Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AUTHOR. Then there's the Ballot. Ballot has its partizans, The favourite makeshift of some timid artisans, Who form, although a most important class, One only segment of the social mass; Wherein is seen, in all its odd variety, That pudding-stone formation called Society. Beside the Crown, the peers, and cleric hierarchy, Law, army, navy, physic, state, and squirearchy, landholders, landowners, farmers, bankers, millocrats, Officials, manufacturers, merchants, tillocrats, Called frequently by Chartists the shopocracy— Most numerous of all ranks in our Democracy : And numbering many good and thoughtful men, Illustrious for plain dealing, now and then; Clerks and assistants, labourers of every kind,— Must have their rightful interests borne in mind. Not all these ranks have votes, but all dispense A broadly graduated influence; And each, a petty despot in its way, Striving to rule the whole, must yet obey The general weal; consulting for the best The will of others—workmen with the rest; Well worthy every privilege but one, Which Englishmen have granted yet to none— To class, nor clique, nor king, nor kingly minion- The privilege to quash free-spoke opinion. So England's liberties, already got By open vote, we will to change it not. FRIEND. Peers and electors are the two great powers And legal ultimates in this land of ours; The high contracting parties of the state, Who balance and direct each other's weight: All others may accountable be shown Truly to these,—these, legally, to none. But, morally responsible; due note Is taken by the nation of each vote; And justly, therefore, in the general sight, A vote's a privileged trust, and not a right, Common to every unconvicted wight. Were manhood-suffrage law, the mass of men Outside the franchise now, ...