Mr. John
Cadley, a working man, do take the chair, which was se-
conded by a respectable tradesman.
The amendment was carried in the affirmative, amidst
several rounds of cheers, waving of hats, and great
applause.
The divines, dogberries, lawyers, and iron-masters of
this vast mining district, were confpunded ; they looked
unutterable things, and seemed completely chop-fallen—
it was a display of the unwashed and ignorant set in
array against the mighty and intelligent ; and' least of
all to be expected from what is termed the poor' and
despised colliers, who risk their lives and toil hard for
little or no remuneration, subject to every ii position
that their Christian taskmasters think proper to impose
in the shape of tommy and truck.
The CHAIRMAN then addressed the meeting by say-
ing,—Fellow- working men of Bilston, her Majesty ought
to be proud of such subjects ; you have nobly done your
duty by the good sense you have evinced by placing a
working-man to preside over this meeting, in preference
to a booby squire or a canting hypocritical parson.
Mr. BALDWIN then took a paper out of his pocket for the-
purpose of intimidating the Chairman; when Mr. Magis-
trate was bOldly called to order. Mr. B. said, I am a Justice
of the Peace; when the Chairman said, "I know it, and I
am placed here to make you keep it, and not commit a
breach of it," and then read the following proposition:—
" Whilst we congratulate your Majesty on the late
happy event, we cannot but acquaint your Majesty that
thousands of virtuous and modest women; your Majes-
ty's subjects, are passing the like natural extremities
on beds of straw, without even a pillow thereon to lay
their heads—that starvation and misery are pervading
the whole length and breadth of the land ; and we
attribute this state of things to class legislation ; and
in order to secure to the whole of your Majesty's
subjects the blessings of plenty and good government,
as well as to convince them of your kind disposition
towards them, we entreat your Majesty to order the
release of all Chartist prisoners, and to call to your
councils such men as will make the document entitled
`The People's Charter' the law of the land."
The Rev. S. H. FLETCHER then read, -as an address,
a leaf of flattering nonsense calling upon Divine
Providence for a blessing upon her Majesty, the young
heir, Prince Albert, the royal household, and all those who
were entrusted with the education of the young Prince,
when about thirty or forty kid-skin gloves were held up,
but it was no go. A huge forest of blistered and unwashed
hands were held up for Mr. Stiran's proposition, which
was carried.

Mr. STIRAN remarked that he did not believe her Ma-
jesty called for such filthy adulation, but he would call
on Providence for a blessing for the starving millions
that were lying in the hedges and streets, without a
morsel of food to put in their hungry mouths, while her
Majesty, and all belonging to her, had an over-abundant
flow of every luxury. This was also unanimously carried.
The meeting closed with three cheers for the Charter,
and three cheers fur Feargus O'Connor.—Staffordsleire
Examiner.

MEMORIAL TO THE QUEEN,
FROM THE WOMEN OF BOLTON.

On Thursday morning George Thompson, Esq., the
celebrated advocate of the oppressed, delivered a lecture
on the nature of the Corn-laws, to an assembly of ladies,
in the Town Hall, Little Bolton, preparatory to the
adoption of a memorial to the Queen, supplicating her
interference for the relief of her starving people. A.
Heywood, Esq., occupied the chair ; and we observed
present, Messrs. Darbishire, E. Ashworth, W. Naisby,
Rev. W. Jones, Rev. William Fraser, and other gentle-
men. We refer with great pleasure to the memorial
adopted on the occasion by the women of Bolton, which
will be found in our advertising columns. The meeting,
which was numerous and respectable, was addressed by
the zealous and indefatigable philanthropist in a quiet,
conversational style, which moved many of his fair audi-
tors even to tears. He described, with deep pathos, the
scenes of deep wretchedness he had that morning wit-
nessed, during a round of visits he had made to the
abodes of poverty in Bolton—old men and women,
and young children literally starving ; families without
beds, without clothes, without fire, and without food.
The eloquent speaker went on to describe the spirit with
which the women of Manchester had taken up the ques-

tisn—ofmemorialising the Queen. They htid made it
not a political but a humanity question. Ladies belong-
ing to families widely differing in their politics, were
there acting cordially together as a sisterhood of charity,
in the grand work of benevolence. The town had been
divided into districts, and fifty ladies had each under-
taken the canvassing, either by themselves or their
assistants, of one of these divisions, for the purpose of
obtaining signatures to a memorial similar to that which
he was about to propose for their adoption. The unfa-
vourable weather had not deterred these ladies from pur-
suing this labour of love. There they were, day after
day, going about from door to door, collecting the signa-
tures of all classes of females, and witnessing in their
rounds the most appalling evidences of that wide-spread
misery, which their memorial prayed her Majesty to
interfere in relieving. In urging the ladies before him
_ _

to follow the example of theft. sisters at Manchester, he
did not wish to go into an abstruse discussion of the Corn-
Law, though he agreed with the gentlemen around him,
that the bread-tax tended to destroy trade, and to throw
people out of eraployment,. as well as to make bread
dear ; and he wished especially to impress it upon them,
that the Corn-law was unjust. It was a law enacted by
the rich landlords, for their own benefit, at the expense
of the oppressed poor. But he would fix their attention
chiefly on the awful amount of suffering around them,
and then he believed they would be anxious to remove its
auses, the chief of which he believed to be the Corn-law.
He reminded them of the influence they. had exercised
on the question of slavery, and declared his belief, that
it required but the women of Britain to give the casting
vote for the repeal of the bread-tax. Mr. Thompson
having read the memorial—Mr. E. Ashworth,in propo-
sing its adoption, described a most affecting scene he had
witnessed in Bolton a few days ago: it was the case of a
sober family, who were obliged to pawn their last sheet,
to save themselves from perishing of hunger. Alluding
to the sentiments expressed by Mr. T
ihompson. Mr.
Ashworth (addressing the ladies) said, f apy one at-
tempted to deter them from this work by calling it poli-
tical, they might depend on it that person was political.
—The Rev. Mr. Fraser alluded to the extraordinary
.ex-
• dons of the women of Bolton in the anti-slavery question,
when they obtained upwards of 12,000 signatures to
their petition. At the same time they gave a stimulus
to Manchester, by their noble example. The women of
Manchester expected on this occasion to reach eighty or
a hundred thousand signatures. Let them emulate this
zeal, and give an example to 'other places in their turn.
A. Committee of Ladies, to make the necessary arrange-
ments, having been formed,
and thanks having been voted
to the Chairman, the meeting broke up about one o'clock.
Dolton Free Press.