‘Give these poor people,’ said Wentworth, ‘more food and more justice, and we shall have a better chance of making them Christians.’
The deacons did not see it in that light at all. They were shopkeepers, and did not want to offend their best customers.
Out of this burning and undying sense of wrong on the part of the poor naturally arose the Chartist agitation. Men were taught to believe that all the ills of life would vanish—that every man, however idle and indifferent in character, would have a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work, if they did but have annual parliaments, vote by ballot, the payment of members, equal electoral districts, and the abolition of the property qualification for members of Parliament. Orators laid hold of the people’s hearts as they waved and shouted for the Charter.
‘If you give up your agitation for the Charter, to help the Free Traders,’ said all of them, both on the platform and in the press, ‘they will not help you to get the Charter. Don’t be deceived by the middle classes again. You helped them to get votes; you swelled the cry of “The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill;” but where are the fine promises they made you? Gone to the winds. They make dupes of you. That is all they aim at. They want now to get the Corn Laws repealed, and that not for your benefit, but their own. They cry cheap bread, but they mean low wages. They parade the big loaf before you, but, at the same time, you will find your share in it as small as ever. Don’t listen to their cant, and claptrap, and humbug. Stick to the Charter and Feargus O’Connor. You are slaves and fools if you don’t. Have votes, and then you will be your own masters. Down with the Whigs—down with the Corn Law Repealers—down with the mill-owners!’
Such were the favourite sentiments at Sloville. Nor is it much to be wondered at that men with empty pockets and bellies were ready not only to proclaim and believe such doctrines, but to fight, in their rough and imperfect way, for them. People of property were alarmed. The Government shut up a few of the leaders of the Chartists in gaol, though that did not make matters much better.
At Sloville, the poor people, instead of going to church and chapel on a Sunday, to listen to parsons who preached obedience to their betters, met to hear Chartist speeches and to sing Chartist songs.