I recently came into possession of a book written by Thomas Cooper (1805-92), a famous Chartist activist, which he gave to his friend, the newspaper proprietor and fellow Chartist, John Cleave (1790-1847).
Thomas Cooper’s “Prison Rhyme” (1845)
Crime in a Communist Utopia
“Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society … [William Guest] found himself musing on the subject-matter of discussion, but still discontentedly and unhappily. “If I could but see it!” … “If I could but see it! If I could but see it!”
The Crime of Sati
According to an ancient custom in India, widows would voluntarily mount their dead husbands’ funeral pyres and be burned alive. The British put a stop to this practice in 1829.
“La Eme”—The Mexican Mafia
Robert Ramirez delves into the history of the infamous La Eme, better known as the Mexican Mafia, one of the most brutal organized crime groups in existence.
No Longer a “Dark Age”: Susan Oosthuizen’s “The Emergence of the English” (2019)
When the Roman legions withdrew from Britain, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes arrived and, so history tells us, violently displaced the existing Romano-British. But that’s not true, according to Susan Oosthuizen’s new book.
The Chartist Robin Hood: The Poems of W. J. Linton (1812–97)
Chartists writers loved drawing inspiration from England’s medieval past; in their campaign for political reform, which better figure could they choose than England’s famous outlaw from the Middle Ages?
The Politics of Victorian England’s “Vicious Republican”: G. W. M. Reynolds (1814–79)
“I only strive to arouse the grovelling spirit of the industrious millions to a sense of the wrongs under which they labour.”
Bandits and Robbers of India
“I will warn him that he will not find my robbers such romantic, generous characters as those who occasionally figure in the fields of fiction. He will meet with men strangers to that virtue of robbing the rich to give to the poor. They give to the poor indeed, but it is as spies and instruments of their own crimes, or at least in order to avoid detection.” –Charles Macfarlane, 1833.
“Confusion, horror, and bloodshed”: Joseph Ritson’s Eye-Witness Account of the Gordon Riots in 1780
“A general spirit of discontent has long been increasing among the people: it has at last broken out among the lower class in London.”
The Flemish Revolt: Pierce Egan’s “Quintin Matsys” (1838)
Pierce Egan’s “Quintin Matsys” is like the Belgian “Les Miserables”; the people of Antwerp rise up and take to the barricades to overthrow the evil aristocrats who oppress them.
