Illuminations took place
all over the country. The people were good-humoured but determined, and
the Opposition began to recover from its fright and to declare that the
Government could not proceed with the measure and were certain to
resign. Peel's action--and sometimes his lack of it--was severely
criticised by many of his own followers, and not a few of the Tories,
unable to forgive the surrender to the claims of the Catholics, met the
new crisis in the time-honoured spirit of Gallio. They seemed to have
thought not only that the country was fast going to the dogs, but that
under all the circumstances, it did not much matter.

Parliament met after the usual Easter recess, and on April 18 General
Gascoigne moved as an instruction to the committee that the number of
members of Parliament ought not to be diminished, and after a debate
which lasted till four o'clock in the morning the resolution was carried
in a House of 490 members by a majority of eight. The Government thus
suddenly placed in a minority saw their opportunity and took it. Lord
Grey and his colleagues had begun to realise that it was impossible for
them to carry the Reform Bill in the existing House of Commons without
modifications which would have robbed the boon of half its worth. The
Tories had made a blunder in tactics over Gascoigne's motion, and their
opponents took occasion by the forelock, with the result that, after an
extraordinary scene in the Lords, Parliament was suddenly dissolved by
the King in person. Brougham had given the people their cry, and 'the
bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill,' was the popular
watchword during the tumult of the General Election. On the dissolution
of Parliament the Lord Mayor sanctioned the illumination of London, and
an angry mob, forgetful of the soldier in the statesman, broke the
windows of Apsley House.

[Sidenote: THE FLOWING TIDE]

Speaking at a political meeting two days after the dissolution, Lord
John Russell said that the electors in the approaching struggle were
called on not merely to select the best men to defend their rights and
interests, but also to give a plain answer to the question, put to the
constituencies by the King in dissolving Parliament, Do you approve, aye
or no, of the principle of Reform in the representation? Right through
the length and breadth of the kingdom his words were caught up, and from
hundreds of platforms came the question, 'Reform: Aye or No?' and the
r