(1) We demand Universal Suffrage--by which was meant rather Manhood
Suffrage than what is now known as universal suffrage, meaning the
ballot in the hands of both sexes. This the Chartists did not demand.

(2) We demand an Annual Parliament--by which was meant the election of
a new House of Commons each year by the people.

(3) We demand the right to Vote by Ballot--by which was meant the
right of the people to employ a _secret_ ballot at the elections
instead of the method _viva voce_.

(4) We demand the abolition of the Property Qualification now
requisite as a condition of eligibility to Membership in the House of
Commons.

(5) We demand that the Members of Parliament shall be paid a salary
for their services.

(6) We demand the Division of the Country into Equal Electoral
Districts--by which was meant an equality of _population_, as against
mere territorial extent.

To the reader of to-day it must appear a matter of astonishment that
the representatives of the working classes of Great Britain should
have been called upon, at a time within the memory of men still
living, to advance and advocate political principles so self-evident
and common-sense as those declared in the Charter, and his wonder must
be raised to amazement when he is told that the whole governing power
of Great Britain, the King, the Ministry, the House of Lords, the
House of Commons, the Tories as a party, the Whigs as a party,
and--all party divisions aside--the great Middle Class of Englishmen
set themselves in horrified antagonism to the Charter and its
advocates, as though the former were the most incendiary document in
the world and the latter a rabble of radicals gathered from the
purlieus of the French Revolution.

The reason for the outbreak of the Chartist reform was the fact that
the Reform Bill of 1832 had proved a signal failure. For six years the
English Middle Classes had sought by the agency of that act to gain
their rights, but they had sought in vain. The people now began to
follow popular leaders, who always arise under such conditions. One of
these, by the name of Thorn, a bankrupt brewer and half madman, who
called himself Sir William Courtenay, appeared in Canterbury. He said
that he was a Knight of Malta and King of Jerusalem--this when he was
only a knight of malt and a king of shreds and patches. Delusion broke
out on every hand. One great leader was Feargus O'Connor. Another was
Thomas Cooper, a poet, and a third w