IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

9

upon a subject which has never been discussed there before. Every sentence he utters increases the spell by which he holds the House, and every development of his argument tends to move that stately assembly to a demonstration of feeling it is not wont to exhibit. For more than thirty years the speaker has been exposing the evils which beset operatives-especially children, young persons, and women-engaged in the manufacturing industries. He has carried measure after measure for their relief; inhuman hours of labour have been shortened; excess of physical toil has been abridged; oppression and cruelty, resulting in premature death, have been checked; and the means of education and mental improvement made possible. There are millions in the land who thank God for the voice that is now ringing in that august chamber; for it is the voice of one who has pleaded the cause of the poor and the oppressed as none other has done in the world's history. Rarely, however, has it been raised with greater effect than on this night, albeit his speech consists mainly of extracts from a Bluebook. For years he has been waiting until the set time should come when, strengthened by the success of former efforts, he may introduce that part of the great question of Protection which presented the gravest difficulties in the way of legislation; and now he is informing the House that the evils which were supposed to be peculiar to manufactures exist, even in a more aggravated form, in connection with the cultivation of the soil. He speaks of organisations of rural labour in many counties, known

as "agricultural gangs," a system of revolting cruelty under which the maximum of labour is obtained for the minimum of remuneration, by extortionate gangmasters who monopolise all the children in a district, in order that they may not be independently employed. The gangs are collected in the morning, marshalled by the gangsmen, and driven off into the fields to clear it of weeds, to spread manure, to "thin" the turnips and mangel-wurzel, to pick off stones from the land, or to gather in certain root crops. At a rapid pace they are driven long distances to the scene of their labour; the little footsore and weary children, not more than six or seven years of age, being dragged by their elders and goaded on by the brutal gangsmen. Year in, year out; in summer heat and winter cold; in sickness and in health; with backs warped and aching from constant stooping; with hands cracked and swollen at the back by the wind, and cold, and wet; with palms blistered from pulling turnips, and fingers lacerated from weeding among the stones; these English slaves, with education neglected, with morals corrupted, degraded and brutalised, labour from early morning till late at night, and, by the loss of all things, gain the miserable pittance that barely keeps them from starvation.

The plain unvarnished tale is told, and the sigh of relief is followed by a burst of genuine and unusual applause. Then, when the outlines of a Bill to remedy these frightful wrongs, and to affect the entire agricultural population of every county,

My Lords, in attempting to grapple with this evil I hope your Lordships will kindly aid me by your sympathy and support. In this way you will give the crowning stroke to the various efforts made for many years past to bring all the industrial occupations of the young and the defenceless under the protection of the law; and that, whether they are employed in trade, in manufactures, or in any handicraft whatever, every child under a certain age may be subjected only to a limited amount of labour, and be certain to receive an adequate amount of education. All that remains for your lordships now to do, as representing the landowners of the kingdom, is to embrace within the scope of your beneficent legislation the whole mass of the agricultural population. Then, I believe, we shall be able to say that no country upon the earth surpasses us in the care we take of the physical, the moral, and the educational well-being of the myriads of our humbler fellow-creatures. My Lords, the object you have in view is well worthy of all the time, the anxiety, the zeal, and the talents which can be bestowed upon it; and I am satisfied that your lordships will earnestly desire to see it accomplished.

The appeal was not in vain, the "crowning stroke was given and there was swept away from the face of the land the last of the long series of evils which could be dealt with by industrial legislation.

Last scene of all. The bright autumn sunshine is streaming in through the window-panes of a little village church, plain almost to meanness. Beside the entrance to a vault, made beautiful by evergreens, stands a coffin, covered and surrounded with floral tributes from princes and peasants, from nobles and costermongers. An aged man, of over four-score years, is being laid to rest in the burial-place of his fathers.

Only his sons and daughters, his relatives, friends, and tenants, stand around the bier, yet the whole nation mourns. But yesterday that bier had rested, on its way to this simple village church, in Westminster Abbey, and then all England stood around and wept. Each man, woman, and child of the thousands who had gathered there, felt that a personal loss had been sustained; every class in society, every section in the Church, every institution in the land, had been influenced by him. For sixty years he had been the champion in every battle on behalf of the poor and the oppressed; the friend and helper of all who were afflicted in mind, body, or estate; and, especially, the leader in every movement having relation to the claims. and interests of the labouring classes. And while those who thronged the Abbey shed their tears, ten thousand times ten thousand of operatives whose labour he had lightened, of orphans he had sheltered, of outcasts he had rescued, of the oppressed he had set free, of ragged children he had clothed, of emigrants he had transplanted to new spheres, of Christian labourers whose zeal he had fostered, of young men he had warned of spiritual and fleshly dangers, paused in their daily tasks to share in the expression of universal grief, and to pray that "though God buries His workman He will yet carry on His work."

To tell the story of that life, in all its relations, religious, philanthropic, political, social, and domestic, is the task before us in these pages.

CHAPTER I.

ANCESTRY AND HOME.

The Coopers and the Ashleys-Anthony Ashley Cooper-His College Days and Marriage-Sketch of his Career-Raised to the Peerage-Made Lord High Chancellor-Committed to the Tower-The Habeas Corpus Act-Indicts the Duke of York as a Popish Recusant-Flies to Holland-Death-Various estimates of his Character-The Second Earl-Education entrusted to John Locke-Letter from his Son-The Third Earl-Author of the "Characteristics"-Nature of his Philosophy-The Fourth Earl-Handel-Fifth and Sixth Earls-St. Giles's House, the Hereditary Seat of the Ashleys-The Park and Pleasure Grounds-St. Giles's Church-Its Monuments-Almshouses-Village of Wimborne St. Giles.

Is the reign of James I., John Cooper, a descendant of an old and honoured family, dwelt in the picturesque manor house in the village of Rockborne, Hampshire, close to the borders of Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire. His father, Sir John Cooper, had been member of Parliament for Whitchurch, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and had inherited and amassed considerable wealth. Dying in 1619, he was succeeded by his son, John Cooper, who has been described as "very lovely and graceful both in face and person, of a moderate stature, neither too high nor too low, of an easy and affable nature, fair and just in all affairs."

At no great distance from Rockborne, there dwelt, at St. Giles's House, Cranborne, in the county of Dorset, Sir Anthony Ashley, who was knighted at the