The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-04-29 00:00:00

it73E STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

—Lid-Yore* admitted ths necessity of amending the ,
and aald that aMI was In preparation. If e admitted that
the prount wpervlslon of criminals was not all that could be
wlaued.

Actl I

The Duke of Richmond 'tared that at present there wax
to supervision at all. !demures should ha taken without
Inlay to deal with tLe luerosemg class of reminds.
bet Shafteshury re,omemoded the Rome Secretary to
Instruct the police constantly to " rout out " the CJ1111.11,11
lodatug.houses, in which the criminal causes Congregated.
Lord Redesdale said It appeared that the caries of failure
of the Act 011,19 was the em-ndments made in the oth
Rouse The bill was Introduced In their. lordships Home,
and sent down to the Commons early la the Bsiou. It did
not return, however, wstil the day before the prorogation,
and It was necessary to agree lathe COMMOIIe amendments
without slue consideration. limy were now told that the
bill would not act and that the Judges could not Interpret it.
A somewhat digressive Mamma= now mould in rewod
to the amendments carelessly Intros:aced Into bills at the
last trouser:l, Lord (key pointlug out that Lome t:chnleal
revision of the coLllloting drums cud samodestuts node tu
both Houses Was necessary; while Lord Kimberley urged
that, MCI wgh cataist chooses tf the Ac; of iSGO wme un-
satisfactory, the me. 000 Itself had rot been without boke•
&MI result. Thttr lordships then adjourned.
In the House of Ccmmons,

Sir C. Bilks gsve notice of Ms Intention to ark by what
authority the width-tusk:lts' procession was broken rip on
blonder ; and Mr. Gladstone answered on the .pot that. the
Home Secretary bed consulted bhp, and that, acting on the
well-known law that large bodies of the people wire not
allowed to ipplosch P.rliameut in person with their
potitloos, they led rent a friendly warning to the intending
petitioner.. Iretructions had been given to the poll3e, to,
lie knew nothing of any inconvenient cow.' mum having
arisen. Mr. I:. Bochrune gone ri dkw that he will on
ThurLifty oak Mr. Bruce to rot, atu the law of processions.
_ .

Mr. Damen : I aish to glee (dice that in eurend,tee of
Wa3 laud Moans on Thursday, I shall more a resolutl n that
the homplal propositions of liar blelrmy's Gavel nroent are
not satisfactory, and that it I. expedient that Ler Majesty's
G rvernment shouLi iecousider them.

MATCH-BOXES AND THEIR IdAKERS.

Thefullowing automating sketch of oue of the phases of
LO,-100 Iffe, by a writer to the //ally IV ew3, the tubfe,t of
which has leen 'twanged by Ile Lc w'. proresed Tax CP
Siete':es, affords another illustra,fon of the .1.1 saw, LILA
•' ore half of the world does out kuow how the other bolf

There was consternation on Friday in Bethnabgreen.
Timmands of families live there and in Spitalfirlds by
manufacturing theartieles upon which Mr. Lowe has laid
a tax, and as the news spread, and the dwellers in the
narrow stree's learnt that ma•ch-'.....xes would in some
mysterious way be made morn expensive by the Govern.
meet, a dismal iteling prevailed among woulin, girls,
and infrnts, who foresaw itstLetively a &crease in
the demand.

I Match-liox tnekieg is carried on at home, arid every
mollifier of the family, from the beby upw..rds, joins
in it. For every one of the fragile easee which or,
pa-aed f hand to hand X I li.htly represen's several
depertmente if labour and materials which are el ti•ely
dee het. " First there's the wool shevine, such as
this"—it is the mother of three children under seven
years of age, and all tit work, who is epeaking—
" there's a couple of them, they're all reedy creased
for bending into shape when they come to us. They
form the notch-box, and are ma to ready for shaping
by machines which are worked by bops. Of course,
if I could afford it I'd 'Ave a ere :sing machine of my
own, for my eldest there could work it nicely, and we'd
make mere money out of every grow. Well, sir, one
of these shavius' makes the outer part of the match-
box, and this other shavin' which you see is just •
trifle less size, it malted the inner part. Then there's a
bit of coloured paper, like this, which has to be
pasted on the inner half to make it lurk tasty like;
and there's this label with the inaker`e name we work
for, has to be pasted on.the outer box. Too sandpaper
I cornea hext, and is pasted at the bottom like this.
I The Rand paper is the nastiest part of box work."
Turning to a grave urchin of three :—" Snow the
gentleman your lingere, Freddy r Toe child's hands
were raw and bleeding, for his duty was to take up the
sand-paper which was lying in long narrow strips
nailer the bed and on the floor, and to fold and snip it
into pieces of the prescribed length, and the constant
friction had made the cuticle as if it bad been rubbed
with a file. "Yes, it's a bad part of the business,"
chimed in the mother; "but what's one to do? He'll
have puling and folding to du toduorrow instead of
thid, and then his fingers will soon c woe round. That's
the beauty of the box-trade, sin you can always vary
your work if there'd three or four of yes.; and a child
can be taught to fold as coon as he can stand. Before
he con walk? Certainly. He don'twarst to walk, you
know, when there's boxes to be made, and he soon
learns that his food conies after it, and thinks of
folding as a kind of pley."
We are in a squalid rcom on the ground floor of a
little twrestoried house, one of a series of similar
houses. There is some bedding on the floor in &corner,
and ragged clothes arid eld-looking garments which
have been recently washed hang from cords wideh run
from wall to wall. Cheap pictures in cheap frames
airrn the nientelshelf, and a few chairs, together with
an article of furniture which is half workman's) bench
and half kitehen.table, fill up the chamber wherever
match-boxes or the materials for making match-boxes
are not. The former prevail, for Frolay is " making-
up " day, stud the busiest of the whole week. This
morning the manufactured articles will be taken to
the great dealers', and paid for by the gross. Mean-
while there are boxes everywhere. Drying therm
is one of the difficulties of the trade, and as wet
paste takes some time to dry, and as match-boxes
sent in ilanip would probebly lead to lors of cueorn
and ruin, they are spread out upon floor and shelves
and fill far wore ppece than either the dwellers in or
the furniture of the room. There are, as we have
shown, six different articles used in the manufacture—
two strips of wood like shavings ; one piece of coloured
paper for the inner box ; a printed lebel for the outer
half; a piece of sand.paper for the bottom; and the
material which fastens all together. "It's hard work
having tc find your own paste, sir," sail one poor
woman, who was too ill to leave her bed, and who em.
',toyed herself at intervals in cutting off labels which
lay by her ahle in sheets; "and the hemp for tying
the grocers of boxes together comes dreadfully ex-
p.-mew ceneiderin' what we are paid. A penn'orth
of hemp won't tie up more than one-and-twenty gross
of boxes; and it takes five farthinge' worth of fl mr to
make enough paste for seven groat. We're paid two.
penny a gross for our work and very glad
we are to get it." There was something extremely
der gestive in these details, and we underato kl why the
Late children never ceased their lebeurs, but went on
folding, pasting, and sorting with as much stolid no.
concern as if we were not by. They knew that stop-
ping to look about or chatter meant a pelpable
nutioa in the number of boxes thsy would turn out;
and when one hundred and forty-four boxes have tube
merle for twnpence.halfpenny, and there is a deduction
from this guru for paste and hemp, the volue of minutes
io s gin learnt. So the little fingers toil on, and the
little fac:s turn steadily to the ehavinga and the
paper as the heap of completed boxes continues to
grow iu rite.

There are hundreds of homes which are supported
mainly by this train of mateWbox snaking; thousand's
of c`eildren employed, as we have peen. The art is not
difficult of less iiremen% awl can be learnt and exercised
at home. Mealy f the girls we saw making mstch-
bow a night go out to service; but as we learnt during
previous expeditions among these people, 'service is not
popular. "It would bs better for her," Paid a wsnian
of her daughter, a girl of sateen, "to have a good
place, I'm not denying tiro., and one of the district
visitors was very kind in cifering to get her one.
But then we cant spare her she's so useful at
the boxes, that we should never tura out our
six gross a day if she woes to leave us." The
gir's themselves shrink from domestic service as
from an unknown evil; and the b,atrade "gives
theta regular employment. The head of the house-
held is a deck labourer, who goes down to the docks
every day to endeavour tr earn a shilling or two; or
collects hay hands and straw from stables, and sells
them again for the stuffing of cheep chairs; or is a
dustmau who earns a third of fourpence every tines he
and his two fellows fill their cast; or is an "odd men"
at Billises agate' or "helps the bricklayer' ; " or
"turns his hand to anything." These are corns of the
d, hoidens given us of the calling of the husbands and
fathers of those we sew at work.

"Will it throw um out of employment, do you think,
" Will the I:oven:Latent prevent people buying
the b >zee? " " Wot's the object in making them so
dear when we get so little out of them, and have all
the work to do?" Such were some of the questions
addressed te strangers on Friday by poor people, upon
whom the tax on matches bat fallen like a thunderbolt,
and who cannot bring Veemeelves to believe that the
articlea by which they live, and which they manipulate
and pile up all day and every day, can be subjected to
• penny stamp.

Match.box making in ona respect resembles hop-
picking; for it embraces every variety of the poorer
clasgee.

We observed soft :lent differences in the rapidity
with which a box was made and finished off in the
bouses we visit, d successively, to make it appsar that
skilled labour has its reward in thin trade as in others.
But, on the other hand, the skill was obviously the
result of pract:c-, and could be rapidly acquired. The
great, et marvel of all is the ages at which infants begin
to work at it. Tiny things of two years and a half
and upwards are common: and one mother assured U 4
that a child she had buried began its work of folding
before it was two 3 ears old.

A day sptht in house-to-house visiting among these
poor matchbox makers will teach the stranger as much
of the resources of London poverty, and the cheerful
strivings of the industrious poor, as any other ex-
perience which could be named. There is an air of
contentment and of brisk health among many of the
people who work from morning until night for the
miserable wages we have quoted, which are in them
-
pelves a homily. DA Johnson, when asked to
sympathise with the deep affliction of a wealthy lady
who had been bereaved, refused on the ground
that if she were a laundress who had to stand at a
wash-tub to earn bread for half a eezen children
she would have something else to think of
then sentimental regrets. The greet lexico-
grapher would have rejoiced to take well-to-
do-people who are dissatiefied with their lot to the
match-box-makers' houses, and to have pointed out the
struggles which infants of tender are are compelled to
make for mere existence. A toy, a green field, a game
at romps, er the playful endearments appropriate to
their age, are thiue!. these infantile toilers are as
ignorant of as if they belonged to a different race. To
rise early and to work late ;to fold, and bend, and paste
till eye, hand, and bead are weary, and to find suffi-
cient reward in having permission to exist, represent the
conditions of many a little match-box maker's career.
The bleeding inappropriately,
of the baby we saw first, sym-
bolised, not the lesson of these work'
big babies' lives. To exalt duty and sacrifice inclina-
tion ; to be neither deterred by pain nor tempted by
pleasure; to yield to no pity for one's own hardships aud
woes ;ta forbear frail fantasies concerning the no.
equal portious of harmicess and misery dealt out in
lire; and to find what there is to do and forthwith ta
do it heartily—seemed to be enforced in home after
house by practical teachers of tender years. Their great
anxiety was concerning Dlr. howe'e impoet, and their
most affecting questions were whether the penny
stamp would throw them out of work, and if Govern.
mind knew the number of months " the box trade' fed.

The MURPHY RIOT in CUMBERLAND.
The treutment wh'ea Murphy received from the
anan Catholic miners at Whitehaven on Thuraday
night wee (a Carlisle correspondent write.) of a mot
brutal character. On the first night of the steles of
Murphy's lectures the proceedings roamed oil in a
gooddiumou,ed way, although the crowded audience,
which included several of the Cumberland militia now
embodied at Whitehaven, contained the elementa of a
serions riot, and the I cal authorities evidently anti-
cipited that a riot would be the result of Murphy's
harangue, fefeeine of the magistrates had assembled
with their chick in a convenient place near at hand, the
local police force hod been strengthened for the occa•
Ilion, and a detachment of the militia was kept under
arms at the barracks.
On 'iltirsday night (when the riot occtured) Murphy
had gone to the Oddfellows' Hall soon after seven, in
order that he might escape molestation on the way.
The saperintendent of police, Mr. Little, with three
or four constables, had then taken up a position in
front of the hall, and a crowd began to gather. Shortly
afterwards • band of miners from Cleator Moor, four
miles distant from Whitehaven, estimated at 300
strong, marched up to the hall. As they approlched
the hall (says the II hiichaven Haab!) u cry crone in
the czowd, "Some of Murk Ws trice& are coming ;
they want to be in first." That such was their character
wan Mr. li.ttle's impression ; and even had he thought
otherwise he had no right then to interfere
with them, as they walked into the hall lobby very
quietly, though hurriedly. Meintime Murphy was in
the ante-room adjoining the hall upstairs, the had
itself being &coupled by some twenty or thirty pereons,
chiefly young nice. Murphy's agent and the hall-
keeper, Mr. 131enkinsop, were on the land:ng at the top
of the stairs. When the Cleator roughs come rushing
upstairs Murphy's agent, fearing that all was not
right, shut the hall door, calling on Murphy to fasten
himself in the ante-room, The next moment the

_
- _
rough' were upon the two men at the landing, and the
foremost, mistaking Mr. llienliurrep for Murphy,
laid hold of him. At this juncture Murphy enlarged
from the ante-rooms to see what it all ug-at. Mr.
filenkinsop was at once set at liberty rail Murphy
seizA. The scene which ensued is thus described in
the Cadisle Expresi "ad Examiner ---'The women'.
; he made his appearance he was se iced, and the
sickening brutality with which be was treated
; has scarcely any parallel, lie wee dragged down the
stairs by his savage as-allants ; he was struck at and
kicked unmercillully the whole way. lie was dragged
into the peerage, knocked down, kicked, ra'ned up,
knocked clown, and kicked till he was covered with the
blood which gushed from his wounds and spieled the
walls. He waa dragged down the pas:age, the brutal
treatment going on the whole time, m.til he reached
the door opening into the street, anel there, we were
informed, an atten.pt was made to kill him outright by
a DWI who drew a weapon for the purpose."
The superintendent of potion hart by this time
heeorne aware of the real character of the band, and
pu3hing his way through the crowd with his erticers he
succeeded in rescuing the maltreated man, and the
miners marched away towards home. They indulged iii
cheers of triumph as they pruned through the villages
on their way. Murphy, when rescuer, was quite in.
sensible, and it was some coneiderable time before
C01..60901.8 was restored. A reporter who viaited
him next day tLus describes his condition :—` lie lay
upon the bed which had been made up for him unable
to move; his head swathed in bandager, his face
bruised, cut, and swollen ; a ahockirg wound abovethe
left eye, which had been almost kicked out of its
socket; and his body all over black, blue, and purple
from the kicks which he bad rye iced." Later ac :omits
state that he is progressing favourably, and that, "with
Core, he may be pulled through." lie is suffering from
congestion of the right lung and bronchitis.
The police forco had been strengthened on Thursday
night, as on the previous night, b-t they were at the
station-house, with the exception of those named, when
the occurrence took plan:, no disturbance having been
expected Lill after the commencement of the proceed.
urge in the lecture-hall.

A friend of Mr. Murphy writes to the Birm inglunt
anc lie to siy that Mr. Murphy's doctors still con-
sider him to be in a very crdieal statv.