The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-21 00:00:00

THI REVELATIONS AT

The evidence of ye.terday, including the confession of
Broadhead, puts beyond the reach of denial, remarks the
Times, the fact that Linley was shot according to a dis-
tinct agreement between the secretary of a union and two
of his agents—an agreement as plain, as business-like, and
as strictly executed as any trade contract. It will be no-
ticed there was no halite or heat either in the agree-
ment itself or in its execution, and that the
sole object of the murder was to maintain the union.
Broadhead is as explicit upon this point as the two others.
" The whole ground they had fur shooting Dulay was for
having six apprentices, and for ruining the trade." To
these men the trade and Ihe union constitute the whole of
their world, and an arbitrary code of trade rules is sub-
stituted for every law, human and divine. Many a
murder for which the murderer has been hung is leas
heinous than the act for which these three ruffians will
claim an indemnification from the commissioners. Of
course if they fulfil the conditions on which it is granted,
they must receive it, though it is impossible not to feel •
certain regret that one at least of the three should not
vindicate in his person the majesty of the law.
The Herald refuses to believe, until it is forced to do so,
that murder is a recognised mode of vengeance in trade
unions as a rule throughout the country ; but, it adds,
when it finds that in the case of Sheffield brutal violence,
equally with robbery, are the ordinary expedients for en-
forcing the rules of the local unions, the extremity of
physical repression which takes the form of murder is but
the logical devel pinent of the system. Unless the work-
ing-class witnesses have been guilty of the grossest per-
jury the amount of violence employed is • mere question
of degree.
The Telegraph protests against the unharness, of re.
garding the whole of the Sheffield trade unionists as re-
sponsible for this crime ; and protests not less earnestly
against the even grosser unfairness of regarding the trade
unionists throughout England as responsible for those of
Sheffield. The workmen of that place have long been
notorious for • roughness and recklessness hardly to be
paralleled elsewhere. The Telegraph will be grievously
disappointed if the workmen of the great manufacturing
towns content themselves with disapproving such outrages
in silence. If the leaders of the unions shirk the duty,
the workmen must undertake it themselves—must exone-
rate themselves in the eyes of their fellow countrymen
from even the shadow of suspicion that they can tolerate
robbery and murder as means of ensuring unanimity and
obedience among the members of a trade.
The Star also exclaims against the assumption that •
course of this kind is to betaken as evidence of the general
character, or even the general tendency, of trades' unions.
Long before a word bad been heard of this we all knew
how very exceptional were in many respect. the trade
societies of Sheffield ; what an odd leaven of roughness
and ferocity there was about them ; how they bad been for
generations di►tinguished by their aggressive and passionate
character.

The Times bee no doubt that the &climb government