s of Pitt and
Liverpool and Wellington, bore witness to the "deep sighing" of
the agricultural poor, and noted with indignation the successive
invasions of their freedom by Enclosure Acts and press-gangs and
trials for sedition, and all the other implements of tyranny.

"The Good Old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes,
And each old English peasant had his Good Old English spies
To tempt his starving discontent with Good Old English lies,
Then call the British Yeomanry to hush his peevish cries."

To a race of peasants thus enthralled and disciplined the Mirage
appeared in the guise of the first Reform Bill. If only that Bill
could pass into law, the reign of injustice and oppression would
cease, starvation and misery would flee away, and the poor would
rejoice in a new heaven and a new earth. But no sooner was the
Royal Assent given to the Bill than the Mirage--that deceitful
image of joy and refreshment--receded into the dim distance, and
men woke to the disheartening fact that, though power had been
transferred from the aristocracy to the middle class, the poor were
as badly off as ever. The visible effects of that disillusionment
were Chartism, rioting, and agrarian crime, and there was a deep
undercurrent of sullen anger which seldom found expression. As
late as the General Election of 1868 an old man in the duke-ridden
borough of Woodstock declined to vote for the Liberal candidate
expressly on the ground of disappointed hopes. Before 1832, he
said, arms had been stored in his father's cottage to be used if
the Lords threw out the Bill. They had passed it, and the arms were
not required; but no one that he knew of had ever been a ha'porth
the better for it; and he had never since meddled with politics,
and never would again. In this case the despondency of old age was
added to the despondency of disappointment; but among younger men
hope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage beckoned with its
treacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, starting on
its pilgrimage from the very heart of England, forced the labourer's
wants and claims upon the attention of the land-owners, the farmers,
and the clergy.

Those who had been brought by early association into touch with
the agricultural population knew only too well how deep and just
was the discontent of the villages, and how keen the yearning for
better chances. To secure the vote for the agricultural labourer
seemed to be the f