In 1846 the question arose as to who should educate the Prince of
Wales (born 1841). A pamphlet on the subject had been published and
created general interest. Baron Stockmar was again consulted, and
gave it as his opinion that the Prince's education should be one
"which will prepare him for approaching events"--that is, he was to
be so educated that he would be in touch with the movements of the
age and able to respond sympathetically to the wishes of the nation.
The rapid growth of democracy throughout Europe made it absolutely
necessary that his education should be of a different kind. The task
of governing well was becoming more and more difficult, and reigning
monarchs were criticized in an open fashion, such as had not hitherto
been possible. After much thought the post was given to Mr Henry Birch
(formerly a master at Eton College, and at that time rector of
Prestwich, near Manchester), who had made a very favourable
impression upon the Queen and her husband.
Plain people as well as princes must be educated, and this fact was
never lost sight of by the Queen and her husband. In 1857 the Prince
called attention to the fact that there were at that time no fewer
than 600,000 children between the ages of three and fifteen absent
from school but known to be employed in some way; he pointed out
also--and this seems in these days difficult to believe--that no less
than _two million_ children were not attending school, and were, so
far as could be ascertained, not employed in any way at all.
[Illustration: BUCKINGHAM PALACE]
The most interesting visitors whom the Queen entertained during her
early married life were the Emperor Nicholas of Russia and Louis
Napoleon of France. The Emperor Nicholas came to England, as he told
the Queen, to see things with his own eyes, and to win, if he could,
the confidence of English statesmen. "I esteem England highly; but
as to what the French say of me, I care not."
He was, however, undoubtedly jealous of this country's growing
friendship with her old enemy, France, but any attempt to weaken this
met with no encouragement.
The Queen, in writing to her uncle Leopold, said, "He gives Albert
and myself the impression of a man who is _not_ happy, and on whom
the burden of his immense power and position weighs heavily and
painfully. He seldom smiles, and when he does, the expression is
_not_ a happy one. He is very easy to get on with." In a further letter
she continued, "By living in the same house together quietly and
unrestrainedly (and this Albert, and with great truth, says is the
great advantage of these visits, that I not only _see_ these great
people, but _know_ them), I got to know the Emperor and he to know
me. . . . He is sincere, I am certain, _sincere_ even in his most
despotic acts--from a sense that that _is_ the _only_ way to
govern. . . . He _feels_ kindness deeply--and his love for his wife
and children, and for all children, is _very_ great. He has a strong
feeling for domestic life, saying to me, when our children were in
the room: 'These are the sweet moments of our life.' One can see by
the way he takes them up and plays with them that he is very fond
of children." And again she wrote: "He also spoke of princes being
nowadays obliged to strive to make themselves worthy of their
position, so as to reconcile people to the fact of their being
princes."
The effect of this visit was to make France somewhat suspicious, and
the Queen expressed her wish that it might not prevent the visit which
had been promised by King Louis Philippe.
There was at one time actually danger of war over trouble in the East,
but King Leopold, whose kingdom was in the happy position of having
its independence guaranteed by the Powers,[2] was able to bring his
influence to bear, and the critical period passed over, to the great
relief of the Queen.
[Footnote 2: This, however, did not protect Belgium in 1914, when
Germany did not hesitate to attack her.]
In 1844 King Louis Philippe paid his promised visit, of which the
Queen said, "He is the first King of France who comes on a visit to
the Sovereign of this country. A very eventful epoch, indeed, and
one which will surely bring good fruits."
The King was immensely pleased with everything he saw, and with the
friendly reception he received. He assured the Queen that France did
not wish to go to war with England, and he told her how pleased he
was that all their difficulties were now smoothed over.
During his stay he was invested with the Order of the Garter--an Order,
it is interesting to recollect, which had been created by Edward the
Third after the Battle of Cressy, and whose earliest knights were
the Black Prince and his companions.
The Corporation of London went to Windsor in civic state to present
the King with an address of congratulation. He declared in his answer
that "France has nothing to ask of England, and England has nothing
to ask of France, but cordial union."
But in 1848 the Orleans dynasty was overthrown, France proclaimed
a republic, and King Louis Philippe, his wife and family were forced
to flee to England. Here in 1850, broken in health, the King died.
In 1852 Louis Napoleon, who had been elected President for life,
created himself Emperor, and in 1855, after the conclusion of the
Crimean War and the death of the Emperor Nicholas, he visited
England.
A State Ball was held of which the Queen wrote: "How strange to think
that I, the granddaughter of George III, should dance with the
Emperor Napoleon, nephew of England's great enemy, now my nearest
and most intimate ally, in the Waterloo room, and this ally only six
years ago living in this country an exile, poor and unthought of! . . .
I am glad to have known this extraordinary man, whom it is certainly
impossible not to like when you live with him, and not even to a
considerable extent to admire. I believe him to be capable of
kindness, affection, friendship, and gratitude. I feel confidence
in him as regards the future; I think he is frank, means well towards
us, and, as Stockmar says, 'that we have insured his sincerity and
good faith towards us for the rest of his life.'"
The Queen and her husband paid frequent visits, and made many tours
during their early married life. It was a great source of pleasure
to both of them to feel that everywhere they went they were received
with the greatest delight and enthusiasm.
In 1847 they visited Cambridge University, of which Prince Albert
was now Chancellor. "Every station and bridge, and resting-place,
and spot of shade was peopled with eager faces watching for the Queen,
and decorated with flowers; but the largest, and the brightest, and
the gayest, and the most excited assemblage was at Cambridge station
itself. . . . I think I never saw so many children before in one
morning, and I felt so much moved at the spectacle of such a mass
of life collected together and animated by one feeling, and that a
joyous one, that I was at a loss to conceive how any woman's sides
can bear the beating of so strong a throb as must attend the
consciousness of being the object of all that excitement, the centre
of attraction to all those eyes. But the Queen has royal strength
of nerve."[3]
[Footnote 3: The Duke of Argyll, _Queen Victoria_.]
In 1849 they paid their first visit to Ireland, and received a royal
welcome on landing in Cork. The Queen noticed particularly that
"the beauty of the women is very remarkable, and struck us much; such
beautiful dark eyes and hair, and such fine teeth; almost every third
woman was pretty, and some remarkably so."
The royal children were the objects of great admiration. "Oh! Queen,
dear!" screamed a stout old lady, "make one of them Prince Patrick,
and all Ireland will die for you."
In Dublin, the capital of a country which had very recently been in
revolt, the loyal welcome was, if possible, even more striking.
The Queen writes: "It was a wonderful and striking spectacle, such
masses of human beings, so enthusiastic, so excited, yet such perfect
order maintained; then the numbers of troops, the different bands
stationed at certain distances, the waving of hats and handkerchiefs,
the bursts of welcome which rent the air--all made a
never-to-be-forgotten scene."
Lord Clarendon, writing of the results of the Irish tour, said, "The
people are not only enchanted with the Queen and the gracious
kindness of her manner and the confidence she has shown in them, but
they are pleased with themselves for their own good feelings and
behaviour, which they consider have removed the barrier that
hitherto existed between the Sovereign and themselves, and that they
now occupy a higher position in the eyes of the world."
In 1850 they visited for the first time the Palace of Holyrood. This
was a memorable occasion, for since Mary, Queen of Scots, had been
imprisoned there, no queen had ever stayed within its walls.
The Queen took the liveliest interest in the many objects of
historical interest which were shown to her. "We saw the rooms where
Queen Mary lived, her bed, the dressing-room into which the murderers
entered who killed Rizzio, and the spot where he fell, where, as the
old housekeeper said to me, 'If the lady would stand on that side,'
I would see that the boards were discoloured by the blood. Every step
is full of historical recollections, and our living here is quite
an epoch in the annals of this old pile, which has seen so many deeds,
more bad, I fear, than good."
Both the Queen and her husband had an especial love for animals, and
the Queen's suite, when she travelled, always included a number of
dogs. Her favourites were Skye terriers and the so-called
'turnspits' which were introduced into this country by Prince Albert.
One of the Queen's great delights at Windsor was to walk round the
farms and inspect the cattle, which are still, owing largely to the
careful methods of feeding and tending instituted by the Prince,
among the finest in the world. Kindness to animals was a lesson she
taught to all her children, and pictures and statuettes of all her
old favourites were to be found in her homes.
THE ROYAL FAMILY
QUEEN VICTORIA _m_. PRINCE ALBERT of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
1840
|
|
------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
Victoria, Princess | Princess Alice | | | | | Princess Beatrice
Royal (Empress | (Grand Duchess | | | | | (Princess Henry of
Frederick of | of Hesse) | | | | | Battenberg)
Germany) born 1840 | born 1843 | | | | | born 1857
| | | | | |
-------------------- | | | | -----------
| | | | | |
| ----------------------- | | | |
| | | | | Prince Leopold
| | --------- | | (Duke of Albany)
| Prince Alfred, Duke | | | born 1853
| of Edinburgh (Duke | | |
| of Saxe-Coburg and Princess Helena | --------
| Gotha) born 1844 (Princess Christian | |
| of Schleswig- | |
| Holstein) born 1846 | Prince Arthur
| | (Duke of Connaught)
| | born 1850
| |
| Princess Louise
-------------- (Duchess of Argyll)
| born 1848
|
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, _m_. Princess Alexandra of Denmark
born 1841 1863
(King Edward VII) |
|
----------------------------------------------------
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
Albert Victor George Frederick, | | | Prince Alexander
(Duke of Clarence) Prince of Wales, | | | born 1870
born 1864 born 1865 | | |
(King George V), | | |
_m_., 1893, Princess | | |
Victoria Mary of Teck | | |
| | |
-------------------- | --------------
| | |
| | |
Princess Louise Princess Victoria Princess Maud
(Duchess of Fife) born 1868 (Queen of Norway)
born 1867 born 1869
CHAPTER VI: _Strife_
"Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman that
with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes
her man's. . . . A second man I honour, and still more highly: Him
who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily
bread, but the Bread of Life. . . . Unspeakably touching is it,
however, when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil
outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly
for the highest."[4]
[Footnote 4: Carlyle, _Sartor Resartus_.]
To understand the many and bewildering changes which followed one
another in rapid succession during the early years of Victoria's
reign it is necessary to read the literature, more especially the
works of those writers who took a deep and lasting interest in the
lives and work of the people.
Democracy, the people, or the toiling class, was engaged in a fierce
battle with those forces which it held to be its natural enemies.
It was a battle of the Rich against the Poor, of the masters against
the men, of Right against Might. England was a sick nation, at war
with itself, and Chartism and the Chartists were some of the signs
of the disease. The early Victorian age is the age of Thomas Carlyle,
the stern, grim prophet, who, undaunted by poverty and ill-health,
painted England in dark colours as a country hastening to its ruin.
His message was old and yet new--for men had forgotten it, as they
always have from age to age. This was an age of competition, of
'supply and demand'; brotherly love had been forgotten and 'cash
payment' had taken its place. Carlyle denounced this system as "the
shabbiest gospel that had been taught among men." He urged upon
Government the fact that it was their _duty_ to educate and to uplift
the masses, and upon the masters that they should look upon their
workers as something more than money-making machines. The old system
of Guilds, in which the apprentice was under the master's direct care,
had gone and nothing had been put in its place.
The value of Carlyle's teaching lies in the fact that he insisted
upon the sanctity of work. "All true work is religion," he said, and
the essence of every true religion is to be found in the words, "Know
thy work and do it."
The best test of the worth of every nation is to be found in their
standard of life and work and their rejection of a life of idleness.
"To make some nook of God's Creation a little fruitfuller, better,
more worthy of God; to make some human hearts, a little wiser,
manfuler, happier--more blessed, less accursed! It is work for a
God. . . . Unstained by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or
heart's-blood of men, or any defacement of the Pit, noble, fruitful
Labour, growing ever nobler, will come forth--the grand sole Miracle
of Man, whereby Man has risen from the low places of this Earth, very
literally, into divine Heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders,
Prophets, Poets, Kings: . . . all martyrs, and noble men, and gods
are of one grand Host; immeasurable; marching ever forward since the
beginnings of the World."[5]
[Footnote 5: Carlyle, _Past and Present_.]
Carlyle was, above all things, sincere; he looked into the heart of
things, and hated half-beliefs. Men, he said, were accustoming
themselves to say what they did not believe in their heart of hearts.
The standard of English work had become lower; it was 'cheap and
nasty,' and this in itself was a moral evil. Good must in time prevail
over Evil; the Christian religion was the strongest thing in the
world, and for this reason had conquered. He believed in wise
compassion--that is to say, he kept his sympathy for those who truly
deserved it, for the mass of struggling workers with few or none to
voice their bitter wrongs.
His teachings are a moral tonic for the age, and though for a long
time they were unpopular and distasteful to the majority, yet he
lived to see much accomplished for which he had so earnestly striven.
Literature was beginning to take a new form. The novel of 'polite'
society was giving place to the novel which pictured life in cruder
and harsher colours. The life of the toiling North, of the cotton
spinners and weavers was as yet unknown to most people.
In 1848 appeared _Mary Barton_, a book dealing with the problems of
working life in Manchester. Mrs Gaskell, its author, who is best
known to most readers by her masterpiece _Cranford_, achieved an
instant success and became acquainted with many literary celebrities,
including Ruskin, Dickens, and Charlotte Bronte, whose Life she
wrote.
_Mary Barton_ was written from the point of view of labour, and _North
and South_, which followed some years later, from that of capital.
Her books are exact pictures of what she saw around her during her
life in Manchester, and many incidents from her own life appear in
their pages.
_North and South_ shows us the struggle not only between master and
men, as representing capital and labour, but also between ancient
and modern civilizations. The South is agricultural, easy-going,
idyllic; the North is stern, rude, and full of a consuming energy
and passion for work. These are the two Englands of Mrs Gaskell's
time.
The ways of the manufacturing districts, which seem unpleasing to
those who do not really know them, are described with a faithful yet
kindly pen, and we see that each life has its trials and its
temptations.
In the South all is not sunshine, and the life of the labourer can
be very hard--"a young person can stand it; but an old man gets racked
with rheumatism, and bent and withered before his time; yet he must
work on the same, or else go to the workhouse."
In the North men are often at enmity with their masters, and fight
them by means of the strike. "State o' trade! That's just a piece
of masters' humbug. It's rate o' wages I was talking of. Th' masters
keep th' state o' trade in their own hands, and just walk it forward
like a black bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children with into being
good. I'll tell yo' it's their part--their cue, as some folks call
it--to beat us down, to swell their fortunes; and it's ours to stand
up and fight hard--not for ourselves alone, but for them round about
us--for justice and fair play. We help to make their profits, and
we ought to help spend 'em. It's not that we want their brass so much
this time, as we've done many a time afore. We'n getten money laid
by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us
will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due. So I say,
'Hooray for the strike.'"
The story appeared in _Household Words_, a new magazine of which
Charles Dickens was the editor. He expressed especial admiration for
the fairness with which Mrs Gaskell had spoken of both sides.
Nicholas Higgins, whose words are quoted above, is a type of the best
Lancashire workman, who holds out for the good of the cause, even
though it might mean ruin and poverty to himself--"That's what folk
call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor
weaver-chap?"
Dickens himself wrote _Hard Times_, dealing with the same subject.
This appeared about the same time, and the two books should be read
and compared, for, although _Hard Times_ is not equal in any way to
_North and South_, it is interesting. As Ruskin said of Dickens'
stories, "Allowing for the manner of telling them, the things he
tells us are always true. . . . He is entirely right in his main drift
and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but
especially _Hard Times_, should be studied with close and earnest
care by persons interested in social questions."
During all these years the 'Chartists' had been vainly struggling
to force Parliament to proceed with reform of their grievances. In
1848 a monster Petition was to be presented to both Houses by their
leaders, but London was garrisoned by troops under the Duke of
Wellington on the fateful day, and the Chartist army broke up, never
to be reunited. Quarrels among themselves proved, in the end, fatal
to their cause.
A new party, the Christian Socialists, took their place; force gave
way to union and co-operation. A new champion, Charles Kingsley, or
'Parson Lot,' stood forth as the Chartist leader.
The hard winter and general distress of the year 1848 nearly provoked
another rising, and in his novel entitled _Yeast_ Kingsley pictures
the 'condition of England' question as it appeared to one who knew
it from the seamy side. Especially did he blame the Church, which,
he said, offered a religion for "Jacob, the smooth man," and was not
suited for "poor Esau." This was indeed most true as regards the
agricultural classes, where the want was felt of a real religion
which should gain a hold upon a population which year by year was
fast drifting loose from all ties of morality and Christianity.
The peasantry, once the mainstay of England and now trodden down and
neglected, cannot rise alone and without help from those above them.
"What right have we to keep them down? . . . What right have we to
say that they shall know no higher recreation than the hogs, because,
forsooth, if we raised them they might refuse to work--_for us_? Are
_we_ to fix how far their minds may be developed? Has not God fixed
it for us, when He gave them the same passions, talents, tastes, as
our own?"
The farm labourer, unlike his brothers in the North, had no spirit
left to strike. His sole enjoyment--such as it was--consisted in
recalling "'the glorious times before the war . . . when there was
more food than there were mouths, and more work than were hands.'
"'I say, vather,' drawled out some one, 'they say there's a sight
more money in England now than there was afore the war-time.'
"'Ees, booy,' said the old man, 'but _it's got into too few hands_.'"
The system of 'sweating' among the London tailors had grown to such
an extent that Kingsley was determined, if possible, to put an end
to it, and with this purpose in view he wrote _Cheap Clothes and
Nasty_.
The Government itself, he declares, does nothing to prevent
sweating; the workmen declare that "Government contract work is the
worst of all, and the starved-out and sweated-out tailor's last
resource . . . there are more clergymen among the customers than any
other class; and often we have to work at home upon the Sunday at
their clothes in order to get a living."
He followed this up with _Alton Locke_, dealing especially with the
life and conditions of work of the journeymen tailors, and the
Chartist riots. Both sides receive some hard knocks, for Kingsley
was a born fighter, and his courage and fearlessness won him many
friends, even among the most violent of the Chartists.
The character of Alton Locke was probably drawn from life, and was
intended to be William Lovett, at one time a leader in the Chartist
ranks. After a long fight with poverty, when he frequently went
without a meal in order to save the money necessary for his education,
he rose to a position of some influence. He was one of the first to
propose that museums and public galleries should be opened on Sundays,
for he declared that most of the intemperance and vice was owing to
the want of wholesome and rational recreation. He insisted that it
was necessary to create a moral, sober, and thinking working-class
in order to enable them to carry through the reforms for which they
were struggling. Disgust with the violent methods of many of his
associates caused him at last to withdraw from their ranks.
Kingsley looked up to Carlyle as his master, to whom he owed more
than to any other man. "Of the general effect," he said, "which his
works had upon me, I shall say nothing: it was the same as they have
had, thank God, on thousands of my class and every other."
When, finally, violent methods proved of no avail and the Chartist
party dissolved, the democratic movement took a fresh lease of life.
As Carlyle had already pointed out, the question of the people was
a 'knife and fork' question--that is to say, so long as taxes were
levied upon the necessities of life, the poorer classes, who could
least of all afford to pay, would become poorer.
Sir Robert Peel was the first to remove this injustice, by
substituting a tax upon income for the hundred and one taxes which
had pressed so heavily upon the poor. Manufacturers were now able
to buy their raw materials at a lower price, and need no longer pay
such low wages to keep up their profits.
In 1845 Peel went a step farther, and in order to relieve the famine
in Ireland, he removed the duty on corn. Thus, since corn could now
be imported free, bread became cheaper.
The Corn Law Repealers had fought for years to bring this about. Their
leader and poet, Ebenezer Elliott, declared that "what they wanted
was bread in exchange for their cottons, woollens, and hardware, and
no other thing can supply the want of that one thing, any more than
water could supply the want of air in the Black Hole of Calcutta."
Bad government
Is the deadly will that takes
What Labour ought to keep,
It is the deadly power that makes
Bread dear and Labour cheap.
It was not until there had been many riots and much bloodshed that
the Irish Famine forced Peel at last to give way.
A third party of reformers were working for the same end. This was
the 'Young England' party, whose leader was Disraeli, a rising young
politician. By birth a Jew, he had joined the English Church and the
ranks of the Tory party. His early works are chiefly sketches of
social and political life and are not concerned with the 'question
of the People.' He took as his motto the words Shakespeare puts into
Ancient Pistol's mouth,
Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open,
thus showing at an early age that he had a firm belief in his own
powers. From the beginning of his career he never hesitated in
championing the cause of the People, and declared that "he was not
afraid or ashamed to say that he wished more sympathy had been shown
on both sides towards the Chartists."
The people had begun to look upon the upper classes as their
oppressors, who were living in comfort upon the profits wrung from
their poorer brethren.
Thomas Cooper in his Autobiography describes the reckless and
irreligious spirit which continued poverty was creating among the
half-starved weavers:
"'Let us be patient a little longer, lads, surely God Almighty will
help us.' 'Talk no more about thy Goddle Mighty,' was the sneering
reply; 'there isn't one. If there _was_ one, He wouldn't let us suffer
as we do.'"
The Chartists were opposed to the Anti-Corn Law party, for they
thought that the cry of 'cheap bread' meant simply 'low wages,' and
was a trap set to catch them unawares.
The Young England party believed in themselves as the leaders of a
movement which should save England through its youth. They were,
however, known in Parliament in their early days as "young gentlemen
who wore white waistcoats and wrote spoony poetry."
'Young England' wished for a return of the feudal relations between
the nobility and their vassals; the nobles and the Church, as in olden
days, were to stretch out a helping hand to the poor, to feed the
hungry, and succour the distressed. National customs were to be
revived, commerce and art were to be fostered by wealthy patrons.
The Crown was once more to be in touch with the people. "If Royalty
did but condescend to lower itself to a familiarity with the people,
it is curious that they will raise, exalt, and adore it, sometimes
even invest it with divine and mysterious attributes. If, on the
contrary, it shuts itself up in an august seclusion, it will be mocked
and caricatured . . . if the great only knew what stress the poor
lay by the few forms that remain, to join them they would make many
sacrifices for their maintenance and preservation."[6]
[Footnote 6: George Smythe, Viscount Strangford, _Historic
Fancies_.]
It was to lay the views of his party and himself before the public
that Disraeli published the three novels, _Coningsby_, _Sybil_, and
_Tancred_. _Coningsby_ deals with the political parties of that time,
and is full of thinly-disguised portraits of people then living;
_Sybil_, from which a quotation is given elsewhere, is a study of
life among the working-classes; _Tancred_ discusses what part the
Church should take in the government of the people.
Though the life of the 'Young England' party was short, it succeeded
by means of agitation in and out of Parliament in calling public
attention to the harshness of the New Poor Law and the need for social
reform.
Carlyle was again the writer who influenced the young Disraeli, for
the latter saw that to accomplish anything of real value he must form
his own party and break loose from the worn-out beliefs and
prejudices of both political parties. Though in later days he will
be remembered as a statesman rather than as a novelist, it is
necessary to study those three books in order to understand what
England and the English were in Victoria's early years.
Each of these Reform parties had rendered signal service in their
own fashion: Church, Government, and People were no longer disunited,
distinctions of class had been broken down, and with their
disappearance Chartism came to an end. The failure of the "physical
force" Chartists in 1848 had served to enforce the lesson taught by
Carlyle and Kingsley, that the way to gain reform was not through
deeds of violence and bloodshed. Each man must learn to fit himself
for his part in the great movement toward Reform. Intelligence, not
force, must be their weapon.
After years of bitter strife between the Two Nations, England a last
enjoyed peace within her own borders--that peace which a patriot poet,
Ernest Jones, during a time of bitter trial had so earnestly prayed
for:
God of battles, give us peace!
Rich with honour's proud increase;
Peace that frees the fettered brave;
Peace that scorns to make a slave;
Peace that spurns a tyrant's hand;
Peace that lifts each fallen land;
Peace of peoples, not of kings;
Peace that conquering freedom brings;
Peace that bids oppression cease;
God of battles, give us peace!
_Appendix to Chapter VI_
1838. The Chartist Movement. The Chartists demanded (1) Annual
Parliaments; (2) Manhood Suffrage; (3) Vote by ballot; (4) Equal
electoral districts; (5) Abolition of the property qualification for
members of Parliament; (6) Payment for members of Parliament. The
Reform Act of 1832 had brought the middle classes into power, and
the working classes were now striving to better their own condition.
The Anti-Corn Law League, formed in this year, was largely a
middle-class agitation supported by merchants and manufacturers.
The great northern towns had been enfranchised by the Reform Bill,
and sent as leaders of the movement Richard Cobden and John Bright.
Both parties in Parliament were opposed to a total abolition of the
Corn Laws.
1842. A motion for Free Trade defeated in Parliament by a large
majority.
1843. Agitation in Ireland for the Repeal of the Union. Daniel
O'Connell, the leader, arrested. He was found guilty of conspiracy,
but his sentence was afterward revoked by the House of Lords.
1845. Failure of the potato crop in Ireland.
1846. Repeal of the Corn Laws, in order to open the ports free to
food stuffs. Free Trade established and the prices of food begin to
fall.
1848. The year of Revolution. France proclaims a Republic with Prince
Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I, as its President. Risings in
Austria and Italy.
Renewal of the Chartist agitation. The meeting in London to present
a Petition to Parliament proves a failure.
1853-56. Years of prosperity owing to Free Trade and growth of
intelligence among the working classes prove the chief causes of the
death of Chartism. The workers now begin to aim at reforms through
their Trades Unions. The Co-operative Movement set on foot in
Rochdale in 1844 leads to the formation of many other branches.
Between the years 1851 and 1865 national imports nearly treble, and
exports more than double, themselves.
THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881). His writings more than those of any other
man give us a key to the meaning of the early Victorian Age. 1839.
_Chartism_. 1841. _Heroes and Hero Worship_. 1843. _Past and
Present_. 1850. _Latter-Day Pamphlets_.
CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70). 1836. _Pickwick Papers_. 1838. _Oliver
Twist_ (the evils of the Workhouse). 1850. _David Copperfield_
(contains sketches of Dickens' early life). 1853. _Hard Times_. 1857.
_Little Dorrit_ (the Marshalsea prison for debtors).
DISRAELI, LORD BEACONSFIELD (1804-81). 1844. _Coningsby_ (political
life and the 'Young England' policy). 1845. _Sybil_ (the claims of
the people). 1847. _Tancred_ (the Church and the State).
EBENEZER ELLIOTT (1781-1849). 1828. _Corn Law Rhymes_ (the poet of
the workers and of sorrow).
ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL (1810-65). 1848. _Mary Barton_
(Industrial Lancashire during the crisis of 1842). 1855. _North and
South_ (the struggle between Master and Man).
CHARLES KINGSLEY[7] (1819-75). 1848. _Yeast_ (the hard lives of the
agricultural labourers). 1850. _Alton Locke_ (life and labour of the
city poor).
[Footnote 7: The Prince Consort was a great admirer of the works of
Charles Kingsley, which, he said, in speaking of _Two Years Ago_,
showed "profound knowledge of human nature, and insight into the
relations between man, his actions, his destiny, and God." The Queen
was also one of his admirers, and in 1859 she appointed him one of
her chaplains. Later on he delivered a series of lectures on history
to the Prince of Wales.]
CHARLES READE (1814-84). 1856. _It is Never too Late to Mend_ (life
in an English prison). 1863. _Hard Cash_ (an exposure of bad
administration of lunatic asylums).
JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900). 1859. _The Two Paths_. 1862. _Unto this
Last_. 1871. _Fors Clavigera_. (In the last-named book Ruskin
describes the scheme of his St George's Guild, an attempt to restore
happiness to England by allying art and science with commercial
industry.)
CHAPTER VII: _The Children of England_
"From the folding of its robe, it brought two children; wretched,
abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. . . . They were a boy and a
girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too,
in their humility. . . . 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking
down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all
of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow
I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.'"[8]
[Footnote 8: Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_.]
In surveying the long reign of Queen Victoria nothing strikes one
more than the gradual growth of interest in children, and the many
changes in the nation's ideas of their upbringing and education. At
the beginning of her reign the little children of the poor were for
the most part slaves, and were often punished more cruelly by their
taskmasters than the slaves one reads of in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.
When Disraeli, afterward Lord Beaconsfield and Prime Minister, wrote
_Sybil_, he drew, in that book, a terrible picture of the life of
children in the manufacturing districts and in the country villages.
The following extract speaks for itself:
"There are many in this town who are ignorant of their very names;
very few who can spell them. It is rare that you meet with a young
person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy who has seen a
book, or the girl who has seen a flower. Ask them the name of their
sovereign and they will laugh; who rules them on earth or who can
save them in heaven are alike mysteries to them."
In such a town as Disraeli describes there were no schools of any
kind, and the masters treated their apprentices "as the Mamelouks
treated the Egyptians." The author declares that "there is more
serfdom now in England than at any time since the Conquest. . . .
The people were better clothed, better fed, and better lodged just
before the Wars of the Roses than they are at this moment. The average
term of life among the working classes is seventeen."
One of the first results of machinery taking the place of human labour
was that an enormous number of women and young children of both sexes
were employed in the factories in place of grown men, who were no
longer needed. Especially in the spinning mills thousands of men were
thrown out of work, and lower wages were paid to those who took their
place. This led directly to the breaking up of the home and home-life.
The wives were often obliged to spend twelve to thirteen hours a day
in the mills; the very young children, left to themselves, grew up
like wild weeds and were often put out to nurse at a shilling or
eighteenpence a day.
One reads of tired children driven to their work with blows; of
children who, "too tired to go home, hide away in the wool in the
drying-room to sleep there, and could only be driven out of the
factory with straps; how many hundreds came home so tired every night
that they could eat no supper for sleepiness and want of appetite,
that their parents found them kneeling by the bedside where they had
fallen asleep during their prayers."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of the greatest poets of Victoria's
reign, pleads for mercy and human kindness in her "Cry of the
Children."
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And _that_ cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west--
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.
"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow;
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring
Through the coal-dark underground--
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round."
In the country the state of affairs was no better. New systems of
industrial production threw large numbers of farm hands out of work,
the rate of wages fell, and machinery, steam, and the work of women
and children took the place of the labourer.
The children found a champion in Lord Ashley, afterward Lord
Shaftesbury, who succeeded in the face of much opposition in his
efforts to pass laws which should do away with such shameful wrong
and injustice.
The increased amount of coal used (15-1/2 million tons at the
beginning of the century, 64-1/2 million tons in 1854) naturally led
to the demand for more workers, and it was owing to this that the
proposals of Lord Shaftesbury met with such opposition from the
mine-owners, who feared that if child labour were made illegal they
would not have sufficient 'hands' to work the mines and that they
would have to pay higher wages.
The Act of 1842 forbade altogether the employment of women and girls
in the mines, and allowed only boys of the age of ten or more to do
such work. The Poor Law Guardians of the time used to send children
into the mines at the age of seven as a means of finding employment
for them. The hours of work were limited to ten daily and fifty-eight
each week.
Little or no attempt was made in the Bill to give children the means
of obtaining a good education, although considerably more than half
the children in the country never went to school at all, and many
large towns were without a proper school.
By a previous Factory Act of 1834 all children under fourteen years
of age were compelled to attend school for two hours daily. The
employer was allowed to deduct one penny a week from the child's wages
to pay the teacher. This proved absolutely useless, as the masters
employed worn-out workers as teachers, and in consequence the
children learnt nothing at all.
It was not until the year 1870 that a Bill was passed in Parliament
to create an adequate number of public elementary schools for every
district in the kingdom. To show the increase in the number of schools
built, there were in the year 1854, 3825, and in the year 1885,
21,976.
But the children of England owe almost as much to Charles Dickens
as they do to Lord Shaftesbury. He was almost the first, and certainly
the greatest, writer who, with a heart overflowing with sympathy for
little children, has left us in his books a gallery of portraits which
no one can ever forget.
He himself, "a very small and not over-particularly-taken-care-of
boy," passed through a time of bitter poverty, and his stay at school,
short as it was, was not a period of his life upon which he looked
back with any pleasure.
The material for his books was drawn from life--from his own and from
the lives of those around him--and for this reason all that he wrote
will always be of great value, as it gives us a good idea of the Early
and Mid Victorian days.
His ambition was to strike a blow for the poor, "to leave one's hand
upon the time, lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for
the mass of toiling people."
Who can ever forget in the _Christmas Carol_ the crippled Tiny Tim,
"who behaved as good as gold and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful,
sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever
heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in
the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to
them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk, and
blind men see."
Other pictures of suffering childhood are 'Little Nell' and 'The
Marchioness' in _The Old Curiosity Shop_, 'Jo' and 'Charley' in
_Bleak House_, and 'Smike,' the victim of the inhuman schoolmaster'Squeers.' |
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