The Express.
London, England, 1849-10-13 00:00:00

THE RIGHT OF MAGISTRATES TO FLOG

APPRENTICES.

PUBLIC MEETING AT MANClina esin.
A crowded and motting publio meeting was held
in the Corn Ezehaege, Manseester, on Thursday evening,
fee the purpose °treenail', (es the advertisemeat stand))
" their dhapprebaties of the ouzel sad unjust mum pined
at the Tom hell, Sallied, upon Thom Bailey, late an ap•
peewits to Keens. J. sad J. It. Worrell, dyers. This man
was sentenced teens month's imprisonment with hard labour,
and to be flagged, who has sines been acquitted at the Conn
of Queen's Bench."
Tat meting was peiscipally composed of working men,
but Mr. Councillor Heywood presided, and opened the
preasediegs. The decenniums whisk led to the meeting
were these, Some months since the workmen of toe MOWS.
Worrell, dyers, struck for higher wages, and an apprention
hafted Thomasßailey absented himself at the same lime.
The than. Woerall, Wooers*, had no remedy ardent the
jouneymen, but they obtained a warrant spinet the ap
pretties, and at the close of last week (on Friday) the
offender woe brought before Mr. H. L. Trafford (the 5ti-
r..6.7) and other magistrates ed Salford.. Mr. W. P.
It .bens, attorney, was employed by the dyers' union to dn
feud the young um, end urged that as he was bound ap-
propriate at the age of 17, and ww now 21 years of age, the
Magnum was no longer biedirg upon him. On the other
side it was urged that the apprentice, having neglected to
wake his deetion at the age of 21, or on attaining his majo-
rity, he had forfeited the power, and could not subsequently
do it. Mr Trafford (the magistrate) took the latter view,
and acid teat the prisoner, having neglected to make his
elecion, hod no right after committing the offence to tern
round end pl. ad n than. Mr. Roberts urged that there was
no offence nen., the indenture. That document became
void on we a, prentice attaining his majority, and no written
cannot being made subsequently to continue the apprentice-
ship, the magistrate bad no power under the statute. It
might be said that the prisoner was working under an im-
plied contract, from week to week, and that be had no right
to desert and leave his employ without notion If
that was so, let the magistrate punish hiss for
that: ben in inch cm he could only inflict
upon his the penalty for having broken • civil contract,
whereas under the indenture the punishment would be •
pew!. se, imprisonment with he. 1 labour. These
meats were overituted—the magistrates declined even :11
the can stand over till the judgment of a superior court
could be had—and the prisoner was sentenced to one
month's imprisonment with herd labour. It was discovered
after the young man had gone to gaol that the commitment
contained an additional clause, "and to be corrected," which
his gaolers an said to have told him meant to be flogged
with the at.ce-nine-tails," and that before he left the New
Bailey prison they should have ago et him!" Mr.
Roberts being apprised of these facts by the dyers,
went to London on Saturday, found Mr. Justin
Tallinn% in chambers, and obtained an habeas
corpus to remove the prisoner from gaol until
the legality of the sentence weld be reised. Oa
Tuee :ay the argument before Mr. Jessica Tallinn' took
place, and resulted in the liberation of the prisoner, who, by
tLo instrumentality of the electric telegraph, was aware of
the happy change in his destiny half en hour after the
lean ed judge had pronounced his decision.
The CHAIRMAN, having opened the meeting, called
under these eirconnitasegg,
/dr. JOHN TREE, teerstary to the Dyers' Union, moved
the first resolution :
" That this meeting deeply regrets the continued obsti-
nacy of the Messrs. Worrell in not having acceded to the
jut sad reasonable claims of the men late in their employ
for that admen of wages conceded by the other employers."
Mr. TEES. gave the history of the strike, stating in effect
that the wsges of the diets having been reduced through •
sompelltion among masers from 235. per week to 141., the
men bed been oolipelled to combine in seltdefenee, and
their mushisation nd the regains :renew which they had
bon skis to urge masters, bad induced the majority of
dim to galvanic • h‘: rata of wakes again. Mesas. Worrell,
however, hails • od out, and hews the present proceedings
in ratrence to toem The speaker wont on to deprecate
tine oats, escept as a lint resort ; bat contended that whine
des, of men like t a op n found thne employ, rs were crush-
' i g them loot, .0 he position of paupers merely from a foolish
and wanton .ys em of competition they would be guilty et
neglecting a moral uty which they owed both to themselves
and suety it ti .y o,d not resist.
Mr. T WHEELHOUSE, in seconding the motion,
showed how the Dye's' Union and Sick and Burial Society'
had progressed since its ..stablighetent four years ago. He
said he Wand (ha' iron 1831 to 1836 their contributions had
amounted to 4.1081. 19s. 31d., that in the next year thn
were 3,31 W. 17.. 6i , in Vie third year 2,9441. 10s. 64., end
in the year 1837.8, 2,1441. 13s. 41d. The total was
12,6181. Here wag el little fortune subscribed, and it would
have gone aen at way in supporting thew iodustrious sad
steady men in sickness and misfortune could it have been
retained for that purpose ; but here were the Mans. Woe-
: roll trying to crash it. He would show how they had applied
the newly, that the meeting might judge how deserving it was
to betsupported. They had prad, during the four years,
8,6211 3s. WI to men out of work, to keep them off the
parish books—(ebeers)—they had paid to auperrannuated
workmen 7861. lls, ; and tkey had peid to the friends
of deceased menhirs, for funerals, 8651. : total,
10,1731.105. 91. (Renewed cheeting.)
The resolution was supported by Mr. DOHERTY, sad
earned.
Mr. STOREY moved—
. That this meeting expenses its etroog disapprobation of
the trail and unjust sentence paned soon Thomas Bailey."
Ile. R. J. RICHARDSON (bookseller) seconded the
motion. He said it might be right to imprison an 'Nine-
ties, but was it right to employ that most inhuman torture—
which the laws of England, he contended, never did, and he
hoped never would know or recognise—the application of
the creel and inhuman torture of the lath ? (Cries of " No.")
Here they were told that a young man in the prime ef
lde—
who, it had been acknowledged before the court, had cow
ducted himself to the time of this strike in a metal, indite
thous, and sober manner—merely because he had broken an
engagement, a civil contract merely ; and though he had
committed no really criminal act against society, was to be
Bogged by the sentence of a magistrate holding the Queen's
commission. But this was an ego in which men's mind re-
ironed from such barbarous and degrediag punishments.
(Cheers.) He hoped in • Christian country those leelings
would not die away: for it this fl ggiog system were ty u,k.
tinued end ezen:ieed in such cases as the.,, we should
c newly be fit to be chimed as equal to the Hermes and
Windischgrwsee, and the blood-stained Russian sod Au.
trim savages, whose cruelties to the Hungarian' bad filled
all Europe with horror and indigestion,
Mr. W. P. ROBERTS, the attorney, was called upon to
support the resolution, and was reel ived with loud cheering.
He said he bad listened to the last speaker with great plea-
sure, and he only hoped and trusted that the meeting fully
participated in that indignation so generously expressed by
him in this ease. He said, It is one of our misfortunes,
and a very greet one, that the indignation some of us may
feel—the done to battle with oppression—snot participated
in by the working classes genteelly, hat they meet us with
their apathy, and so sanction the cruelty they ought to resist.
I tract that a different spirit is coming upon us. I only look
for England's ea:,stion when the time shall have some
that every working man looks upon an injury to his WOW
bour as an injury to himself, and when they shall arise as
no man to resist oppression' wherever it rears its head.
(Cheese.) I only know it is a healthy work. (Laughter
and cheers.) I nave been in it 20 yeas; and I never felt
hspp:er, stronger, healthier—(loud sheen)—than I de at
this moment, and never felt a beerier pleasure than I de
now in meeting the oppressor, ant rasing, defying, and
I eshiag him. (Great cheering.) I aoi glad to see you have
welcomed this young man, Thomas Bony, to the meeting,
and shown nick generous sympathy for him. I was there
whi a they bad himbefore the ministrant. I saw him
sent to gaol, and I thank you and the high heart within I
have been ahle to ere him out of the " den of thieves:*
(Load sheers) Now, it is jest pomible that sans
of yea may think that this Begging pan of the
eentwee—the w. ads in the warrant an, that he be impel
weed and put to bard labour, and that he be corrected. It
is possiblethat some of yea may think that this last term
mews nothing. But I asked the governor of the gaol if the
Priapism was to be flogged ? He said, "Yes, he will be
flogged with the cat. o'-nine Oulu" and I know that these
gaolers are not backward in inflicting the puniiihment. I
know some of them have • relish for it ; and one of them
once told me he never knew ewe a thrill of joy come over
him as when he lifted the eats'-trine tails—" be liked to
pitch it into them so." (Cedes of " Shame," and great sen-
sation.) It is a mere accident that Bailey was not flogged on
fine pies into the gaol, and then our endeavoun to save
him through an application to the judge would have been
too late. Fortusately there is a sort of humanity about
them 'wins at the New Bailey. It seems to be • part
of that huitanite that they like to seed a youth or •
man home to his parents or his wife with hie back
lacerated, that the may foal his ignominy and
share his twinge. (Renewed vise of " Shame.") You
know what an awful thing this application of the lash is.
Yon have seen it la the newspapers, no doubt, that • man
threw himself from the mast of a ship and was dashed to
pieces rather than have the at applied to his back ; and
another man, a solJier, perished fear the lash at Hounalow.
Mr. Roberts went on to =prunes the nesting the necessity

or prenerriag their anises. . _
Tbe resolution we. serried.
Mr. Southend' end others afterwards addressed the

FREEHOLD LAND SWUM—Yet.

terday evening a meeting of the Westminster Freehold Land
Society was held at the T‘rk Hotel, Upper Wellington-
street, Strand. for the purpose of promoting the objects of
the amociaties, these being, with other association, to pro-
mote the reform 1/411411 throughout the metropolis. Nume-
rous centribetlme were mosio.d, when it was stated by Mr.
Haggett, the mormary, that the moiety was progressing m et
favourably. Sines the month of August last, when the se.
cisty was termed about 4001. bad been received, the weekly
contributions being Is. 61, sad 468 shares had been taken.
The tint edition of the rules was nearly exhausted, and the
second would be lamed in • few days. The amount received
that evening was 781.95. The ocamittee bed under its eon-
sideration the appoimmest of Meal agents, for the purpose
of trammitting entributioes from country menthol. Many
contributors from different parte of the neighbotring com-
as* had Sower& d osteeriptims, and from Reigate alms
than lad been 60 who had bosom eastabere. The te.M=
minas lad reesived oats of large plots of lend ; and in
order to cony ea the bushes.' of the sesecistion. they bad
takes premises a No. 4, BeaufertAnildom, Strand. A
delegate meeting of the Freehold Land aximies would
&GO, take place, et which Mr. Cobden end Mr. Bright
mold assist, when Int,ineu of importtance would be ipue-
mitted ; and he hid no doubt but the: the effiet would pro-
mote the efficiency of then sorietits, and &tolerate the re-
form norsault.