The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-09

fear that the excesses of the Reign | of Terror, would be repeated in the | British metropolis, there was every in | dication that scenes such as had been | enacted by the red fool-fury of the | Seine" were to be repeated in Lon- don. And the wrongs for which the lower orders of England sought redress | were not imaginary. When to the <agi- | tation and the fear there had succeeded a calm and a realization of what was really rotten in the state" most of the abuses which the Chartists sought to correct by force were corrected by an orderly process of law. The "Charlist parson' they used to call the young clergyman Kingsley in those days and though many of his admirers in later years have sought to excuse. or pal Hate, or even condemned the radical ism of Alton Locke," Kingsley himself was never ashamed of 1t or considered that the work needed defense. "HAT poor boy Alton Locke was a.
 cockney of the Cockneys. He
 wrote in his memoirs in after life, "Italy and the Tropics; the High lands and Devonshire I know only In dreams. Even the Surrey nills, of whose loveliness I have heard so much, are to me a distant fairly land- whose gIeaming ridges I am worthy only to behold afar off" Alton lived in a squalid suburban street with a tumble of shops and houses, each exhibiting some fresh variety of caprcious uglness He was a feeble child and his mother was a stern Dissenter." In long nights of sleepless pain the boy used to lie and walt with longing for the sound of the carts coming in from the country hrf po~i1 tboir of carts coming in from that land of fruits and flowers They seemed to his boy ish fancy messengers from another world.
 Predestination of the sternest and most uncompromsing type was the end-all and be-all of the faith of the Widow Locke. How had the Divine decree read In regard to Alton? That worried the poor woman day and night She did not dare to pray for him even-that would be an attempt on her part to interfere with the ordinance of the Almighty. On winter evenings she used to sit with her Bible on her knees while Alton and his little sister Susan stood beside her and listened to the stories of Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephtha till her old eyes kindled and her thoughts passed from the old Hebrew time home to those English times which sine fanced were like them. The children shuddered, but listened with strange fascination Of the New Testament the children were allowed to know nothing Gods goodness and the Allfathership were matters which the poor widow considered as yet too deep for the comprehension of children.
 Thus was Alton Locke brought up until the time came when his sister felt the calp and was considered by the widow as no longer reprobate. But Alton before he experienced the change of heart was according to the ideas of the widow, hope lessly cast away. This was all because the boy was possessed of imagination-a gift if properly trained, curse if left to grow wild and run riot, destructive element if repressed.
 Poor as the Widow Locke was she used nevertheless, to manage to entertain every Sunday night two of the Dissenting pas- tors of the neighborhood-two who, like herself. were imbued with the strictest of Calvinstic doctrines. One was a meek little old man who carried lollipops in his pockets for Susan and Alton. The other was tall, dark and bilious and preached high doctrines i. e., that of more fatalstic and Antinoman sort than his colleague. Alton hated the tall dark man and loved the little meek man. All the literature Alton was allowed to read con- sisted of the Old Testament, "Pilgrim's Progress and missionary tracts. These missionary tracts delighted him for their > opening up to him vision of the great world outside his horizon. One day mis- sionary game to tea with the minister's and Alton was thrown into the lowest depths of disappointment because the man was short, fat. common place and not dressed in the costume of the savage country in which his labors lay. Verify, the youth of Alton was a hard and stern one.
 His father had been tradesman In a small way and had made failure even fin that small way. But his father had a brother who had as steadily risen as he himself had fallen. One day this rich uncle, resplendent in a velvet waistcoat, a thick gold chain and acres of shirt front. came to visit the widow of his brother. This rich uncle had a son at Cambridge, and Alton was now of suit able age to be placed in some vocation for life.
 The rich uncle proposed that the boy be sent as apprentice to friend of his a tailor The widow consented. But for her it was an awful step Laying her hand upon the boys head after giving her consent, she aid: "Behold. send you forth in the midst of wolves. Be ye, therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doyes' Then, rising hastily to con ceal her own emotion, sine fled upstairs. where they could hear her throw herself upon; her knees by her bedside and sob piteously.
 G So Alton Locke found himself in the tailoring establishment of MT. Smith-and a very great and very fashionable tail bring Establishment it was. In these days and the sanitary inspector would have been after it. Alton was assigned to the care of one Crossthwait, who was fore man of the big room on the top floor thea room they called "Consumptives' Han"; as they called the basement work room "Rheumatic Ward,'' the ground floor .'Feyer Ward the first floor "Asth- ma Ward. And the reckless, diseased workmen of the establishment had chosen their names not without reason ,Aor cause.
 N From the ribaldry and the desperate