thing was to be seen but smoke. Ridicule and
contempt overwhelmed the leaders, and the movement collapsed.

Although the charter failed to become law, the enfranchisement of the
people has been gradually enlarged by Parliament in true deliberate
English fashion, as we shall see in future lectures. Perhaps the
Chartist movement may have ripped up the old sod and prepared the soil
for the later peaceful growth; but in itself it accomplished nothing for
which it was undertaken.

The repeal of the corn laws in 1846 was followed, as was the Reform Bill
of 1832, by a series of other reforms of a similar kind,--all in the
direction of free-trade, which from that time has continued to be the
established principle of English legislation on all the great
necessities of life. Scarcely had Lord John Russell in 1846 taken the
helm of state, when the duties on sugar were abolished, no
discrimination being shown between sugar raised in the British colony of
Jamaica and that which was raised in Cuba and other parts of the world.
The navigation laws, which prohibited the importation of goods except
in British ships, or ships which belonged to the country where the goods
were produced, were repealed or greatly modified. The whole colonial
system was also revised, especially in Canada; and sanitary measures
were taken to prevent disease in all the large towns of the country.

In the midst of these various reforms, which the government under Lord
John Russell prosecuted with great zeal and ability, and by which a
marked improvement took place in the condition of the people, Sir Robert
Peel was thrown from his horse in London, June 29, 1850, and survived
but a few days. His accidental death created universal lamentation, for
everybody felt that a great national loss had occurred. In spite of the
bitterness of the monopolists, disappointed in their gains, no death was
ever more seriously and universally lamented in England. Other statesmen
blazed upon their contemporaries with more brilliant original genius
than Peel, but no one ever had more force of character than he, or was
more respected for his candor, truthfulness, and patriotism. If he had
not the divination to originate, he showed transcendent ability in
appropriating and making his own the worthy conceptions of others. He
was among those few statesmen who are willing to renounce the dearest
opinions of youth and the prejudices of manhood when convinced of their
unsoundness.

Pee