The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-18 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

CRIS DAY. —Morning, 4h. 27m.—Afternoon, 4h. 47m.
Ta-Moßnow.-Morning, sh. 3m.—Afternoon, sh. 23m.

mint- • 4
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•
IliAtwdelopp+
4,144.11,4

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 18, 1867.

Speeches from Members of Parliament are now
the order of the day ; and it is a curious and in-
teresting task to notice the difference between them
and the various views expressed by the several
speakers. Just now we have before us two very
dissimilar speeches, one delivered by Mr. NEWDE-
GATE and the other by Mr. FOSTER. The former
availed himself of the opportunity afforded by the
annual meeting of the Warwickshire Agricultural
Society to pass some remarks upon public affairs.
lie observed that we had had one fact called to
mind during the discussions that took place in the
Reform Bill, and that was that the county members
of England were not members of the counties only.
For a period of forty years Mr. NEWDEGATE said
that he had had the honour of representing in
some degree the town of Birmingham, and in point
of fact the county members were the only ones who
could claim to be the representatives of the whole
community of the district which they represented.
Now that it is so much the fashion in certain quar-
ters to decry the county representatives, and
put such stress upon the boroughs being the

The story told by Mr. JOFIN ASHWORTH, of
Salford, before the Trades Union Commission,
yesterday, afforded a very powerful illustration of
the working of the system. Mr. ASHWORTII is a
brickmaker in Salford, and the story of his struggles
with the Union, and their result, is not without its
moral. In 1864 he had 60,000 bricks destroyed and
the handles sawn off his wheelbarrows. The reason
given for this outrage is not a little singular. Mr.
ASHWORTH attributed it to the fact of his own son,
who was not a union man, working in his yard.
Two men afterwards came and drew away the
unionists in his employ. But this was not enough.
The bricks were destroyed, and the men enticed
away from their work, but the justice of unionism
was not satisfied. Two Union men came to Mr.
ASHWORTH, and told him that he must pay £5O for
having given a man into custody for the first outrage,
or he would not be allowed to make any more bricks.
Mr. ASHWORTH thereupon replied, as most men
would be inclined to do, that he would not pay fifty
pence. He made a bold effort to escape from the
grinding tyranny of the trade, and got two men to
work with his two sons. Finding it impossible to
get enough hands, he started a machine. At first he
sold a great many bricks, but the Union interfered
and prevented the bricklayers from setting those
bricks. The Union extends its ramifications from one
trade to another, from one branch of the trade to an-
ther, until they bring every one more or less within
their control. Naturally the consequence of this
interference with the machine-made bricks was that
the sale of them was stopped to a great extent, for
where was the use of men buying thousands of
bricks that the bricklayers were not allowed to set?
Nevertheless Mr. ASHWORTH continued making his
bricks by machine, and some time later he received
a letter, signed " A Well-wisher." It stated that at
a meeting of the operative brickmakers, held at their
own hall the day before, a committee was appointed
to consider the best means of shooting Mr. ASH-
WORTH, and otherwise putting an end to his busi-
ness. The writer added what was no doubt true,
that in writing that letter he put himself in quite as
much danger as Mr. ASHWORTH himself, if it should
become known. It was not long before there was a me-

lancholy proof that the warning was too well founded.
Mr. ASHWORTH offered £5O reward for the apprehen-
sion of the men who had spoilt his bricks, and other
masters who had had their bricks spoilt offered £150;
but nothing came of it. Ten days after the receipt
of the letter referred to a man named PARKES, who
very much resembled Mr. ASHWORTH in height and
figure, was attacked one night by three men while
walking near Mr. ASHWORTH'S house. According
to the humane system favoured by the Manchester
Unions he was beaten about the head with a glass
bottle containing blasting powder, to which
was attached a fuse. The poor man was insen-
sible for nine days, and narrowly escaped with his
life. His eye being permanently injured after this,
it is no great wonder that Mr. ASHWORTH was
afraid of leaving his house at night, and soon after
disposed of his machinery to a company. Not long
after a person in the neighbourhood told him that
the brickmakers had agreed to murder him, and that
they had arranged to shoot him, and hide the men
who did it at a particular house he named. " Since
these occurrences," said poor Mr. ASHWORTH, in
conclusion, "he had employed union men," so the
battle was won at last.

Reading this evidence one is tempted to ask,
whether such things can actually be possible, whether
we are living in civilised Christian England ? The
wildest fabrication of romancists falls short of the
plain facts revealed at Manchester and Sheffield,
and, we doubt not, to be told of other places where a
Commission shall be appointed. Here are we pay-
ing annually immense sums to maintain internal
peace and order. We boast of being a law-observ-
ing people, we rank life and property at a very high
value. But, with all this, life in the Italian cities of
the middle ages, in Mexico at the present day, is
as safe as in quiet, matter-of-fact England. No
secret tribunal can be more übiquitous in its watch-
fulness, more deadly in its vengeance; and when we
remember that the few sentences quietly uttered
before the commissioners mean years of anxiety and
nervous apprehension to the family circle, to end
perhaps in bereavement and ruin, we shall not won-
der that the stoutest hearted give way, and that
men, for the sake of their families, make the conces-
sion they would never make for themselves. But the
plain English of it is—What are the police about?
Considering the number, the character, and the
extent of these outrages very few of the criminals
have been brought to justice. Here we have men
coolly deciding in conclave that they will murder
so-and-so, and settling where the murderers shall
be hid. The banditti that infest the Southern
mountains might very well make such calculations,
but we might have supposed they could hardly
have been made in the England of railroads and
detectives. But the Unionists, after all, knew very
well what they were about. The conspirators have
not been brought to light. The men who nearly mur-
dered PARKES have not been punished. The £2OO re-
ward never elicited who destroyed the bricks. We
talk about giving up capital punishment for murderers
that are found out ; but the Trades Unions adopt
the code of DnAco, and inflict capital punishment
without scruple on any offender who infringes their
laws. The state of feeling, the tone of public
morality revealed by these commissions, is something
startling. The most careless and indifferent must
shrink appalled. But the work is not at an end yet.
A correspondent of one of our contemporaries,
writing from Dudley, urges an inquiry in South
Staffordshire and East Worcestershire into out-
rages committed there during the recent strikes,
while at the same time we hear from Plymouth that
a shipbuilder having employed non-union men has
been threatened that " his brains shall be blown out
or his house set on fire." The evil extends, we may
depend upon it, more or less over the whole country,
and by dragging it to light and, taking action upon
it,we shall be delivering both masters and men from
a dangerous thraldom.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(F RO3l 0v "b OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, Tuesday Evening.

It appears, from the information of a German
liberal paper i
ne
annexation. inoi
ne
.t
quietly,
iosowt
slowly
r yt
lbyns
tonuoernwc
re
es
that
surely, her
publicity
tirtcluiets
ysgi a i
ahma has
been given to a treaty, which she concluded on the
18th of July last, with Prince de Waldeck Pyr-
mont. This treaty, which is only to be in force for
ten years, but which may be easily renewed, unless
it should be renounced by either of the contracting
parties, a year before the expiration of the period
in question, entrusts to Prussia the internal admin-
istration of the Principality of Waldeck Pyrmont.
It is Prussia who will receive all the revenue and
pay all the expenses. She will, with a few trifling
exceptions, exercise supreme power. Prussia will
appoint the Director of the Government and all
the public functionaries, who will be Prussian
subjects, and will take an oath to the King of
Prussia. From and after the let of January, 1868,
the Principality of Waldeck will in every respect
become the vassal of Prussia. That little country,
including the country of Pyrmont, occupies a sur-
face of only about 1,230 square kilometres, and has
about 60,000 inhabitants. It only furnished 800
men to the reserve division of the former Federal
army. It is, however, a rich country as regards its
produce, flax, iron, copper, salt, and slate, and is
therefore a valuable acquisition for Prussia. A
Paris paper, which has a correspondent in Ger-
CBonisfmedaer
saysedtoitbies inlnfaosrtmeredovtehrattbl‘el.
Confederation
iiosnd
oe -f
ttnileiraeinnyin' North, and to rule over it without any control
or opposition. This treaty affords proof of the fact.
The Gazette du People considers the conclusion
of the above treaty as an infraction of the Prussian
Constitution, according to which the King of Prussia
is not allowed to enter into any treaty without
the consent of the Chambers, if such a treaty should
impose any change upon the State and any burthen
upon citizens. By the terms of the Federal Con-
stitution, the King of Prussia, in his quality of
supreme head of the Confederation, may conclude
with foreign Powers, and without the consent of the
Reichstag, any treaty the object of which is foreign
to Federal legislation.
Should King William wish to treat with a foreign
Power he ought to appeal to the Prussian Parlia-
ment, representing the citizens, to whom the pro-
posed new alliance might become onerous, but he
will dispense with this by acting in the name of the
Confederation. Should the Prussian Parliament
make any objection, he will answer the deputies by
referring to the rights granted to him by the Con-
federation of Northern Germany. In short (con-
cludes the above journal), in any case that may
arise, the Prussian Government will be triumphant.
Accounts have been received from Luxembourg
of the solemn entry of the Luxembourg troops into
the Grand Ducal capital. Two battalions of e,has-
seurs, 800 strong, took possession of the city on the
9,11 September. Every man wore a bouquet on his
gun, the flowers having been graciously offered for
the purpose by the people of Echternach and
D iekirch
The monument to the memory of M. Billault,
one of the most eminent French Ministers of modern
times, was inaugurated at Nantes, his native town,
on Sunday last, with great ceremony and general
indications of respect. M. Rouher, Minister of
Finance, presided, and the attendance included
members of the Senate and all the men of note in
the Department, as well as many persons of emi-
nence from Paris, magistrates, lawyers, and others.
After an appropriate address from the representa-
tive of the Mayor, who was absent in consequence
of a death ill his family, M. ii.ouher paid an
eloquent tribute to the memory of the deceased
Minister. M. Rouher traced his career, and
alluded to his great talents and enlightened mind.