Was the London move not in fact a scheme of O'Connell, Roebuck, and Hume to split the Chartist body and gain over a part to Household Suffrage? Had not Roebuck pronounced the National Charter Association illegal?
O'Connor through his deputy, Hill,[1] now proceeded to pour scorn upon Lovett's educational scheme.
Will some good fellow furnish us next week with an appropriate dialogue between one of the architects laying the foundation stone of the first Hall—the new Temple of Liberty—and a handloom weaver with nine children awaiting its completion as a means of relief?
How would O'Connor use the quarter of a million annually raised under the scheme? He would subsidise a hundred "independent" members of Parliament at £1500 a year each; a Parliamentary committee at £1750 a year; one hundred missionaries at one hundred pounds a year each; and a balance of £74,730 would still be available for other purposes.
Now what would our friends think of such an appropriation clause, the enactment of which would, we fancy, put us in less than two years in joint possession of all the Town Halls, Science Halls, Union Halls, Normal and Industrial Schools, Libraries, Parks Pleasure Grounds, Public Baths, Buildings and Places of Amusement in the kingdom, ready built, furnished, stocked, and raised to our hands?
The writer of the article alleged that it would be perfectly easy to buy dozens of members of Parliament at the price offered. This from an enemy of "corrupt" legislation!
Hill wrote the article, he tells us, with great pain. It was evident that those who had signed their names to the document had been deceived, and he adjured these misguided friends to confess their error and "manfully to ask pardon." "But should it be otherwise and should the sword be drawn, why then, we throw away the scabbard."[2]
This is a fair sample of this journal's controversial style. The generally low tone, allegations of treachery, sowing of suspicion, bludgeon-like satire, and the mixture of cozening and threats are thoroughly typical. It was unfortunately all too effective. The very next week a number of letters and resolutions appeared in the Northern Star from various persons and societies begging pardon, or echoing the Star's denunciations. Lovett had certainly not erred on the side of tact in his method
