, were enough
to cause alarm among the privileged classes, and conscience made
cowards, not certainly of them all, but of the majority.

Literature enough and to spare, explanatory, declamatory and the like,
has grown around a movement which ran like an unfed river, until it lost
itself in the sand. Three men of genius took up their parable about what
one of them called the 'Condition of England Question,' and in the pages
of Carlyle's 'Chartism' and 'Past and Present,' Disraeli's 'Sybil,' and
last, but not least, in Kingsley's 'Alton Locke,' the reader of to-day
is in possession of sidelights, vivid, picturesque, and dramatic, on
English society in the years when the Chartists were coming to their
power, and in the year when they lost it. Lord John was at first in
favour of allowing the Chartists to demonstrate to their hearts'
content. He therefore proposed to permit them to cross Westminster
Bridge, so that they might deliver their petition at the doors of
Parliament. He thought that the police might then prevent the re-forming
of the procession, and scatter the crowd in the direction of Charing
Cross. Lord John had done too much for the people to be afraid of them,
and he refused to accept the alarmist view of the situation. But the
consternation was so widespread, and the panic so general, that the
Government felt compelled on April 6 to declare the proposed meeting
criminal and illegal, to call upon all peaceably disposed citizens not
to attend, and to take extraordinary precautions. It was, however,
announced that the right of assembly would be respected; but, on the
advice of Wellington, only three of the leaders were to be allowed to
cross the bridge. The Bank, the Tower, and the neighbourhood of
Kennington Common meanwhile were protected by troops of cavalry and
infantry, whilst the approaches to the Houses of Parliament and the
Government offices were held by artillery.

[Sidenote: LONDON IN TERROR]

The morning of the fateful 10th dawned brightly, but no one dared
forecast how the evening would close, and for a few hours of suspense
there was a reign of terror. Many houses were barricaded, and in the
West End the streets were deserted except by the valiant special
constables, who stood at every corner in defence of law and order. The
shopkeepers, who were not prepared to take joyfully the spoiling of
their goods, formed the great mass of this citizen army--one hundred and
fifty thousand strong. There we