the stress by unexampled generosity, and who now see in the factory population about them the most favourably circumstanced class of workers—if not citizens—in the kingdom. Mr. Robert Hyde Greg was in the chair; and Mr. Whitworth accepted the office of Secretary. There were Ashworths, Worthingtons, Thornelys, Whitwells, Whittakers, Ashtons, Holmes, Turners, Bazleys, ——— But it would take too much room to give the list; and there is no occasion for distinctions. A deputation was appointed to wait on Sir George Grey; and they spent two hours at the Home Office, on the 23rd of March, and had another interview on the 30th. Sir George Grey regretted the obscurities and discrepancies of the circulars, and evidently wished to "meet the circumstances of the case;" but he held out no hope that, under the pressure of public affairs, and the state of the times, there would be any amendment of the Factory Laws, at the instance of Government. "When this was once ascertained, the members of the Manchester Society enlarged their plan, and constituted themselves a "National Association of Factory Occupiers." This was done on the 17th of April; and when the Special Report of the Committee was prepared in July, the members were computed to employ not less than 250,000 workpeople. In the mode in which we shall exhibit their objects and methods, we shall, at the same time, unavoidably display the operation of passion and prejudice on the part of their antagonists; and the encouragement to unscrupulous statement, insolence, arrogance, and cant, to which the door is opened when meddling legislation is accorded to the pseudo-philanthropy which is one of the disgraces of our times. A good many people have wondered before that Mr. Dickens, who has such a horror of Poor law reform, and who acted the part of sentimental philanthropist in "Oliver Twist," by charging the faults of the repealed law upon the new one, and other devices common to that order of pleaders, should have fallen foul afterwards of the prison reformers and the African
