The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-24 00:00:00

The Leigh 1 fay-making Case.—Defence of

tree Magistrates.

The justice d at Leigh have published a defence of ,
their conduc t in the form of a letter written by their
clerk, Mr. 'B' ,ichard Marsh, who asserts that the
facts of th's case have been distorted and misrepre
vented. Tie says :—" So far as the course pursued
by the j u stices, in point of law, is concerned, the
Athert on Bench is frilly prepared to sustain the
convi'ati ons it felt bound to pronounce, and it will
await with confidence the judgment of a superior
tribunal, should the defendants be advised to have
ita decision reviewed. In the meanwhile, however,
it is due to the justices who convicted in this case
to put the facts in their true light, and so to pre-
Tent the further circulation of the gross mis-state- I
meats which have been, and continue to be dissemi-
nated. Such misrepresentations, though they pro-
duce but little effect on the intelligent and well-
disposed, may, nevertheless, mislead the ignorant,
and are calculated to excite hatred against the ma-
gistrates personally, and to bring their administra-
tion of justice into disrepute in the estimation of
the labouring classes. It is, therefore, hoped that
the press will act in the interests of justice and
truth, and give publicity to the following account of
the matte?. Long before the bench interfered the
attention of the local police had been called to the
numbers of working people in a state of drunken-
ness on a Sunday in the vicinity of Leigh and
Athereon. In the early part of July a man was
summoned before the magistrates for being drunk
tb a previous Sunday, when he stated as his de-
fence that he got the drink for making hay on that
day'; and on the next Sunday, July 12, the police
found a cart filled with drunken men returning
from a day's haymaking in the neighbourhood, and
on the following day (Monday) a clergyman made a
formal complaint to the magistrates that he and his
congregation had been disturbed while in church by
the noise of the haymakers at work in an adjoining
field during the hours of Divine service ; and in
addition to this, the police stated to the magistrates
in open court that Sunday haymaking was be-
coming very general in the neighbourhood, and that
mach drunkenness and disorderly conduct was pro-
duced thereby. In consequence of such a state of
things, Mr. Superintendent Orton's officers on the
next Sunday, July 19, visited the fields of the de-
fendants, Howarth, Battersby, and the Cleworths,
having been informed that aaymaking was then
going on. In the fields of each of these defendants
the police found numbers of men, some at work, and
others in a state of intoxication ; and upon inquiring
from some of the men themselves it appeared that
they received no wages for the Sunday's work, but
only their meat and drink, or, as they expressed it,
"a good blow out." In the defendant Howarth's
field the greatest number of the men were employed
in spreading the small grass coils. In Ole worth's
field part of the hay was in windrow, and the re-
maining portion was grass which appeared only to
have been shaken out that day. Consequently that
portion could not possibly have been fit for carry-
ing in less than two days ; moreover, the weather
was fine and settled, and there was no appearance
of change foreboding damage to the crop. So much
therefore for the truth of the assertion that the
Cleworths had a meadow of hay ready for carrying,
which, from the state of the weather, they were ap•
prehensive of being lost, and were therefore com-
pelled to resort to Sunday labour as a work of ne-
cessity to save the crop from ruin.
" Such was the case in its general hearing and
antecedents with which the magistrates had to deal
when the defendants abovenarned, with some of the
men employed, appeared before the bench at Ather-
ton to answer the charge preferred against them
under the Lord's Day Act. And now, it may be
asked, what were the magistrates to do ? It will
be observed that the desecration of the Sunday,
flagrant as it was, was not in this case a breach of
any Act of Parliament only ; besides being an in-
fraction of the law, this Sunday haymaking was
the producing cause of drunkenness and disorderly
conduct among the working people, and it there-
fore became the duty of the magistrates to use
every legitinv.tte means to put an end to this open
violation of law, attended as it was by such mis-
chievous consequences.
"The statute under which the defendants were
summoned is precise enough in its terms, and the
bench considered the facts proved in evidence fully
brought the defendants within its scope. No case
of necessity was made out on behalf of any of the
haymakers, and therefore there were no grounds for
extending to them the execution contained in the
statute. Still, however, the bench was unwilling
to convict, the object of the magistrates being re-
pression rather than punishment, and the court
offered to let the defendants off en payment of the
costs only ; but this clemency was misconstrued
into nn indication of timidity on the part of the
justices, and was indignantly declined by the de-
fendants Cleworth, who refused to pay either pe-
nalty or costs until compelled to do so.

" The bench thus set at defiance had but one
course to pursue in order to make the law respected;
and to put an end to the repeated and indecent pro-
fanation of the Sunday, with its attendant conse-
quences of drunkenness and demoralisation ; they,
thereforeemost properly convicted the offenders in
the penalty of 53. each, and the casts of the prose-
cution. The defendants and their sympathisers
sought to impute unfairness and partiality to the
magistrates for having dismissed the case against
the coalhoavers, also summoned with the haymakers
for a breach of the Lord's Day Act ; bat in this
case of the coal labourers it was satisfactorily shown
that their Sunday work was a work of necessity,
which brought them within the proviso of the act.
In such a case, had the magistrates convicted, how
would their conduct have been attacked as oppres-
sive and unjust; yet this acquittal, humane and
discriminating as it was, has been tortured into a
partial and one-sided application of the law by
those who seek to raise the howl of popular preju•
dice against the proceedings of the Atherton jus-
tices and the local police.
`` Public feeling has also been appealed to as to
the conduct of the police when they proceeded to
enforce the sentence of the petty sessions. What
are the facts? Oue of the defendants of the five
against 'whom distress warrants were issued is
alleged to
have been in indigent circumstances, and
sympathy has been sought to be evoked by the pic-
ture of the constable's cruel mission to his poverty-
stricken dwelling;
the poverty of this individual
has in the first place
been grossly exaggerated; but
besides this it appears that he was not distrained
upon at all, for the
police retired leaving his volu-
ble wife mistress of the field without removing an
article of his property. As to the dwellings of the
other four defendants, they are confessedly comfort-
ably fax nished ; their
yards well stocked, and on
them the police most
and costs pr °petty levied sufficient to
satisfy the penaltywhich np to the last
the defendants obstinately refused to pay. The
property so distrained consisted in all of only two
pieces of household furniture and
new, which have
since been sold by public action, to be bought in
with much parade by or on behalf of the owners.
"Thus, therefore, the police, " far from acting
harshly, acted upon the side of leniency, for they
halted in the execution of their duty at the first and
only cry of poverty that was raised. As to the en-
forcement of the penalty and costs against the other
four defendants, it would be difficult for even their
advocates to suggest how the magistrates or police
could have acted with greater moderation, unless
indeed the authorities were to suffer the law to be-
come a dead letter, and its execution to be resisted
by every sturdy and contumacious offender.
The magistrates
of the Atherton bench at pre-
cent only desire to repel the imputation of partial
and oppressive adadeistration of justice. They are
not responsible for the policy, be it
good or had, of
any piece of legislation on which it is their duty to
ant. It may, however, be well to tell the defenders
of Sunday labour that the act of Charles 11, on
which they have e:::pEnded a great deal of ignorant
l
criticism, is not the only legislation on the subject
to be found in our statute-book. This statute is
only an extension of various acts of the legislature
passed in preceding reigns, the principle of which
may be traced back even to the days of our Saxon
ancestors ; and so far from the statute in question
having become forgotten or obsolete, its existence
has been recognised in several acts of parliament
relating to the same subject down to the reign of