ABSTRACT
Disraeli, in his younger days, once wrote to Hume to ask him to introduce him to some Radical constituency as a candidate, and concluded his letter with the exclamation, “My forte is sedition!” Whatever may be the verdict about the Conservative chief it is curious to note how truly this exclamation might have been uttered by many Yorkshiremen of the last generation. It is notorious that thousands of working men, made desperate by their hard lot, joined every movement whose aim was opposition to the government. Some of them were Luddites when that faction was in existence, Radicals afterwards, and finally as old men joined in the Chartist risings.
