Charter will no more make men good, than political economy, or the
observance of the Church Calendar--a fact which we working men, I really
believe, have, under the pressure of wholesome defeat and God-sent
affliction, found out sooner than our more "enlightened" fellow-idolaters.
But at that time, as I have confessed already, we took our betters at their
word, and believed in Morison's Pills. Only, as we looked at the world from
among a class of facts somewhat different from theirs, we differed from
them proportionably as to our notions of the proper ingredients in the said
Pill.

* * * * *

But what became of our protest?

It was received--and disregarded. As for turning us off, we had, _de
facto_, like Coriolanus, banished the Romans, turned our master off. All
the other hands, some forty in number, submitted and took the yoke upon
them, and went down into the house of bondage, knowing whither they went.
Every man of them is now a beggar, compared with what he was then. Many are
dead in the prime of life of consumption, bad food and lodging, and the
peculiar diseases of our trade. Some have not been heard of lately--we
fancy them imprisoned in some sweaters' dens--but thereby hangs a tale,
whereof more hereafter.

But it was singular, that every one of the six who had merely professed
their conditional readiness to sign the protest, were contumeliously
discharged the next day, without any reason being assigned. It was evident
that there had been a traitor at the meeting; and every one suspected Jemmy
Downes, especially as he fell into the new system with suspiciously strange
alacrity. But it was as impossible to prove the offence against him, as to