Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-01-29

about Kingsley's church service or SER
mons; and with his good works and beau
tiful life and noble character always be-
fore his people,
Truth from his lips prevailed with double
sway;
And fools who came to scott remained to
pray
President Raymond then discussed
Kingsley as Chartist. He described the
political situation in England between
1850 and 1850. He showed the inadequacy
of the Reform Bill of 1892 and graphically
pictured the distress among the working
people, their hopeless labor in the fields,
their miserable and overcrowded huts,
their only goal( pauperism, the workhouse
and death. In 1888, deputies from the
| Workingmen's Association conferred with
six members of the House of Commons,
to see If some way could not be devised by
which the condition of the working classes
might be ameliorated. The result was the
drafting of a charter, 1.-The peoples char
ter" as it was called, which made six
demands on behalf of the people, the fam
Gus six points of the peoples charter,
| namely: Annual Parliaments, universal
suffrage. voting by ballet, the abolition Of
property qualifications for members of
Parliament, payment of members of Par
lament, and equal electoral districts.
These six points" the people said they
must have; and for ten years the demand
was iterated and reiterated by a large
portion of the British people. The people
who demanded this charter, with it's six
points, We're known as Chartists; and in
.
classes, who did not sympathize with the
demand for the six points, the name
Chartist stood for all that was wicked
and seditions. A monster petition to Par
lament was drawn up, and signed, as the
Chartists maintained, by a million peo-
pie, asking for the six points. This petit
ton was to be presented to Parliament on
the tenth of April 1913.
There were secret meetings and much
talk of what would be done on the tenth
of April should the petition be refused by
the House of Commons. Ferocious spirits
counselled dynamite, vitriol bottles, burn
| ing, pillaging, murder. The wisest and
coolest of the agitators were terribly in
earnest. But when the petition was pre-
scented to Parliament, it created nothing
but laughter and the Chartists knew that,
for the time being. their cause was lost
Kingsley was an ardent Chartist. He
could not remain in his quiet country par
| ish while London was in state OF wild
excitement; and while he felt that men
Of brain and nerve were needed there. So
| he came to London, to do what he could
! to help the cause of the workingman.
| Kingsley was a born fighter, and in the
! cause of the Chartists he found battle
| field in which he could fire off his artillery
| of argument denunciation, warning, as he
chose. He attended Chartist meetings,
! caut.oning, encouraging, striving to keep
| the movement on a wise and rational ba-
sis, at the same time recognizing the fact
that there was a crying need of reform,
and that the people must demand their
rights if they were to obtain them.
| At Chartist Kingsley worked for polit-
ical reform. but his greatest and most i'm
portant work was done for individual and
social reform. His two novels, Yeast
and Alton Locke" reflected from their
pages the social evils existing during this
period OF agitation. Yeast" depicted the
degraded lot of the agricultural laborer;
| ALTON Locke" the terrible sweating sys-
tenn which is still corrupting the indus
| tf1al LIE OF our great cities.
TO those who are not familiar with the
magnitude of this atrocious evil, Alton
| Locke" will be a revelation. The tailor
trade is that which gives most opportu-
nifty for the sweating system The work
| is let out by the master to contractors or
| middlemen, Sweaters" as their victims
| significantly call them, who, in turn, let
| it cut again. sometimes to the workmen,
sometimes to fresh middlemen. Out of the
| price paid for labor on each article, not
only the workman, but the sweater, and
/ perhaps the sweaters sweater, and a
third and a fourth and possibly fifth
subsweatcr draw their profit. Judge what
! remains for the workmen themselves,
| those who really do the work.
| The evil results of the sweating system
can hardly be estimated. To the working
men, starvation and despair; to the chill
| dren reared in such surroundings weak
| bodies, minds and morals: to the sweater,
debased morals. loss of all humanity
But the evil effects of the sweating system
DO not stop with the sweaters and their
direct victims. Hideous diseases make
their way into the homes of the wealthy,
who, if they traced the matter, would fird
that some elegant coat or riding habit
had brought with it contagion from the
foul den of the victim of the sweater,
where the beautiful garment, in the pro-
cess of making, served as a temporary
covering for some diseased tailor. But
the physical disease is not the worst of
the evil. The immortality bred in the pes
tilential dens spreads into every rank of
| society. Moreover, the victims of the
sweater set the standard of life for the
entire laboring population. If one class
of workers can live on such miserable pay
or no pay other classes of workers will
inevitably be drawn down to a standard of
living approximately as low Society is
an organism; and if it's blood be corrupted
in one member, it is corrupted in all. You
cannot have a healthy body so long as
any part of your body is unhealthy. No
more can you have healthy society while
any portion of it is groveling in filth. dis
ease, poverty and vice.
The remedy Kingsley suggested for
these evils was the remedy suggested by
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