The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-13 00:00:00

Extraordinary Assault by Manufacturers.

_4.-___

On Thursday an Under-Sheriff's Court was held
at Leeds, before Mr. Wheelhouse, barrister, to
assess the damages in an extraordinary case of
assault and battery. Mr. Shaw, barrister, appeared
for the plaintiff; and Mr. Maule was for the defen-
dants. Plaintiff, Mr. Walter Shaw, is a bobbin-
maker at Dewsbury ; and defendants, Messrs. John
and James Gomersall and William Thackray, are
manufacturers residing in the same town. On the
18th February, plaintiff being anxious to pay his
addresses to the defendant's (Gomersallts) sister, and
not having been introduced to her, although he
lived in the same street, and had known the family
all his life, adopted the plan of writing a letter to
her, with the object of apprising her of the state of
his affections. This love-epistle was couched in the
following terms :
"Feb. 19th, 1865.
" To Miss Sarah 3. Gomersall.

"I hope you will excuse me riteing to you, but as I
never meet you in compuny I thouht it would be the best
I wish to see you some time this week about Thursday
night iff you leve your house about halfe past two and go
up Wakefield road I will wate for you about the bar. The
fact is I am going down to York and now a young lady
there and I wish to see you before. An answer will oblige
by Wednesday morning first.—l am respectfully yours,

" WALTER SHAW."
It would appear that the young lady, on receiving
this letter, showed it to her brothers, the defen-
dants, and the latter determined to punish the
love-sick bobbin-maker for his impertinence. They
accordingly concocted the following reply, and got
a young lady to write•it in her most approved femi-
nine style of caligraphy
_ _ _

"Dewsbury, Feb. 21.

"My dear Sir,—l received your letter yesterday evening,
but I am sorry to say I cannot meet you up Wakefield-
road, as I never go out during the day without my sister is
with me, but if you will come to our house on Thursday
night, about 8 o'clock, I shall be in the house by myself.
But if any of our people should be in I will send the ser-
vant to the gate, so that you will know, not to come in if
she is there. If you don't see her you must come through
the yard to the side door. If this arrangement does not
suit you, please say by return. 4t S. J. 17

This arrangement, however, appeared to suit the
plaintiff perfectly, and on the appointed night he
hied off to keep the appointment. No abigail was
at the gate to check his progress, and he joyfully
opened the wicket, but he had no sooner got fairly
into the yard than the gate was fastened behind him,
and he found himself in the presence of the three
defendants. John Gomersall inquired what he
wanted there, upon which the plaintiff asked him
what he had to do with it. John Gomersall then
demanded to know whether it was he (plaintiff) who
had written a letter to his sister, and Mr. Shaw re-
plying in the affirmative, John exclaimed with an
oath, " Then I will give it you, come along chaps."
The other defendants then came up, Shaw was
seized round the waist and carried to the horse-
trough in the yard, and soused in the water time
after time. At length he managed to crawl out of
the trough, but he was again seized, his necktie
torn away, a horse-pipe introduced near the spinal
column, and the full force of the town's water on
the main turned on, the effect being that his body
was completely saturated, and his clothes torn nearly
to shreds. The defendants practised this hydro-
pathic treatment for about ten minutes, and sub-
sequently the gate was opened, and plaintiff was
allowed to depart, his movements being quickened
by a kick. His hat was pitched into the street after
him, but he did not recover it. He estimated his
spoilt wearing apparel to have been worth £5, his
hat 13s. 6d., and his cravat 2s. 6d. ; but he had also
suffered from a severe cold, and from rheumatic
pains in the left leg.
Mr. Maule addressed the jury in mitigation of
damages in a humorous speech. He did not deny
the facts as stated, but he urged that the defendants
were young men, that the two Gomersalls were in-
dignant at the coolly impertinent tone of the letter
plaintiff had addressed to their sister, and that what
they did was by way of punishing him for his pre-
sumption. 11Ir. Shaw had no business to write such
a letter to a young lady to whom he was unknown,
and to whom he had never been introduced.

Mr. Shaw having been heard in reply,
The assessor summed up on the law of the case,
the facts being undisputed.
The jury, after about two hours' deliberation,
awarded £BO as damages to plaintiff. The case
created considerable amusement in court.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

--...-

TIMES.—Lord St. Leonards has recently called
the attention of the Legislature to the aspect now
presented by Trade Disputes between masters and
men. The subject, indeed, has a twofold importance
at this moment, for the controversies in question
have assumed an intolerable form and the capacity
of the working classes for political power will natu-
rally be estimated in some degree by their conduct
in these disputes. At the same time it must be
universally felt that the efficacy of any legislation
in such a matter is exceedingly doubtful. No law
can well interfere with private contracts. One man
is free to invest his money, and another to sell
his labour, on such terms as he pleases. Lord St.
Leonards is perfectly aware of all this, and, indeed,
appears by no means sanguine as to the effect of his
own proposal ; but he sees at the same time that if
the remedy is obscure the evil is overpowering, and
so he offers an alternative. That, in fact, is all
that can be done. There must be differences be-
tween masters and men, and there must be some
method of trying the issue. Hitherto the method
has been by " strikes" and " lock-outs," and that
method, as even the men confess, has been brought
to such perfection as to have become impracticable.
It cannot be endured that a local quarrel should
paralyse a national trade. Combination has been
carried too far. The men have organised them-
selves with such success as to force the masters into
an organisition at least equally powerful, and so
every dispute brings about a dead-lock and
threatens a suspension of industry over the whole
country. Cannot the disputants, then, if they
must occasionally disagree, resort to some less de-
structive method of conducting their controversies ?
The recent dispute in the Iron Trade has undoubtedly
shown that the men are not yet really disposed
towards arbitration. We do not impute any insin-
cerity to them, but merely an inability to look
fairly at the subject. They consider their own
side of the question only. They conceive that
their labour is worth so much per day, and main-
tain that opinion without thinking of the fund from
which their wages come, or the way in which it
may be affected by the state of the trade. They
contrast their own earnings with the profits of
their employer, and think that he will easily bear a
little curtailment for their benefit. The rulers of the
Trade Unions, indeed, seem to regard a master as a
milch cow, out of -whom as much is to be got as
possible by any available means of coercion. Such
means of late have been very successfully applied,
and the prospect seemed altogether promising, when
suddenly the masters appeared in the field with
similar weapons and even greater power. At this
the men were frightened, and began to talk of some
alternative ; but it was evident from their speeches
that their ideas were still the same. In North Staf-
fordshire the ironworkers refused arbitration abso-
lutely and in every possible form, and they refuse it
to this clay. Their position deserves to be well un-
derstood. The masters reduced the rate of wages,
on which the men " struck." Then arbitration was
proposed, pending which the men were to resume
work, but they have resolutely declined to go to work
again except at the original rate of wage. This
means that masters are not to be allowed to name
the terms on which they will give employment to
men. If the " strikers" are successful, and can esta-
blish their demand as a rule of the trade, no iron-
master can lower his wages, let the market go how
it will. It is not for the mere difference of pay that
the men are on " strike." If it had been, they would
have accepted Lord Lichfield's equitable proposal, to
which the masters assented—viz., that they should
resume work, and draw wages on account, with-
out prejudice to any claims whatever. This
would have been an unobjectionable mode of settle-
ment, if the men had merely wished to have the
question of wages fairly argued. But they wished for
something more ; they wished to make the masters
yield on the original point, and by yielding admit
that they could not take the initiative in fixing
a rate of wage. They were told that if they
would resume work at the new rate of wage, and
the arbitrators should pronounce in favour of the
old rate, the difference should be made up to them
for every single hour of labour. But they would not
agree ; they had " struck" against a reduction, and
that reduction should be cancelled before they would
go to work again. The masters must give way, and
confess that they had exceeded their rights by pre-
suming on their own authority to lower the pay of
the men. Now, is that position justifiable? Does
such a demand on the part of the men indicate
economical intelligence, or unreasoning combina-
tion ? We do not observe that any advocate of a

new electoral franchise attempts to defend the
general proceedings of the working classes in their
management of strikes. Mr. Bright himself once
said that hardly one strike in 20 could be fairly
justified as reasonable or expedient ; and yet, except
for the unexpected impediment of lock-outs, strikes
would have been everywhere the order of the day.
The men have either persuaded themselves or have
been taught by their leaders that they can never do
wrong in claiming to have their wages increased, or
their hours of labour reduced, and that coercion by
means of concerted action is the instrument by
which their claims can be best enforced. It is plain
from the demand of the North Staffordshire men
that the old idea of ruling the destinies of trade by
means of trade unions still survives. If the men,
indeed, had succeeded, the trade would have been in
their hands—that is, unless it had perished altogether.
Yet it is plain that the calculation of wages must
be left, in the first instance, in the employer's hands.
He alone knows all the circumstances by which the
product of capital and labour—or, in other words,
the fund from which both profits and wages must
come—is likely to be determined. That the workmen
should have a voice in the question, and that labour
should be protected by combination against thepos-
sible tyranny of capital, is perfectly fair. But the
North Staffordshire men go beyond that demand ;
they will not allow that the masters could have had
any right to reduce a prevailing rate of wages, and
until the reduction which is made is cancelled they
will listen to no terms whatever. That is not the spirit
of compromise by which political differences are ad-
justed and political controversies rendered harmless.
The suggestions made by Lord St. Leonards that
Courts of Conciliation shonld be appointed will cer-
tainly not satisfy the desires of men like the North
Staffordshire ironworkers ; but, then, on the other
hand, it was proved by the late " lock-out," and
the attitude of the masters generally, that such de-
sires were not likely to be satisfied at all. The
Trade Unions have been stopped in their career, and
they know it.- They can no longer attack the mas-
ters singly, and overpower them in rotation. The
masters have been frightened into a combination of
their own, and the men can no longer count on
winning. It is just possible, therefore, that they
may consent to adopt some new machinery, and the
proposed Courts will offer them a fair alternative.
A Court of Conciliation or Arbitration will, at any
rate, do this much for them—it will provide them
with a public tribunal and a right of public appeal.
Even if the Court itself should do them less than
they think justice, they can fall back upon their
countrymen, and it is scarcely probable that they
should fail in establishing any really reasonable de-
mand. Lord St. Leonards thinks that, " with all
their intelligence, they do not seem to estimate their
own just position." Perhaps we should say that they
have been led by recent successes to miscalculate
their power. We suspect that since the late " lock-
out" the men have begun to estimate their position
more correctly ; but if they wish to establish a cha-
racter for practical intelligence and moderation they
cannot do better than forsake for some reasonable
alternative the tactics to which their leaders have
lately habituated them.
HERALD. Ireland has been welcoming the recep-
tion of the Heir Apparent on her shores with a
greeting dearer than even the outspoken love of her
children—the contemporaneous success of one of the
greatest of her works, the International Exhibition
of 1865. The large blank that has been so long
lying open in the industrial history of a country
called by so many blessings of Heaven and so many
gifts of man to take so large a share in the pros-
perity of the greatest of modern empires, is receiving
another of those instrumentalities of good and filling
it up with another of those earnests of enterprise
which make it almost impossible that Ireland will
remain much longer the least favoured member in
the national confederacy. With its brilliant Court,
the presence of the future Sovereign, and the pos-
session of the new International Exhibition, the
capital of the empire is transferred for the moment
to the banks of the Liffey, and Dublin may claim
to be offering to the world the most interesting of
the contemporaneous spectacles that can attract the
curiosity or reward the study of other nations. The
fourth in the number of these Industrial Exhibitions
which Dublin has given us, the inauguration, under
such illustrious auspices, of what is to be a perma-
nent ornament of the city as its Crystal Palace and
Winter Garden, makes this the Exhibition par ex-
cellence; and Dublin—as she smiles upon her visitors
in new riches of public buildings—is more than ever
what the Americans, in their fine manner, would
call the " city of monuments and capital of fine
architecture." So great a work, which could have
been achieved only under very disheartening diffi-
culties, may be accepted as pleasant evidence of the
latest spirit and enterprise of an intelligent and ac-
complished people in their struggle against influences
they have not wisely appreciated, and it would ill
become the English press to speak with ill-temper or
faint praise of such an epochal event in its history.
As it is difficult not to wish to be pleased with it, so
is it impossible not to feel satisfaction in the assur-
ances of everybody that the managers have been
able to secure, within the limitations of their tie,
more than the general effect that might reasonably
have been expected from them. We owe Ireland
much ; if asked " how much ?" we should answer,
"Only less than what Ireland owes herself ;" and the
illustrious Prince, who, on behalf of the empire, is
now giving his assistance to its national festival may
be considered to be there offering its inhabitants, in
the most practical of forms, our acknowledgment of
the debt and the assurance of our readiness to pay it.
The enthusiastic reception and brilliant series of il-
luminations, banquets, balls, and reviews, are all
well in their place, but, in our opinion, are after all,
magnificent as they have been, but the accessories of
the visit. The true interest of the business is some-
thing far higher, and is suggested by the assiduity
with which his royal highness studies the display of
industrial ingenuity laid before him, and addresses
himself to the consideration of the actual needs and
means of the people around him. Those who are
heedful of these matters would probably find that
the Prince is not the least hard-working of the thou-
sands of visitors who are daily examining the Exhi-
bition with a less public object. As his influence is
vast, we may believe that in that proportion has he
been taught to rate his responsibilities, and it would
be a happy circumstance if this remarkable exhibi-
tion of international art and industry should so
direct his studies to the resources of the country,
and the misuse that has been made of them, that
we might owe to his visit that mastery over "the
question of Ireland" which would insure it the ad-
vantage of that steady interest and powerful pro-
tection all important to its happy solution. Fortu-
nately or unfortunately for Ireland its wealth is
still most of all a thing of the future. For the pre-
sent the Prince finds himself surrounded by para-
doxes in material existence, which answer to what
the vernacular of the same country commends to us
as " bulls." With all the means and agencies of
wealth he finds Ireland poor. With a population
about him the most active in Europe he sees
comparatively little industry. - With the most
essentially agricultural country in Europe spread
before him—the population being by no means
dense—he finds it importing corn in a proportion
that will remind him of England. And finally, in
an exhibition of Irish industry and manufactures,
he will be obliged to conclude that the most remark-
able specimen of all is the building which has been
erected to contain them. What is the want which
makes worthless so much wealth, paralyses so much
intelligence, and sterilises so much usefulness? Why
is a country unrivalled for its poplins and linens
obligedto import nearly every other article of manu-
facture, down to her coarsest crockery ware ? As in
the case of some of our over-scientific farmers,
nothing is wanting but the one thing desirable—
products. The sea is there ; and rivers, canals,
railways, and roads reach it everywhere, running
about and around you in all directions through a
soil of unequalled fertility. There are plenty of able
and intelligent men, too, generally underworked,
always underpaid and often underfed. There is
likewise a plethora of capital unused. Everything,
in short, is there except—the use of everything.
The noble building, raised by Irish skill and enter-
prise as by magic, which received the Prince on
Tuesday last, has the value beyond all that was in-
tended for it of showing him that all this need not
be so. As with it formerly, the fabric of Irish pro-
sperity is absent not from want of materials, but of
the able and enterprising architects who know how to
use them. Those who know the country would pro-
bably sustain his Royal Highness in the opinion that
with a revival of agriculture we should have the only
basis on which we may hope to erect the edifice we
want. Blessed with the most fertile soil under heaven,
situate near the best markets in the world, Ireland
needs but that perfect cultivation of the land which
the industry and number, of its inhabitants might
so easily secure it. That given it would be as
prosperous as England, and at least as happy. It
is as incontestable as a mathematical axiom that
there exists in the land more than remunerative em-
ployment for all the labour of the country, and
all that is probably needed to bring it into play
are moderate rents, long leases, and a size of hold-
ings suited to the capital and intelligence of the
cultivator. Set the agricultural mind of Ireland in
healthy and full movement, and there will be a
corresponding influence on every division of Irish
industry and enterprise. Among a people subject
to the dwarfing influence of provincial isolation,
envenomed by a system of absentee proprietors, the
action of their rejuvenescence, like that of their
decay, will be general or not at all ; and clearly a
solid renewal and extension of their interest in the
land—the source of wealth and prosperity for all—
is the only means to which we may look for so in-
estimable a result. Even the fine arts, for which
he emotional and imaginatiye nature of a Celtic