There have been numerous meetings of the Chartists held on
New Year's Day in various parts of the country. The ostensible object was to petition that pardon be extended to FROST and his associates. If the pertinacious adherence of the Chartists to FROST were a symptom of their approving his mad and aimless attempt at Newport, it would be a bad sign ; but it admits of a more favourable interpretation—the uncalculating gratitude with which men are accustomed to cling to one who, belonging to a more powerful and what they (justly or unjustly) believe to be a hostile or at the least unsympathizing class, identifies himself with their cause, even though he betray sad lack of judgment in his manner of doing it. At all events, the meetings have been, with scarcely a single exception, quite orderly, and he language of the speakers, though stormy, guarded. It is not unworthy of notice, that almost all the carping at these demonstrations, that has come to our knowledge, proceeds from what are called the Moderate Whigs of' the manufacturing districts. This is a class which has its ire easily stimulated by any thing that threatens to incommode its pet Ministers—a predisposition confirmed in the present instance by a lurking suspicion that Chartism and Trades-unionism are one and the same thing. Whigs of the agricultural ,districts, Radicals, or even Tories, can speak of a Chartist withotitilosing temper; but he is poison in the sight of your fat, wealth otpatis facturing Whig—who would be a Tory but that h thc Whigs less supercilious towards men of his class.
