CHAPTER XVI
THE NATIONAL PETITION OF 1842
In spite of the diversions caused by Sturge, Lovett, O'Brien, and its various other rivals, the National Charter Association continued to push on its preparations for a great demonstration. What the strength of the Association exactly was is difficult to say. Duncombe, in presenting its Petition to the House of Commons in May 1842, said it had 100,000 members who paid a penny a week to carry on the agitation.[1] Had this been so, the National Charter Association would have been a more powerful body than the Anti-Corn Law League itself, even in its best days. No official of the Association claimed more than half that number of members, and judging from the balance sheets, published by the Executive, only a small percentage even of the smaller number paid its pence with any regularity. So low were the funds that the Executive could not find the wherewithal to finance the Conference which was called to counteract the Sturge Conference at Birmingham.[2] Out of 401 "localities" 176 paid nothing to the central funds during the quarter April-July 1842. Manchester was one of these. The falling-off of trade may account for this decline of the finances, but carelessness and laxity were also complained of by the Executive. In spite of this manifest disadvantage (which drove MacDouall into the quack medicine trade[3]) the Association did not abate one jot of its activities. Lecturers were hard at work; new tracts, pamphlets, and small periodicals saw the light. Cooper's Illuminator, Rushlight, and Extinguisher, and Beesley's North Lancashire and Teetotal Letter Bag,[4] were some of the results of this newspaper enterprise. Much of this activity was carried on with small
