I] THE PHILANTHROPISTS.

18%

Stalking through the land. and that men are perishing for 1841.
Want of the merest necessaries of life. When I witness this, Zr. 37.
and recollect that there is a law which especially provides
for keeping our population in absolute want, I cannot help
Wtributing murder to the Legislature of this country: and
Wherever 1 stand, whether here or out-of-doors, I will
denounce that system of legisiative murder.” He then
burned to one member who was a great friend of negro
slaves, and to another who was a great friend of Church
Establishment, and who had lately complimented Lord
Ashley as the great friend of humanity generally, and of
factory children in particular. “When I see a disposition
Bong you,” he said, “to trade in humanity, I will not
Question your motives, but this I will tell you, that if you
Would give force and grace to your professions of humanity,
1 must not be confined: to the negro at the antipodes, nor to
the building of churches, nor to the extension of Church
Sstablishments, nor to occasional visits to factories to talk
Sentiment, over factory children—you must untax the people’s
bred »
Cobden’s intervention in debate was more than a parlia-Mentery
 incident. It was the symbol of a new spirit of self-“Sertion
 in a great social order. The Reform Bill had
2dmiteq manufacturing towns to a share of representation
Cobden lost no time in vindicating the reality of this repre-Sentation.
 The conflict of the next five years was not merely
2 battle about a customs duty ; it wes a struggle for political
Wuence and social equality between the landed aristocracy
"nd the great industrialists. Of this, an incident in the
debates of the following session will furnish us with a saf-Relently
 graphic illustration. It is only by reading the cor-"*Spondence
 of that time, and listening to the men who atill
"Wrvive, without having left its passions behind them, that
¥4 reslize the angry astonishment with which the old society