And the employers of labor could not suffer without those who depended on them for employment suffering still more severely.

The consequence was, that there was a general stagnation of trade; numbers of artisans and laborers of every kind were thrown out of work, and their enforced idleness and poverty, which was its result, made them ready to become the tools of demagogues such as are never wanting in the hour of distress and perplexity.

Meetings were convened, ostensibly to petition for reform, but in reality to afford opportunities for mob-orators, eager for notoriety, to denounce the government and those whom they styled the "ruling classes," as the causes of the present and past evils.

From these meetings multitudes issued forth ripe for mischief.

In some places they rose against the manufacturers, and destroyed their machines, to the recent introduction of which they attributed their want of employment.