Drilling

Abstract

The Town of Aston underlyne is in the centre of a very densely populated manufacturing district — The population of the Town and neighbourhood amounts to from sixty thousand to seventy thousand — Ashton is the place where the well known agitator The Revd Joseph Rayner Stephens has held forth and for the last six or eight months the town and neighbourhood has been kept in a constant state of Agitation by him and others holding meetings and using violent and inflammatory language, threats, and encouraging people to procure arms and other offensive weapons to redress what is termed the people’s grievances — The factory act was the first question upon which the system of Agitation commenced then the poor law bill and next the charter question — The Exhortations made by the leaders have induced the inexperienced portion of the work people to assemble together in large numbers and exhibit and discharge fire arms in the public streets to the terror and alarm of the more peaceable part of the community — The language made use of at the meetings of the Chartists will appear from the evidence has been such as to cause great alarm and excitement.