Page:The child's pictorial history of England; (IA childspictorialh00corn).pdf/204

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36. Besides those already named, revolutions, attended with great loss of life and destruction of property, have taken place at Vienna, the capital of Austria, and other parts of Germany. Italy, too, has shared in the spread of revolution; Naples, Milan, and Venice, having been scenes of fearful tumult and destruction of life.

37. In most of the places I have mentioned, the people having been fighting for a constitutional form of government, similar to that of our own happy united kingdom; conveying the strongest proof that we ought not to wish for a change. Yet there have been some attempts made to disturb the peace of this country, by ill-informed or worthless persons.

38. Perhaps the desire for some increase in the number of the electors, and in the places represented in parliament, by uniting the adjacent towns to the small boroughs, is not unreasonable.

39. But when we think of the dreadful state of things in France, Italy and Germany, where so many thousands of people have lost their lives, where trade is ruined, where the middle classes are reduced to poverty, and the working people, in consequence, starving, for want of employment, we cannot be too thankful for the