A procession of a million or more signers was to act as an escort to the document, which made a wagonload in itself.  The Government became alarmed at the threatened demonstration, forbade it, on the ground that it was an attempt to coerce legislation, and organized a body of 250,000 special policemen to preserve order.

The Duke of Wellington took command of a large body of troops held in reserve to defend the city; and the Bank of England, the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum, and other public buildings were made ready to withstand a siege.

It was now the Chartists’ turn to be frightened.  When they assembled (1848) on Kennington Common in south London, they numbered less than thirty thousand, and the procession of a million which was to march across Westminster Bridge, to the Houses of Parliament, dwindled to half a dozen.  When the huge petition was unrolled it was found to contain only about a third of the boasted number of names.  Further examination showed that many of the signatures were spurious, having been put down in jest, or copied from gravestones and old London directories.  With that discovery the whole movement collapsed, and the House of Commons rang with “inextinguishable laughter” over the national scare.

Still the demands of the Chartists had a solid foundation of good sense, which the blustering bravado of the leaders of the movement could not wholly destroy.  Most, if not all, of the reforms asked for were needed.  Since then, the steady, quiet influence of reason and of time has compelled Parliament to grant the greater part of them.[1]

[1] Sir Thomas Erskine May, in his “Constitutional History of England,” says:  “Not a measure has been forced upon Parliament which the calm judgment of a later time has not since approved; not an agitation has failed which posterity has not condemned.”

The printed or written ballot has been substituted for the old method of electing candidates by a show of hands or by shouting yes or no,—­ a method by which it was easy to make blunders, and equally easy to commit frauds.  Every voter must now have his name and address registered in a printed list.  Every voter, too, casts a secret ballot and so safeguards his political independence (S609).  The property qualification has been abolished (S591, note 1), so that the day laborer may now run for Parliament.  He is sure, too, of being well paid, for Parliament voted (1911) to give 400 pounds a year to every member of the House of Commons.  The right of “manhood suffrage” has been greatly extended, and before the twentieth century has advanced much farther every man in England will probably have a voice in the elections.

592.  The Corn Laws (1841).