Charter (Newspaper) - November 3, 1839, London, Middlesex ESTABLISHED BY THE WORKING CLASSES WHO SEEK NOTHING BUT OWN JUST HAVE ALWAYS A EIGHT TO WIN AND TO KEEP WHENEVER THEY HAVE THE BE THE VOICES SO NUMEROUS THAT OPPOSE SUCH AS DESERVES THE IS THE PORTION OF THE MASS OF THE AND NOT THE HAUGHTY LICENSE OT SOME PREDOMINANT No. 41 NOVEMBER 1839. Price 6d THE BRITISH By the British is meant that system of Government which prevails in this a confused and heterogeneous founded on no conceivable can properly be called a system at In the first place we have a independently of a thousand other can make war and peace without consulting any one who directly and immediately appoints all the members of the Government and great Officers of State; the Officers in the Army and and in fact every holder of an office of trust and In addition to by her own sole can swamp one of the branches of the by new and can set at nought the united wishes of both Houses of And she is supported in most extravagant out of the hard earnings of the money for instance being devoted to the erection of her than to the education of the whole community we have a House of Lords composed of hereditary of Bishops appointed by the and of hereditary noblemen elected by their own order in Ireland and So that however vicious and ignorant a man may yet if he be born a or meet with the favour of the he is invested with legislative with control over the and of the And to crown the he may exercise this power by without hearing one word of remonstrance or there is a House of composed of the nominal representatives of the hut whom it no more represents than it does the people of The House represents none but a few since they command a great majority through the small country sending three times more members than the large arid in consequence of the County franchise being in effect confined to Landowners and the weighty interests of the and the commerce and manufactures of the are held nothing in this absurd apology for a Not one half even of the middle class have and a small minority of those who hold the namely one returns more members than all the If this is not the the very perfection and ne of pray what is Were it not too I serious a what could he better calculated to excite our risible than that under this he punished for expressing any and nor shall 1 do more than merely allude to the refusal of the government to allow citizens to acquire a knowledge of the use of for fear they should bring about a different state of I shall confine myself to what are called the fundamental principles of the the system of government by and which is said to he an admirable mixture of and all balancing each This supposed balance is a mere phantom of the An actual representation of the people and an hereditary legislature are totally incompatible with each and were never known to exist Even in consequence of the small improvement effected by the Reform are taking But what willbe the case when the popular principle becomes all powerful in what is called the lower Can any opposition on the part of the Lords be other than What then becomes of the boasted balance long would an hereditary aristocracy be kept merely the decrees of the people As to the utility of the House of in revising and correcting a committee of the Commons appointed for that purpose would perform it much under the control of the House If we look back to the origin of our boasted we shall find that it was founded in usurpation and The sovereignty was acquired by and the officers of the Conqueror parcelled out the country amongst each They and their together with the governed the made what laws they and enforced them by the In course of time it became in order to facilitate the collection of the to call in the assistance of a few chosen by a portion of the The monarch accordingly commanded just what towns and places hs pleased to send and pointed out by nis or how and by whom they should he These representatives he called together when he and no They were paid by their and the office was considered as one of more burthen than this has acquired more hut it still retains the distinguishing traits of its barbarous with but slight But the has been found to work pretended system of representation a householder living in one place has a vote because he pays 10/. a year whilst in the neighbouring town all persons similarly paying more than four times as high a have no more to do with the election of members of than they have with the affairs of the Emperor of But this electors fare restrained from choosing whom they choice is not a sufficient are prevented from electing any besides individuals of a particular And to prevent even this semblance and shadow of popular power from being detrimental to aristocratical an election takes place only once in seven unless the Sovereign chooses that it should be By this means the member becomes independent of his is enabled to dispose of his political power in any way that may best suit his own pecuniary or best advance the interests of his relations and or flatter his And when the time comes for renewing his long he can afford to pay the privileged pretty handsomely for their This is the legislative body at whose mercy we are all hereditary hereditary House of and an by a fiction is supposed to represent the Can we then wonder at the melancholy state of society in these we expect the people being their interests should be and nothing looked to but the aggrandizement of the aristocracy and their Although treating of the British it is not my intention to comment here upon the its monstrous evils and danger of our standing army severed from the rest of the people and placed at the absolute disposal of the the scandalous state of vision to It is a Constitution which produces the very reverse of what ought to be the object of all the happiness of the Compare the condition of the many in this country with that of the people in free states look at what we are and what we ought to and say ought we to be and boast of our fetters the dorsetshire the law in its principles and or the utter disregard of the representative principle both in form and substance in local affairs shall I stop to show that by the existing laws the people in reality no power to meet together to consider their nor any right to give utterance to their inasmuch as they may system How long Up to a comparatively recent period this was a poor and insignificant and something like a European The constitution was then the or nearly so. To what then is our great advancement in the arts and sciences to be attribute ed to our insular position and maritime to our mines of iron and and manufacturing We have prospered in spite of ignorant class legislation doing its utmost to discourage and extinguish our commerce by enormous burthens and unwise But although a numerous middle class has been look at the condition of the great mass of the It miserable in the We are often told that the power of the Monarch is only but the fact is quite the A King or Queen in this country can create a most powerful which will never fail to discover absolute wisdom in every thing that is said or done by the dispenser of all and The fruits of this admirable Constitution are simply a few men of a privileged class rule the and make laws for their own without regard to the The nation is cramped with an enormous contracte the purpose of supporting Monarchy and tyranny the taxes raised to pay the interest of that and the expenses of are raised from the earnings of the instead of being levied on The laws make rents high and food the poor are half starved for the sake of saving the pockets of the innumerable places and pensions are created to support the luxuries of the privileged in two the nation is made to remain in a state of and for the sake of a small portion of the Now ye at this picture of the British Is it not faithfully and do you not now ardently admire the of government which is said to be the wonder and admiration of the world By the I apprehend that it is our commercial and maritime pre-eminence and enormous Colonial power that attract the envy of the and not our laws and the symmetry and ness of which it would require a to the editor of the me to use a small space in your to make public a flagrant act of oppression committed an honest and industrious by the and fanners of This is not the first time that I have had L 1 through the public to denounce the inhuman and unchristian conduct of During the time of the agitation previous to the assembly of the a labourer of the name of John residing at near had made himself active in spreading information amongst his brethren in the The farmer for whom he then a man of the name of in hearing of instantly discharged Since that time the farmers in the parish of Houghton and its by mutual have refused to employ him telling him they would punish him for his The they had principally in view to force him into the Union to break as they expressed his and to deter his from following liis This persecution of poor Lane and his family has extended over a period of eighteen From information I have just they have at last succeeded in their purpose after struggling as long as he was able against these friends of the as they sometimes style is now an inmate of Union separated from his and his home broken not because he is unable or unwilling to but because he to for and to impart what knowledge he possessed to his less fortunate or less reflecting It is also worthy of that the farmers who thus persecuted Lane and his family while he was a li free and who received great assistance from the parson of in their unholy are most of them members of the Blandford Board of Guardians that poor Lane is still in their I regret that the late time of the week when I received the above information prevents my doing the farmers of Houghton that justice they richly but having visited the county of the last twelve I can assure you there is no species of tyranny which these fellows are not prepared to on their Another A labouring man residing in the parish of a village adjoining of about four weeks ordered a copy of The paper sent him The farmer for whom he was a subscriber to The the name of Thomas worked finding that he last week discharged him on that and no doubt intends him to share the fate of Even the boy when fetching his master's from the Blandford post brought also has been Comment here is I have not done yet with the Poor Men's of with your wil next week offer a few more observations on theil dastardly Your's Hotel and first Anniversary Dinner of the Hotel and Benevolent the object of which is the establishment of a fund for the permanent or temporary assistance of their and took place on Thursday evening at the London The Chair was taken by Benjamin Bond and at she nearly two hundred gentlemen sat down to an entertainment of which it is unnecessary to say more than that it was worthy of high character for good taste and and that the wines received the unanimous approval of a company which included best judges in the After the usual loyal and patriotic toasts had been given and cordially responded the Chairman gave 11 to the Hotel and Benevolent Institution prefacing the toast by some very and appropriate observations on its and the which it had upon public sympathy and Mr. of the London returned detailing the history of the formation of the Institution out the benefits it was calculated to confer upon aged and necessitous inculcating the advantages of frugality arid In the course of the evening the Mr. amidst loud a long and cheering list of donations and amounting to nearly 400/. There was a full attendance of professional including Messrs. and Masters Martin and contributed much to the harmony and A the the enjoyments of which were to an advanced Ministers and the R. the thus referred the other at a. meeting with his to the ministerial policy on the Ministers are also accused of a want of energy in not having adopted more rigorous measures to put the It was quite a mistake to suppose that ministers had not all along been most anxious on that or that they had for a moment allowed their attention to be diverted from it. It had been his duty to be in daily conference with Lord J. who watched their proceedings with the utmost and was deterred from adopting what might be termed more rigorous by the assurance which he felt the thing would wear itself and that he might safely rely upon the sound English feeling and the good sense of the people to put it Was he right or was he not were the Chartists now might be considered as Had the Tories been in he knew perfectly well that they would not have acted as the present government had we should have had the Manchester massacre Who does not remember what they did in 1810 They adopted a very different course After their rigorous proceedings at they called Parliament prematurely together to pass the Six Acts for abridging the liberty of the and the liberty of the - Toll a meeting of and resident in the and interested in the furtherance of the objects of this was held at the Queen's Mr. Hobler in the when Mr. the honorary after referring to the numerous district petitions which have been forwarded to the association for presentation to the House of submitted to the meeting the draft of a petition from the City after stating the general grounds upon which the petitioners urge the interference of the House to remove the evils complained of tolls on and Southwark pray that the House by the immediate adoption of one or other of the means suggested and approved by the metropolis improvement or by such other means as the may deem best adapted for accomplishing such to originate or sanction a measure by which the interests of the proprietors of and Vauxhall or such of them as the House may consider necessary for removing the may be in order to their being immediately thrown to the public free of This petition was adopted and signed by the Effects of inquest was held before Mr. at the London on on the body of William a aged Mary Swan stated that she was the and resided at No. 1, On last week he came home to his dinner and complained to her of a pain his saying that he scratched it slightly with a She examined the and saw a small like the scrape of a but deemed it too trilling te He went to his work on the following and returned home very as his arm had swelled to a great and prevented him from Poultices and other remedies were but and he was removed to the London Hospital on where he died on the following Mr. Henry Stan a pupil in the said that after the admission the inflammation in his arm increased and ultimately terminated in was told by wiFe that he was a per intemperate and in his ifr was owing to this alone that a fatal result arose from so trifling a Mary in answer to a said her husband's earnings were almost all spent upon and that he would abstain from food for days whilst in these fits of The jury returned a verdict That the deceased die tion arising from a slight wound inflicted by a Trade is Dundee there are many excellent mechanics and the manufacturing population are not faring nor will we for some In Montrose there are a considerable number of and others out of which is a state of circumstances new in this In wo hear of very many and some people say there is too much work doing and too little Several mill spinners say that they cannot get the value of raw material for The harvest has slightly eased the produce of the looms of and the but we doubt that cloth will We have every reason to think that provisions will be cheaper and better than last because we do not depend on wheat so as oats in this Exportation of bobbin net machine exporters were extremely busy during the fair both in sending away the best workmen and the best Several orders are in town for machine insides for though scarcely any machines have been building in Nottingham since 1836, except those for Burton's new factory at Map per The number of bobbin net machines since that year has decreased nearly one-half in A branch establishment of the jingler stocking frames are now making new frames in this description of stocking frame was invented in by Mr. the fleecy in 1836; his frame now in the room of the Society of in the ' 5T
