times were out of joint, trade bad, and discontent universal, and the
possession of a little bit of the land we live on was to be a panacea
for every abuse complained of, and the sure harbinger of a return of the
days when every Jack had Jill at his own fireside. The misery and
starvation existing in Ireland where small farms had been divided and
subdivided until the poor families could no longer derive a sustenance
from their several moieties, was altogether overlooked, and "friends of
the people" advocated the wholesale settlement of the unemployed English
on somewhat similar small plots. Feargus O'Connor, the Chartist leader,
started his National Land Society, and thousands paid in their weekly
mites in hopes of becoming "lords of the soil;" estates here and there
were purchased, allotments made, cottages built, and many new homes
created. But as figs do not grow on thistles, neither was it to be
expected that men from the weaving-sheds, or the mines, should be able
to grow their own corn, or even know how to turn it into bread when
grown, and _that_ Utopian scheme was a failure. More wise in their
generation were the men of Birmingham: they went not for country
estates, nor for apple orchards or turnip fields. The wise sagaciousness
of their leaders, and the Brums always play well at "follow my leading,"
made them go in for the vote, the full vote, and nothing but the vote.
The possession of a little plot on which to build a house, though really
the most important, was not the first part of the bargain by any means
at the commencement. To get a vote and thus help upset something or
somebody was all that was thought of at the time, though now the case is
rather different, few members of any of the many societies caring at
present so much for the franchise as for the "proputty, proputty,
proputty." Mr. James Taylor, jun., has been generally dubbed the "the
father of the freehold land societies," and few men have done more than
him in their establishment, but the honour of dividing the first estate
in this neighbourhood, we believe, must be given to Mr. William Benjamin