nd privileges, and when this
is accomplished to proceed to a more equal distribution of
property, to an agrarian experiment; for it is idle to suppose
that men of this stamp care anything for abstract political
theories, or have any definite object but that of procuring the
means of working less, and eating and drinking more. The accounts
of the Chartists (as they are called), at and about Manchester,
represent them to be collected in vast bodies, associations of
prodigious numbers, meeting in all the public-houses, collecting
arms universally, and constantly practising by firing at a mark,
openly threatening, if their demands are not complied with, to
enforce them by violence. In the mean time there is no military
force in the country at all adequate to meet these menacing
demonstrations; the yeomanry have been reduced, and the
magistracy are worse than useless, without consideration,
resolution, or judgement. There is every reason to suppose that
they have got into a scrape with their arrest of Stephens, the
great Chartist orator, and that there is no case against him
sufficient for a conviction.[9] The magistrates completely lost
their heads, and between their fears and their folly have
blundered and bothered their proceedings miserably, and so as to
afford an ultimate triumph to this mischievous fellow and his
followers.

[9] [One Stephens, formerly a Wesleyan preacher, and one of
the most violent agitators against the New Poor Law,
was apprehended near Manchester on December 27. He had
used most incendiary language, but was liberated on
bail, and soon afterwards addressed a meeting of 5,000
people at Ashton-under-Lyne. There seems to have been
no case against him.]

January 11, 1839 {p.156}

A great field-day at the Council Office yesterday to hear the
Petition of the Serjeants against the order of the late King
opening the Court of Common Pleas to all barristers. It was
Brougham's order.[10] The Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Master of
the Rolls, three Chiefs, all the Puisne Judges who are Privy
Councillors, Lushington, Wynford, and Brougham sat. Follett and
Charles Austin were counsel for the Serjeants, and the Attorney
and Solicitor-Generals ordered to attend, and seated at a table
in court. Follett spoke for four hours, and Austin for two, and
did not finish. A vast deal of historical research was displayed,
but it was not amusing nor part