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    tion , and the gross amount of petitions and petitioners , on several of the most prominent topics . It might have been expected that we should have found a correspondence ; that where the greatest number of persons petitioned , the petitions would , severally , have been the most numerously signed . The contrary is the met , in many and those very striking instances . Nearly a million and a

    quarter petitioned for the abolition of Colonial Slavery , and yet the total amount of signatures divided by the number of petitions ,

    yields only an average of 263 names to a petition . Against the Corn Laws , only 18 , 239 persons have petitioned ; but the average of signatures to a petition is 1130- Several similar discrepancies may be noticed by inspecting the Table and the two lists appended to it . They point to the conclusion that a high average of signatures to the petitions on any subject indicates a strong

    public feeling , even though the total amount of petitioners should not be comparatively large ; while a large number of petitions , with a low average of signatures is presumptive of organization and ax > tivity in the getting up of an appeal to Parliament . Let the reader look at the twelve topics which stand highest according to the number of petitions . Of the first four , not one comes into the list of the twelve which have the highest average of signatures . They would be nearly at the bottom of a complete list arranged

    on that principle . How is this ? We take the solution to be that in these and similar cases , a kind of petition-manufacturing

    machinery was diligently employed . We do not say that it was not employed for an excellent object . Our opinion on the plaguespot of Colonial Slavery needs no iteration here . The question is not as to the object , but the means . In the number of petitions on this subject , we trace the agency of the Anti-slavery Society , and of the various bodies of Dissenters organized in their

    sects , associations , and congregations . The Sabbatarian petitions indicate the latter machinery , aided by the parochial influence of the established clergy . No . 6 in this class furnishes us with an average which may be assumed as that of a Protestant Dissenting Congregational Petition . Nearly all the petitions which it includes are probably of that sort . The congregations muster , one with another , 212 petitioners . Now the Sabbatarian average

    is 247 , and the Anti-slavery 263 . Deducting the great petition against Slavery , signed by somewhere between 50 , 000 and 100 , 000 persons , the last average would be reduced yet nearer to the con-{ regational point . With the exception of the petitions for Poor . aws in Ireland , which are very insignificant , these are the only petitions of which the average of signatures is between 200 and oOO . The affinity is remarkable ; especially when taken in connexion with others which we proceed to point out ; and remembering that these three topics have most interested the religionist * who act , if churchmen parochially , and if dissenters congregation ally . The petitions , which have an average of above

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    Petition * to Parliament . 443

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 443, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/3/