In
1848 a monster Petition was to be presented to both Houses by their
leaders, but London was garrisoned by troops under the Duke of
Wellington on the fateful day, and the Chartist army broke up, never
to be reunited. Quarrels among themselves proved, in the end, fatal
to their cause.
A new party, the Christian Socialists, took their place; force gave
way to union and co-operation. A new champion, Charles Kingsley, or
'Parson Lot,' stood forth as the Chartist leader.
The hard winter and general distress of the year 1848 nearly provoked
another rising, and in his novel entitled _Yeast_ Kingsley pictures
the 'condition of England' question as it appeared to one who knew
it from the seamy side. Especially did he blame the Church, which,
he said, offered a religion for "Jacob, the smooth man," and was not
suited for "poor Esau." This was indeed most true as regards the
agricultural classes, where the want was felt of a real religion
which should gain a hold upon a population which year by year was
fast drifting loose from all ties of morality and Christianity.
The peasantry, once the mainstay of England and now trodden down and
neglected, cannot rise alone and without help from those above them.
"What right have we to keep them down? . . . What right have we to
say that they shall know no higher recreation than the hogs, because,
forsooth, if we raised them they might refuse to work--_for us_? Are
_we_ to fix how far their minds may be developed? Has not God fixed
it for us, when He gave them the same passions, talents, tastes, as
our own?"
The farm labourer, unlike his brothers in the North, had no spirit
left to strike.
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