The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-27 00:00:00

this case, and also in any future disputes in the iron
trade of this country.
NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, Saturday Night.
The workmen at Walker, Jarrow, Spennymoor,
Consett, and most of the other districts have met,
and come to the determination that--

"In consequence of a want of harmony being manifest
in the action of the South Executive in not responding to
the request of the Northern Council to attend the meeting
held at York on Friday, March 17, and so refusing to com-
ply have caused a continuance of the present lock-out,
which, according to the master's statement, might easily
have been settled if they had been present, we demand of
the Gateshead Executive to sever their connection with
the Brierley-hill Council from this date."

A total disconnection of both masters and men from
the Staffordshire complications willprobably form the
basis of negotiations at the proposed interview be-
tween the masters and the delegates from the north-
country workmen, which is proposed to be held at
Darlington on Monday. The strongest hopes are
entertained that everything will be amicably settled
at that interview, and that a betterunderstanding be..
tween the employers and the employed will be a con-
sequence of it. From some cause or other, the men
still adhere to the emigration scheme. It is much
discussed even under the present altered circum-
stances of the lock-out, and many families seem
likely to try their fortunes in America, even suppos-
ing the ironworks should be immediately opened.
The prospects of American emigration have, how-
ever, received a timely check from a letter sent home
by a Durham miner, John Watson, formerly of
Wrenkenton, who has been out in Jefferson County,
Ohio, eight years. Watson, writing from America,
and addressing the working men of the North, says:
"Employers and capitalists, and others interested in get-
ting cheap labour, have sent agents and commissioners
among you, who by advertisements in newspapers and pub-
lications, would make the English miner and English work-
ing man believe that America is at the present time little
short of a terrestrial paradise; that here, if the millennium
has not already arrived, it certainly is close at hand. Now,
the motive of employers and capitalists in sending agents
among you is plain. It is to overstock the labour market,
and thereby reduce wages. They may tell you that we are
making very high wages, which some of us may do, but they
don't tell you that all things we have to buy are high also.
I worked over 20 years in the coal mines of Durham and
Northumberland, therefore I am well acquainted with all
the evils you have to contend with. I have worked eight
years in the coal minesin this country, so I think I may claim
to be able to judge of a miner's life here and in England. In
Etigland you have a house and fuel for next to nothing—
about 13s. a year ; you have medical assistance gratis in
case of accidents, add at some places ss. per week; you have
besides, what no amount of money can buy, your friends
and relations living about you, and very likely you have a
snug little reading room where you can spend your leisure
hours pleasantly and profitably. On the other hand, here
I have paid the last year over $9O for house rent, and
about $4O for coal; hero is no medical attendance, except
you pay for it; here is no smart money, here are no reading-
rooms where you might pass away an hour if you had it to
spare, which you might not after you have worked 12 or 14
hours a day, if you are so lucky as to get work."
A communication from Middlesborough states :

" The lock-out is now beginning to tell seriously upon
the circumstances of the ironworkers. more especially upon
the improvident class of puddlers and millmen, and upon
the underhands and labourers, who when times are good
only obtain very low wages. The labourers thrown out
by the strike amount to some hundreds in Middlesborough
alone. When in full work their wages are scarcely ever
more than 20s. per week, and in many instances not so
much, so that it will readily be seen they have little oppor-
tunity for laying by for such a calamity which is at
present pressingimpon them."

HANLEY, March 25.
Lord Lichfield, at Hanley, to-day met a deputa-
from the puddlers of the district at the Working
Men's Club. He advised a conference between the
North Staffordshire masters and the men.

The deputation promised to call a general meeting
of puddlers on Monday, and recommended the con-
ference.

The North Staffordshire men will not go to Staf
ford, nor meet the South Staffordshire masters.

The masters will, no doubt, insist that the men,
as a first step, shall go in at a reduction-

The Robberies in the City.
REPLY TO COLONEL FRASER'S REPORT.

Mr. John Walker, whose premises were lately
robbed to so great an extent, has written the fol-

lowing reply to Colonel Fraser's report in vindica-
tion of the City police in connection with this and
other recent burglaries in the City. Mr. Walker's
reply is in the form of a letter to the Lord Mayor
and the Court of Aldermen :-
68, Cornldll, E.C., 25th March, 1865.
My Lord and Gentlemen,—Having read the report pre-
sented by Alderman Sir F. G. Moon from the General
Purposes Committee appointed by your honourable Court,
on the subject of tho recent burglaries in the City, I beg
respectfully to submit the following comments thereon.
I deny, emphatically, that Mr. Lund made use of the lan-
guage attributed to him in that report ; this in itself clearly
establishes the evil of private inquiries into matters concern-

ing the public interest and welfare, and which, I need hardly
say, are contrary to the spirit of the age in which we live,
and to the true character of municipal institutions of which
we so frequently and loudly boast.
With regard to your quoting a resolution, which was
passed at a meeting of the Ward of Cheap, viz. :
" That it is most undesirable that large masses of valuable
property should be left in the City without resident protec-
tion, such a course acting as an encouragement to skilful
and daring thieves, and casting thereby a most onerous
and difficult duty on the police force, by withdrawing their
attentionew ould, in
expressedfrom
r eopt
blh reply,
r members
call andyeo equally a
01l important duties."
I would,
sf he Court at the time of
attention to the very different
vithe proposed amalgamation of the Metropolitan and City
police forces, and as one example will suffice for the present,
I quote the following passage from a speech delivered by Mr.
Alderman Rose (then Lord Mayor), and whose name is ap-
pended to your report, at the Mansion House, on the 21st
of April, 1863 (vide the Times, 22d April, 1863) :
" And after business hours, when wealthy merchants and
bankers betook themselves to their houses in the West-end
of the town or the suburbs, millions worth of property was
left to the sole care of the police in the dead hours of night."
If this was the opinion then deliberately expressed by the
chief magistrate of the City of London, what has induced
such a change in your ideas of the duties of the police
under your control ; and if the vigilant guarding of the
property of the citizens left at night is not a part of the duty
of the city police, where, then, is the necessity of so large
a force being employed in so small an area ?

You state, " the Commissioner of City Police furnished
your committee with the most ample returns in relation to
the matters under our investigation, and gave the fullest in-
formation on every point connected with them."
Now, as these returns might prove both useful and in-
structive to your memorialists and the citizens generally,
perhaps you will have no objection to making those returns
public, and thereby enabling them to form their own opinion
as to the value of the data upon which you have come to
such a conclusion.

You state, " after very full inquiries we consider that the
allegations of the memorialists have not been supported by
evidence, nor has anything transpired to substantiate the
charges contained in the letter of Mr. Walker as to the
general inefficiency of the City police force. Your commit-
tee,',therefore,can discover nothing calculated to weaken the
confidence which has hitherto been felt in the management
and efficiency of the force."

The allegations of the memorialists and the charges con-
tained in my letter, as to the general inefficiency of the po-
lice, certainly have not, as you state, been supported by
evidence, and why ? Because we decline, in a matter of
such public importance, to become parties to a private in-
quiry; but those allegations I am prepared to prove before
a public court. And the mere fact of your committee not
being able to discover anything to weaken the confidence
which has hitherto been felt in the management and effi-
ciency of the police, does not prove that the citizens gene-
rally have not just cause for their complaints, and their
want of confidence which has been so strongly expressed
has, I regret to say, not been restored by the numerous
burglaries which have unfortunately taken place since mine.
I again respectfully demand a public investigation into
the organisation and working of the Citypolice force, before
which Col. Fraser shall, if necessary, be called upon to give
evidence ; and I challenge a contradiction of my assertion,
that more men have left the force during the last eighteen
months than during a previous period of three years,which
has been the cause of changing what was at one time a
really valuable police, both for the prevention and detection
of crime, into one that is almost useless, as far as these
purposes are concerned. In this statement lam fully
borne out by the result, which can be proved by the police
books, that more burglaries have taken place during the
past 18 months than during a previous period of three
years; and I also have to add, that the detection of the late
burglaries in the City has been mainly effected by the me-
tropolitan police.

Believing that such a state of things cannot really be
satisfactory to you, and that you are actuated by a desire to
assist the citizens in obtaining a truly effective police force
—a police force worthy of this great commercial city—and
thereby rendering an amalgamation with the metropolitan
police totally unnecessary, I trust you will at once accede
to my request, and grant a free and full public inquiry into
the organisation and working of the City police force, the
result of which I have no doubt will have the effect of ma-
terially weakening that confidence which at the pterseut