The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-23 00:00:00

It is very distressing to notice the accounts re-
ceived from Staleybridge_ It is evident that the

relief committee have been much in fault in their

arrangements lately. It is at such times as these
that peculiar and particular measures should be
taken to prevent the least annoyance or suspicion
gaining ground among the ranks of the sufferers
from such a cruel calamity. Even if the new plans
far giving tickets instead of wages were desirable in
themselves, it should have been ascertained what
were the wishes of the recipients before putting
those measures into execution. Besides this notion
the committee also proposed to have a day in hand
with the wages, and to reduce these by the sum at
fourpence a week. It is really not at all surpris-
ing that these comprehensive charges should have
proved too much for the much-tried operatives,
who are alike irritated and enfeebled by long pri-

vation and great suffering, as well as disheartened
by the want of hope, that might encourage them
to hold on for better days. While censuring their
conduct in its mistaken ideas and misguided vio
lence, and deeply deploring that any blot should be
fixed on the hitherto admirable demeanour of the
working classes of the community through the whole
of these dreadful trials, we cannot bat feel grieved
and disappointed at the want of discretion that has
prevailed in the counsels, and influenced the judg-
ments of those in such a responsible post. It is
evident that causes of irritation must have pre-
vailed for some time previously to this outbreak,
or it would never have assumed on the sudden
such a determined character. A meeting of discon-
tented spirits might have been annoying, but a
mob of rioters, to quell whom the military had to be
called in is a very different affair, Such an event
assumes a serious aspect in the present state of
things, and the details that are given do not tend
to allay the alarm that is naturally caused by such

proceedings.
We learn that sixty of the chief rioters have been
captured, and the magistrates committed twenty,
nine of them on Saturday for trial at the Chester
assizes. It is given as one of the many causes of
the angry feelings long dormant in this place, that
Ashton has been very differently treated in the way
of relief, and that Staleybridge, only four miles dis-
tant, has had but one relief committee, while at
Ashton several committees of different tendencies,
have ministered to the wants of the distressed. Be
this as it may, the result of the riotous proceedings
of Friday are most deplorable alike in a political and
a moral sense. There is one consolation that the ill
feeling does not seem to have spread to other places,
and therefore let us hope that this warning may be of
service to all parties. The committees should re-
member that their object is to maintain peace, and
that they should make all possible concessions to
attain that end. The operatives should recollect that
they injure their own cause by such unseemly con-
duct, and, instead of calling forth the sympathies of
their countrymen as the subscriptions that have
flowed from all parts of the land have testified they
have hitherto done, they will change sympathy to
suspicion. Let them not lose the grand opportunity
they have had of showing to the world, how the
English working classes can meet adversity. Great
brbearance will now be required in the treatment

of these excited men, and any harshness and un-
necessary strictness on the part of the authorities
may occasion the most deplorable results. There
is no feeling so difficult to allay as the sense of
injury, and none so deadly when it is roused. Let,
those who have the power sink all petty prejudices,
and lay aside all sectarian motives, making it their
endeavour and object to meet the emergency, that
so far as rests on their endeavours, if, un-
happily,
sufferingmust prevail for a while
longer in their
dwellings, still the voice of
complaining
may be hushed in our streets, and
the strong arm of the law shall not have to be called
in to put down
those whose cruel sufferings want
no more addition.
All such victories are defeats in
the end to the cause of order, and the spread
the various classes of tht
of right feeling among
community. It is a dreadful thing to reflect upon
that mistaken zeal on ono side and misguided vio-
lence on the other often lead to results that are
quite beyond the control of the original movers in
- • affair. Then too late they diacover that

' kizcilA cannot quench the fiam6."
4**Ct sr,d disturbance of