A monstrous petition

…all the inflamed mob did was to send a monstrous petition across to the House of Commons. It had five million signatures, they said; I know it had four of mine, one in the name of Obadiah Snooks, and three others in the shape of Xs besides which I wrote, ‘John Morrison, Arthur Wellesley, Henry John Temple Palmerston, their marks’.

Flash For Freedom!, pp.18-19, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,William Elphinstone, Elphy Bey.

A file of red coats

Well, thought I, maybe it will and maybe it won't, but whoever is going to be caught between a mob on one side and a file of red coats on the other, it isn't going to be old Flashy.



Flashman, p. 52, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

The poor folk were mutinous

All I gathered was that the poor folk were mutinous and wanted to do less work for more money, and the factory owners were damned if they'd let them. There may have been more to it than this, but I doubt it, and no one has ever convinced me that it was anything but a war between the two. It always has been, and always will be, as long as one man has what the other has not, and devil take the hindmost.




Flashman, p. 52, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Chartists, industrial relations.