Page:The Chartist Movement.djvu/184

 THE GOVERNMENT PREPARES FOR ACTION

(1839)

the manufacturing and mining districts an atmosphere of excitement and terror was spreading during the early months of 1839. Poverty and scarcity grew. A very bad harvest in the previous year increased the price of bare necessaries of life to thousands who in time of good harvests were scarce able to live, whilst the dislocation of trade reduced wages and increased unemployment. The streets of many a Lancashire town were filled with pale, gloomy, desperate, half-famished weavers. The workhouses were besieged (for the New Poor Law was yet in abeyance), though many a stubborn operative preferred to starve in silence. "There is," wrote a sympathetic observer later in the year, "among the manufacturing poor, a stern look of discontent, of hatred to all who are rich, a total absence of merry faces: a sallow tinge and dirty skins tell of suffering and brooding over change. Yet often have I talked with scowling-visaged fellows till the ruffian went from their faces, making them smile and at ease: this tells me that their looks of sad and deep thought are not natural. Poor fellows." "It looks as if the falling of an Empire were beginning," wrote the same noble soldier in the early days of 1839.

In truth the aspect of Great Britain in these days was sufficiently terrifying. From Bristol to Edinburgh and from Glasgow to Hull rumours of arms, riots, conspiracies, and insurrections grew with the passing of the weeks. Crowded meetings applauded violent orations, threats and terrorism were