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Leader (1850-1860), 20th September 1856, Edition 2 of 2, Page 5, AMERICA. The struggle between the Senate...

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      The Chartist Gathering. A ' J>Emocbatic ...

      ing characteristic inscriptions , such as * The alliance of the peoples ; ' * The Archangel is here ; his name is De- mocracy ; ' ' Frost , Williams , Jones , the victims of tyranny , restored to then- homes ; ' ' The sovereignty of the People ;* ' Hail , brother victim ! ' The Political Victims of 1848 ; ' ' God speed our cause ! ' and ' Dis- obedience to Tyrants is a duty to God- ' At one part of the procession , a copy of the Daily Telegraph , a penny newspaper , was borne aloft on a black gibbet , and set fire to as the corttge passed the office of the paper in the Strand . The rear was brought up by several plea- sure vans , laden with women and children . The pro- cession , thus made up , started from Finsbury-square at half-past twelve , passing along Moorgate-street to the Mansion-house , and so on through Cheapside , & c . Be- sides the persons of whom it was composed , a motley rabble of ' roughs' and boys accompanied it throughout the wliole way . It was difficult to estimate the number of people who made up the cortege , but it took about five minutes to file past a given point on the journey . " The procession having arrived at the summit of Prim rose-till , a scene of great violence ensued . The ground was not sufficiently ample to accommodate the vast crowd which had . assembled , and which , included some very xough characters : the result of this was that an ab solute fight took place ; some children were nearl trodden to death ; -women fainted , and it was with the greatest difficulty that a ring was formed round Mr Frost and his friends . Very few policemen were pre sent , and they had enough to do in looking after the thieves who weie busy picking pockets . Mr . Frost having mounted on a form , and order being restored Mr . Ernest Jones was ' called to the chair , ' if the phrase be permissible , and the subjoined Ode , written b himself , was sung by the meeting to the tune of ' God save the Queen : ' — - THE WORKMAN ' S SO 2 IG TO THE RICH . God save the workman ' s right , . From Mammon ' s sordid might , And Birth ' s pretence . __ Confound the tricky rule , " Of foreign courtly tool , Give us from freedom ' s school , The men of sense . Forced as a boon to ask , For labour ' s dailj r task From purse-proud knaves ; Not ours the land we till , Not ours the stores we fill : Living and dying still Beggars and slaves . We toil at loom and spade , And still the more we ' ve made , . The less we gain ; For you the profits keep , And you the surplus heap , Till all our age can reap , Is want and pain . Our poverty ' s your wealth , Our sickness is your health , Our death your life ; Your shops in poison deal , Banks forge and statesmen steal , And rots the commonweal , Corruption rife . With bloodstained despots' shame , You link our country ' s name , And aid their crime ; God ! hear thy people pray ^ If there ' s no other way , Give us one glorious day Of Cromwell ' s time . But if the Lord of Life Will turn your hearts from strife , To clasp our hand , And bid oppression cease : Then brotherhood and peace , In Freedom ' s safe increase , Shall bless our land . The Chairman then delivered an address , eulogizing Mr . Frost ; attributing the wretchedness of the poor to 41 tlie monopoly of legislation , of land , of trade , of credit , and of everything else that ought to bo open and attainable ; " and advocating the appropriation by the people of the 30 , 000 , 000 acres of -waste land now lying idle out of the 70 , 000 , 000 into which the country is divided . " If those public lands , " said Mr . Jones , " were thrown open to the working classes , thousands upon thousands of them might be living independent on an allotment of fifteen acres to each man . That would not bo attended by the confiscation of one aero of property , for these waste lands belong of right to the people , though tlio people are not even permitted to set foot on them . " In the courBo of his address , while making an allusion to labour , Mr . Jones was interrupted by a voice asking " Do you labour ? " —followed by great uproar . Mr . Jones replied that . " ho had laboured more than the man who interrogated him—had laboured with his brain and Ins pen , in the dungeon and in a state ol liberty . Ho had ruined himself individually ; ho had sacrificed all the hopes of his life by his adherence to '

      th lii Fi w re gi as vi 01 w I st h < m pi le si n rr - h r \ p e - p y c r . t - e 3 t , c j y 1 t 1 £ ^ ] ] , : their cause ; and he was ready , if need were , to offer np b life itself for it . " At this , there were renewed cheers . tl ' On the motion of Mr . Finlen , the address to Mr . w 1 Frost was then read , and unanimously adopted ; after n ! wlricl , Mr . Frost , who was greeted with cheers , said , in se rep ] y : __ " I accept with much pleasure your kind con- tn gratulations on my return to my native country , and be te assured that I set a proper value on them . I am con- to vinced of their sincerity , and nothing shall be wanting tl : on my part to continue to deserve the confidence of the sj working men . ( jCkeers . ') On principle and humanity , vi I have ever taken the part of the weak against the h . strong when I believed the weak to be right ; and to be ! held in remembrance by the industrious classes gives me 1 « more real satisfaction than anything the wealthy and -A powerful could bestow . { Renewed cheers . ) It is the E t leading principle of that religion which I profess , to " « r succour the oppressed , and 3 shall do so -while life Te- c j mains . Forty years ago , I "became convinced that the p miserable state of our country , and of its industrious in- "w - habitants , was occasioned by the lawgiver—by the cor- o I ruption of the House of Commons—and I did all in my a t power to point out to my neighbours the cause of . the 'v e evil and the remedy . The only remedy , as it then ap- 1 - peared to me , was to recur to the principles of our ancient c y constitution , which principles are embodied in what is * e now called the Charter . ( CAeers . ) I sa-w in my native ' v town the demoralizing effects of the present mode of < - electing members of the House of Commons . In the I e yeai 1837 , on the accession of Queen Victoria , I was ' ¦ ¦' it the Mayor of our borough , and therefore the returning- ' I , officer . At that election , I believe 20 , 0 OOZ . were spent , ] e principally in bribing the electors , in corrupting society y at its very foundation , and I was obliged to receive the d votes of those whom I , with good reason , suspected had received money from both candidates . During the agitation for the Reform Bill , I warned my countrymen that the thing was a humbug ; that it would put the same sort of men into the House as those who occupied the seats under the boroughmongering system , and I have lived to see the day when the ablest writers in England have declared that since the Reform Bill became the law of the land , the members elected under it were greater imbeciles and more dishonest than asry elected under the old system . { Cheers . ' ) Bitter as was the hatred which I formerly felt for the men who oppressed and impoverished my country , it was nothing in intensity compared to what I feel at present ; and lase indeed must 1 be if , after witnessing the sufferings and depravity of my countrymen in Van LMemen ' s Landthose , too , the work of the lawgiver—I did not exert every power I possessed to change a system which , unless altered , and speedily too , will bring down on the nation the vengeance of that God who , for crimes of a similar kind , destroyed the fairest spot in the workl . I am pleased to -find that the Chartists of London and its suburbs place confidence in , my integrity ; that confidence shall not be disappointed .- Let our organizations be preserved where they exist , and let others be formed where there are none . \ Vhen Parliament meets , we shall be able to place our cause before 'it in such a manner that the enemies of the people cannot resist our claims , which are founded on justice . The powers possessed by the House of Commons are usurpations obtained at the expense of those principles which deputies ought not to have violated ; and the poverty , misery , and crime which now afflict our country are to be attributed to these usurpations . ( Cheers . ) We play for a great stake—life or death ; let that game be played skilfully . Let us be cool , but determined ; prudent , but fearless ; giving up no principle , satisfied with nothing less than our due , and we may yet live to see our country once more bearing and deserving the name of ' Merry England . '" A Mr . Hcnretta then proposed , and a working man , wlio was announced as a " Lancashire Lad , " seconded , a resolution in favour of the People ' s Charter ; which , having been unanimously agreed to , the meeting separated , after giving three cheers for Mr . Frost , and three more for the Charter . ha the w the vic B , ,- . ' f $ ¦ 3 . j I . x B I [ i . t Y s _ a d _ ¦ t , a ts l _ ig id a ir 5 _ \ - s v C- a 1 _ ut ig ry ry in a » h ^ a- rco

      September 20, 1856.] The Xeams, 893

      September 20 , 1856 . ] THE XEAMS , 893

      America. The Struggle Between The Senate...

      AMERICA . The struggle between the Senate and the House of Representatives has ended in the adoption of the Army Appropriation Bill without tho Kansas proviso . The extra session is consequently at a close , and the President is frco to use the Federal army in Kansas as he pleases . " The Republicans , " says a letter from New York , " were bullied out of their position by a wellconceived dodge of the Administration—the-dismissal of all tho workmen employed in tho national shops in consequence of want of funds to pay them . The Republicans were afraid of tho effect of this , and withdrew enough of their forces to allow tho bill to pass . Tho voto on the passage was 101 to 98 . " The latest intelligence from Kansas represents a continuance of warlike preparations . The partisans of slavery , under tho orders of General Atcliinson , and the Freosoilerfl , commanded by General Lane , are preparing for an encounter , " Tho President , " says tbe writer from whom we have already quoted , 1 4 ' has announced his purpose to prevent hereafter any invasion of Kansas , come from what quarter tho expei dition may , and has promised that actual settlers shall te- ny ho si- he dw ill- of so- ing gh ; he om ns . rai ral it " cu , ny pe- iall

      ' ¦ ve a fair election , though it cost the whole force of Federal Government to secure it . He has coupled ith this promise , however , an expression of a determination to enforce the obnoxious territorial laws , whicb several democratic senators denounced as unconstitutional , arbitrary , and tyrannical , and has declined to interfere to protect emigrants on their way to the territory . " Some appalling accounts have been published of atrocities perpetrated by the slavery party , wh « spare neither age nor sex , and actually scalp their tims ^ after the manner of red Indians . It is to be hoped that these stories are exaggerated . A letter from the Rev . Mr . Sellers , an anti-slavery lecturer , has been published in the Western Christian Advocate . It contains an account of the murder of on « enjamin Holland , a member of the same party , who was shot through the head by a mob of slavery advo— , cates at Rochester , Mobile ; and it furthermore relates th « particulars of a disgraceful outrage perpetrated on th « writer . Mr . Sellers and his brethren proposed to lecture or preach against slavery ; but , one morning , a crowd assembled round a store where the writer of the letter was staying at the time , and warned him not to preach . He refused to withhold , and was then dragged violently out into the street . Mr . Holland ( an old man ) was shot , and diedih about half an hour ; and two others of the brethren' were fired at , onebeing slightly Irart . What ensued to Mr . Sellers must be related in * Ms own language : — " While in the street , the mob held a consultation over me , as to the nature of the punishment I should receive from them , as the embodiment of civil power , and the self-constituted guardians of society , for thus attempting to preach Jesus and the resurrection under the banner of freedom . Some said , ' Cut his — -throat ; ' others , ' Scalp him ; ' others , ' Shoot him in the head . ' At last , they concluded to tar me . They then carried me across the stteet , between another store and warehouse , 1 o a tar barrel which was sunk in the ground , and , throwing me down on my back with considerable violence , held me there while they consulted as to the manner in which the tar should be applied . Some said , ¦ * Put him in head foremost ; ' others were for stripping me . One fellow swore they could not agree , and he would shoot me . He aimed a revolver at my head , but another wrested it from him , exclaiming , ' Don ' t shoot him ; we will give him what we think he deserves . ' At last , they concluded to do the work-without stripping me- After searching me to see whether I was armed or not , and finding I had no arms concealed about my person , they commenced putting on the tar with abroad paddle . " After completely saturating my hair , they gave my eyes , cats , face , and neck each a plastering . I had on a black coat , satin vest , and black cloth pants . They tarred my cravat , my shirt bosom , and rny clothes , down to my feet . They then let me np . " I was so sore I could scarcely stand on my feet ; but oh ! the agony of my eyes ; they appeared like balls of fire , and I thought they would burst out of my head . Although it was noon , and the hot sun . was beaming upon . my head , I groped my way as at midnight . After I " . arose to my feet , one fellow said , ' He has one minute to leave town ; ' another said , ' He can have five minutes . and if he is not gone in that time he shall be shot . ' I groped my way into the street ; they followed me with , their revolvers cocked , telling me to step faster , at the peril of my life . I was in so much misery I knew not where I was going . I could see objects , but could not distinguish one from another . By the time I got across tho street , between Brother Strock ' s store and stable , the tar had melted some , and I could distinguish between males and females . " Having found his way , in the midst of weeping and fainting women , to hjs horse , he was assisted by one of the mob in saddling the animal , but -was turned back from the way he wanted to go . He afterwards met a friend and liis wife , with whom he fled , as fast as their horses could carry them , to a place of refuse some twelve miles distant , pursued all the way by the mob , who at one time were very nearly upon them . Mr . Sellers escaped with his life , but ho "was thrown into a dangerous , illness in consequence of the treatment he received . . From Nicaragua wo have confirmation of a rumour that Mr . Livingston , the United States Consul at Leon , has been shot by the Rivas party , in retaliation for the execution of Colonel Salizar by General Walker , Mr . Manning , tho English consul , has been dismissed for an alleged interference in the domestic politics of Nicaragua . Walker would seem to be surrounded by difficulties—not only on account of the armed oppoaition . which ho has to resist , but owing to want of money , Capital has flowed out of tho country to an alarming extent , as a result of the unsettled condition of affairs ; and tho soldiers of the ad-venturer arc obliged to take temporary pay in scrip , which is not to bo sold for less than eighty cents on the dollar . Plantations wliich were originally of very high value , but which have l > een stripped of their produce by the invaders , may now bo obtained for a trifle ; and the country , for the present , seems to be on the verge of bankruptcy , The yellow fever has broken out in a virulent form on Governor ' s Island , not far from New York , and at Brooklyn , a town of 200 , 000 people , on tho soutliem shore of tho East River , epposite " the Empire City , " In the city itself , tho people are anxiously waiting to b « o

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 20, 1856, page 5, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20091856/page/5/