ety!" "inhuman fiend!"
"heartless brutes!" "rapacious harpies!" "relentless demons!"
"plunderers of the people!" "merciless footpads!" "murderers!"
"swindlers!" "insatiable!" "insolent!" "flesh-mongering!" "scoundrel!"
"law-making landlords!" "a bread-taxing oligarchy!"_[29] Need we say
that the authors of these very choice and elegant expressions were
treated with utter contempt by both landlords and tenants--always
making the few allowances above referred to? Was it very likely that
the landlord or the farmer should quit their honourable and important
avocations at the bidding of such creatures as had thus intruded
themselves into their counties? should consent to be yoked to the car,
or to follow in the train of these enlightened, disinterested, and
philanthropic cotton-spinners and calico-printers? Absurd! It became,
in fact, daily more obvious to even the most unreflecting, that these
worthies were not likely to be engaged in their "labours of _love_;"
were not _exactly_ the kind of persons to desert their own businesses,
to attend out of pure benevolence that of others--to let succumb their
own interest to promote those of others; to subscribe out of the gains
which they had wrung from their unhappy factory slaves, their L.10,
L.20, L.30, L.50, L.100, out of mere public spirit and philanthropy.

[28] League Circular, No. 10.

[29] Ibid. Nos. 26, 29, 44, 50, 71, 83, 94, 99, 100.

Still, we say, the whole thing was really a failure--the "steam," even
yet, could not be "got up," in spite of all their multiplied agencies
and machinery, incessantly at work--the unprecedented personal
exertions of the members of the league--the large pecuniary sacrifices
of the Lancashire subscribers to its funds. One more desperate
exertion was therefore felt necessary--and they resolved to attempt
getting up a _sensation_, by the sudden subscription of splendid sums
of money, by way of starting a vast fund, with which to operate
directly upon the entire electoral body--in what way, it is not very
difficult to guess. Accordingly, they began--but where? At the old
place--Manchester!--Manchester!--_Manchester!_ Many thousands were
subscribed at an hour's notice by a mere handful of manufacturers; the
news came up to London--and the editor of the _Times_, in a transient
fit of excitement, pronounced "the existence of the League" to be a
GREAT FACT. Upon this phrase they have lived ever since--till somewhat
roughly reminded the