of all kinds, down to the lowest degree, and even sometimes beyond, were admitted.  In others, adopting the exclusive principle that villeins and strangers were no part of the burgesses, new corporations were erected, and the elective franchise was more or less confined to a select body.”  But all these diversities and varieties were now swept away, and a uniform franchise was established, all tenants whose rent amounted to L10 receiving the franchise in boroughs, while by a kindred amendment, which was forced on the ministers at a very early stage of the measure, tenants at will whose tent amounted to L50 became entitled to vote in the counties.

The arrangements for taking the poll were also greatly changed.  Instead of the fifteen days which had of late been allowed for a county election, two were now thought sufficient.[217] In boroughs the time was abridged in a similar proportion, and the arrangement was facilitated by a division of counties into several convenient polling districts, so that no elector should require to travel more than a few miles to record his vote.

This last change was universally accepted as a great practical improvement, from its tendency to lessen the expense of election contests, which had risen to an enormous and ruinous height.  But every other part of the scheme was viewed with the greatest repugnance, not to say dread, by the Opposition; and every one of the bills was fought step by step in the House of Commons.  The first bill was only carried by a majority of one; the second was absolutely rejected by the House of Lords; and on the third the ministers, after carrying it triumphantly through the Lower House, were defeated in the Upper House on a point of detail, which, though of no great importance in itself, they regarded as an indication that the peers, though they had consented to read it a second time, would insist on remodelling it to a great degree, and, if they were not allowed to do so, would again reject it altogether.

Meanwhile, the people were wrought up to a pitch of frenzy absolutely unprecedented.  Never had agitators, among whom some of the ministers themselves were not ashamed to appear, been so unscrupulous in their endeavors to excite discontent.  One cabinet minister wrote inflammatory articles in the newspapers; another publicly called the legitimate opposition of the peers “the whisper of a faction.”  And their exertions soon bore fearful fruit.  In London some of the peers who had been most prominent in their objections to the bill were hooted and pelted, and one, Lord Londonderry, was nearly murdered.  The King and Queen were insulted by mobs in the Park, some of the rioters even openly threatening the Queen with death, because she was believed to be favorable to the anti-Reformers.  In some of the most important provincial towns the discontent broke out into actual insurrection.  At Bristol a tumultuous mob, whose numbers were swelled by crowds of the worst ruffians of the metropolis,