The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-05 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 5, 1846.

charges.-I know nothing about that, but I don't like it, and
I won't answer any more of such questions, either.-A
Fanner; There, that is the way they won't answer when
easy drain like.-Mr.• Vining: Fell ; answer one question.
inmses-weas it ?-I think it was Farmer Bishop's.-Mr.
=it Now, don't let the witnesses that have been exa-
to the other witnesses.-Mr. Osborne c Appoint
yon please to keep them separate ; I am as much
as you. Will you go and take any precaution
=L k: ?-Mr. Vining: No ; you are to do that.-Mr.
: I will take any precaution you will point out.-(A
Am was sent to take the examined witnesses to a cottage
Aim Bugler, examined-I have worked for Mr. Brake
Sig these dozen years, in and out, doing any kind of work.
liar 24 days in the summer I had 9s. a week, besides cider;
the rest of the year I have 7s. a week. That has been the
weul amount of wages here. I take my wages out some in
money and some in goods. I have not drawn as much as
21. in any one year lately ; the most I drew at once was 365.,
to pay for two pigs. We are not obliged to take our wages
in goads, but certainly we are expected to do it.-Mr.
Brake: Oh, no, no; you don't understand. Are you com-
pelled to take goods ?-Mr. Osborne: No ; my last question
was, are you expected to take part in goods ?-Witness:
Yes; Mr. Brake expects us to take some in goods. In times
past I am sure I have given offence when I did not take
some out in goods • and, if I did not, there was nothing for
me to do. I have been told by Mr. Brake, that if I did not
take some of my wages in goods, there would be no employ-
ment for me. I have had meat of him,„ It has not always
been good. It was very bad one time, and made me very
bad, very ill in my inside, and likewise my wife and chil-
dren. That was about two years ago. I gave 21d. or 3d. a
pound for that; it was mutton. It made my fellow-work-
men, George Whittle and James Bartlett, very ill too. My
wife is not here. She has just been confined. I had some
mutton just before Mr. Osborne first came down here: but
that war Food; I paid sd. a pound for it. Ido not believe
any man in this parish has earned as much as 12s. a week
for any one month of this year. I have known beasts
killed when they were dying of the "quarter evil;' the
meat is sold then at different prices, according to its
goodness, some at 3d. or 31d. Some of it is very good.
Mr. Vining (to a farmer) : Now, go out with that man, and
see that be has no communication with the witnesses. I
distrust that man.
Samuel Capel examined-I recollect doing some draining
for Mr. Read at 3d. per perch, along with W. Bogler ani
G. Nichol; we were to take half in meat, but when he set-
tled with us he made us take more than half in meat. Mrs.
Read, who is sitting there, said she could not find money
to pay us any more in money. Mr. Read is a farmer, and
keeps a huckster's shop. I have bad meat of Mr. Brake at
different times. Some of it has been very bad indeed. I
recollect one lot, eight or ten years ago, that I was not able
to eat ; it was some beef, 15 or 20:b., that I gave 2d. per lb.
for ; the bullock had had a very bad cancer in the
shoulder; there was a great bunch of matter there. The
bullock was killed, but I was obliged to throw part of that
beef away ; and so was my brother, William Capel, and
John Little, who had some of it. My wages are 75.
a week, and have been so for these eight or ten years; in
harvest, for about two months, I earn about 10e. a week, and
have cider allowed me. I take my wages out in goods mostly.
I have been working for Mr. Brake mostly this year, but
left him in May. I have sometimes taken as little as 21. in a
whole year in money, taking the rest of my earnings in
goods. I have five children. I recollect finding a sheep
that had been been dead a few minutes. I cut its throat;
it bled a little. That sheep was sold to the men at four-
pence halfpenny per pound; it was a nice sheep. If we
are accused of anything, Mr. Brake often talks of " putting
us to hat ;" that is, making us hold our hats before us, and
hope our eyes will drop in if we know anything about it.
My son Mark is 16; he gets ss. 6d. a week and liquor. My
son Frederick is 9-, he gets Is. a week without liquor. My
eldest daughter is to service ; the next, 13 years old, works
at the glove, and milks for 2d. s day. My wife works at the
glove, and she and that daughter earn Is. 6d. or 2s. a week
between them. I pay Mr. Brake Is. a week for my cottage;
it has two rooms under, and one over ; we all sleep in the
room over, except the eldest girl. We have no dinstoas or
curtains in the room. I rent some allotment ground at 4d.
a lug, and some potato ground of Mr. Brake at Is. My
earnings in the past year have not averaged above Ss. a week.
Charles Bugler examined.-Mr. Baton, the farmer, sent
to me a year ago to do some thatching fur him, but told me
" He should not pay me in money, for Brake did not pay
his men in money, and he should not; it made a great
difference, paying all in money, to what it was when it
was taken out in goods; it made more than Is. • week
difference." I took the job ;it came to 7s. I hail one
c bifth ee•• f him that was not weight by a quarter of a pound.
l
I 1. ree young children.
A ,ppa Gill examined.-I am nearly 23. I have worked
mos y for Mr. Brake. I recollect being with him in
the Batson field, when we found a sheep quite dead and
stiff ; he cut its head off almost with his knife ; a little blood
came, but scarcely anything. He offered me that mutton at
3d. per lb., but I would not buy it. This was about six
years ago. My wages were Bs. a week last harvest; they
were ss. a week in the harvest of 184.5. Ide different work.
I was on the farm at four or five in the morning, and stayed
till ten or eleven at night. In the dead time of the year
I was there all daylight. I took my wages mostly in
goods. Sometimes I have irawn money, and Mr. Brake
has asked me why I don't take the wages out in goods ?
and said I might as well have them of him as of any one
4se. Once when I asked for money, he called me " a
riady-money chap, which would not do for him." When
I was 16, my wages were 4s. a week.--Cross-examined .
Before June in this year my wages were never more
than ss. a week, except when I was net working for
Mr. Brake, but at tut work for different people ' • then I got
6s. ; but they were jobs that did not last, and I found my
own tools, and worked 12 or 14 hours a day. I know two
young men of 17, N. Bartlett, and P. Barrett, who
threshed oats for Mr. Brake, and working as hard
as they could, they could only earn 3s. a week by it.
Last year I did some tut work for Mr. Brake, at
which I earned 7s. a week in fine weather. I have
quarreled with Mr. Brake; lie threatened to give me
a smack on the head, and I told him I would hit him again
if he did. [The witness was severely cross-examined
as to his wages in 1814 and 1845. The rector eventually
suggested that he might not really understand when the
dominical year commenced, and on inquiry he was unable to
tell. Mr. 'Vining, however, dismissed him, rebuking him as
guilty of wilful falsehood.]
William Capel examined. -I have worked twenty-two
years for Mr. Brake. I had some meat of him some years
ago that was not good. I paid about 3d. per lb. I told him
my wife would not eat it, and said I must not bring any
more of it. I could eat it myself ; my stomach is not parti-
cular. Mr. Brake said, "If he had the hands of her he
would make her eat it." I have known Mr. Brake some-
times kill a sheep that had not had an accident. I remember
hearing of Mr. Brake and George Hallett " going to hat "
about a young woman that both of them were said to be inti-
mate with. Master joked George about it, and George Inked
master if he could go to hat ; master said, " Yes ; can you,
George ?" They went to hat ; and each of them wished his
eyes might drop out into the hat he was holding if be had
had anything to do with the young woman. I think George
had ; and a little while afterwards he lost one of his eyes.
Cross-examined.-I have nothing to say against master,
but he is a sharpiah man. lie has sometimes told me to help
him out of his meat when he had had a lon, such as an acci-
dent with a sheep, but he did not compel me. I have my
grist of him. 1 would as soon have that as money,
because I have got the winnowing of it-(a laugh)-and I
know it is fit to use. I pay Mr. Brake 31. 10s. a year for
my cottage. I have no family. Itly wife can earn very
little now; her sight has failed ; she does not earn Is.
a week. Mr. Brake gives me 65. a week, and this year he
gave me ss. extra for the harvest. I am rheumatic, and
barn-work suits me best. I get my butter and cheese and
bacon of Mr. Brake, and I dare say I get as much as Is. a
week in money. on an average.-Re-examined : I settled
with him for sixteen weeks last Saturday week. I had
13s. 6d. to receive in money. At the settiement before that
I was in debt to him, because I had a quantity of barley for
my pig. It is not very often that I draw any money between
the settlements. I generally thrash by tut, and I then can
earn nearly 7s. a week. I have earned 15s. in a week, but
that was when bread was higher than it is now.
Daniel Bartlett-Worked for Mr. Brake as a carter, at 6s.
per week, and was obliged to take goods, or else I was not to
be employed. I had a quarter of a sheep of him once, a year
or a year and a half ago. He charged me Is. for the quarter.
I could not eat it. I gave Mr. Baston'e dog some of it, but
the dog would not cat it. It had been in salt some time.
Benjamin Barrett had some of that meat, and his son William
told me he 'gave it the pigs. I had no meat of Mr. Brake
after that. -Croseexamined : 1 told Mr. S. Brake, who is
sitting there, about the meat ; he laughed at me. I think I
drew more than Is. a week in money.
Mr. Osborne here observed, that if he called more wit-
nesses, it would be merely to repeat the same things. The
statement made to him by Sarah Bugler, the wife of Wil-
liam Bugler, was that she bought cheese of Mr. Brake, at
31d. per lb., but that it was like chalk ; that she paid 3d.
and 4d. last winter fur the meat of sheep that had died, and
that she was obliged to take it; that the meat of ewes dying
in lambing was charged 21u1. per lb. ; that some of it made
her husband ill. It seemed that this person was not well
enough to come out yet, and had not been churched ; but if
any one doubted whether she made that statement, he
should be happy to go with them to her cottage.-A Farmer:
She will deny all that -Mr. S. Brake: Oh, yes, sir, she
will deny it -Mr. Osborne asked Mr. Vteing if it
would satisfy him to go to the cottage at once ?-
Mr. Vining answered that it would not satisfy him any more.
-Mr. Osborne had not written the letter to the Times with-
out getting corroboration of the labonrers on the leading
points from thoroughly respectable men, in a higher condi-
tion of life, likely to know the facts ; but he had quite made
up his mind not to disclose their names at present. He would
expose no one to annoyance where it could be avoided.
(Laughter from the farmers.)-Mr. Vining then rose to
speak, but the Rev. Mr. Blennerhasset suggested that a
discussion would only create a bad feeling.-Mr. Osborne :
Oh, let him speak.-Mr. Vining felt that not one of the
grave charges made in the letter to the Times had been sup-
ported, and that there was not a shadow of evidence on which
those charges ought to have been founded. He stated that as •
lawyer. He had never attended an inquiry. so disgraceful
to the parties who promoted it. (Loud cheenng and stamp-
ing by the farmers.) As to the bad meat, the witnesses
disposed of their own case by their contradictions ; for Bar-
rett called the unwholesome meat beef, and Bartlett called
it mutton. (Laughter and cheers from the farmers.) Why
did not Mr Osborne inquire bow the gentlemen treated the
labourers in reference to cottages, permitting them to lire
huddled together like the pigs ?-Mr. Osborne, after re-
marking that he had devoted much time and labour to that
very point, observed, that he was willing to make every
allowance for irritated feelings ;he came prepared for all
this. He was satisfied with what had passed that day, and
felt convinced that he had done what he had a fair and full
right to do, when he wrote the letter. He had thought, and