The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-21 00:00:00

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from Wales, and from every olla
extricating
themselves
that they
from w hd m
country, and remain with then at Stave* .if
workmen were better paid and better remunerated
for their labour in Yorkshire ? It was contrary to
reason and to
t commoni
n
at Staveley if it were not so. But it was a
touel
tyranny
re
analivn
great fact that men then working in Yorkshire were
desirous of x
of the Trades' Unions, and wished to come back to
a district where freedom and
liberty of labour
existed. Some of the delegates had endeavoured to
incite the farm labourers to form a great combina-
tion, with the avowed intention of improving their
condition. If such a combination we re possible, the
small farmers, who were the most industrial class of
men in the country, would be compelled to convert
all their arable land into grass land, and would, con-
sequently, only be able to empiny one man where
three are now employed, anal the result would be
that the price of labour would be still further re-
duced. He believed that all combinations were bad,
and that it was desirable that fair and legitimate
competition should exist in all trades, and then
everything would take its own natural course, and
find its own natural level. There had recently been
a great combination of capitalists against labour is
Staffordshire, and more recently in the North of
England, and the result in both cases had been in-
jurious to the interests of both masters and men,
and had caused immense suffering among the work-
ing people. All disputes between masters and men
should be settled upon a fair and equitable basis—
but if trade societies combined among themselves to
crush an individual employer of labour, they could
not object „to masters forming a combination on a
similar scale. It was to him a source of great satis-
faction that everything that science, skill, or capital
could command had been done to insure the safety
Of the mines, and to protect the lives of the work-
men. The company employed as consulting viewers
two of the most experienced engineers in the court,
try. They possessed in Mr. Campbell one of the
`most experienced practioal Men:in the kingdom,
whose great sagacity, experience, and unwearied
attention had been devoted to his business, and he
(the chairman) believed that at the present mo-
ment there were no collieries in the kingdom that
could be compared, in safety and efficiency, with
those belonging to the Staveley Company. (Loud
cheers.) No expense had been spared that con-
tributed in any way to the safety of the working
man. The company had recently expended a very
large sum in an irnproved system of ventilation, and
they were extending the same principles to some of
their other collieries. In conclusion,,Mr. Markham
observed that it was by the merchants' weight the
wages would be reduced 25 per cent., as the diffe-
rence in the weight was precisely one-fourth. It
was hardly necessary for him to refer, to the ques-
tion of the weight of 28 cwt., which had been made
use of by the delegates as a grievance against the
Staveley Company, as it was well known to every
working man at Staveley that he was paid for a
given quantity, or a lot of 28 cwt. It was of course
quite immaterial to the company whether they (the
men) were paid by the merchants' weight or by the
exceptional weight which had so long existed at
Staveley. The weight of all the coal raised at the
collieries was reduced in the office to the merchants
weight, as it was a great fact, as previously stated
when the union was first brought into the district,
that during the past 12 months the Staveley Com-
pany paid the colliers for *23,793 tons more con
than sold. It could make no difference to the work-
ing man whether he was paid by 20, 25, or 30 cwt.
so long as it was a bargain, and prices were paid
upon a fixed quantity. The understanding with
the colliers was that the draught of the scale should
cover all deficiencies, inclusive of the colliers' coals,
that are given to them without charge, the dirt and
refuse picked out in clearing the coal, and the fuel
required to feed the enOnes in working the pit.
All the company required was to have as many tons
of coal to sell as they paid for, and whatever the wages
might be, this principle would always be adopted.
It hal been said there was a lock-out at Staveley,
which was not a fact. They had exercised Weir right
to give notice to a certain number of men,' while
on the other hand, a considerable number of their
workmen had given iu their notices, and left their
employment in a proper manner. A lock-out had
never taken place at these works, as he (the speaker)
was totally opposed to them on principle, and he
made up his mind to work the . collieries with those
men who were desirous of following their employ-
ment. The Staveley Company would never consent
to employ union men, as they did not wish to be in
constant war with their workpeople.

Ply IC
STSMPED

having flowed from the wounds he had received upon
his head.

When the prisoner was committed by the magis-
trate all she paid was, " I own to all exc.Tt killing
the child. I cannot own to that, because I did not do
it."

Mr. C. Daley, the house-surgeon at the infirmary
at Tunbridge Wells, who had in his evidence in
chief expressed a strong opinion thit the marks of
blood apparent upon the front of the dress of the
prisoner were caused in the way suggested by the
prosecution, by the blood spurting from the arteries
in the neck of the deceased child at the time the fatal
injury was received, was cross-examined at consi-
derable length by Mr. Ribton upon the point. The
effect'of this did not appear, however, materially to
shake the evidence given by this gentleman in chief,
hut he eontradicted the witness Highams in some
particulars, and expressed a strong opinion that
some of the wounds received by the latter were not
inflicted while he was lying in bed as he had repre-
sented, and that one of them at all events bad in all
probability been inflicted while he and the prisoner
were struggling in the middle of the room.

Sergeant Parry made a temperate but forcible
address to the jtiry in summing up the case for the
prosecution, and after observing that the case was
altogether one of the most extraordinary that had
been brought before the consideration of a court of
justice, he said that two things appeared to him to be
perfectly clear, one of which was that a murder had
been committed, and that the person who committed

either tine 'priPbner or

the man
flighams. Against the prisoner, as it also appeared
to him, there was an overwhelming mass of evi-
dence, and as against Highams there was nothing at
all but the bare and utterly unsupported statement
of the prisoner. In a case like the present it was
of course impossible not to feel great sympathy
for a woman in the position of the prisoner;
but he and they and all concerned in the inquiry
had a duty to perform which they were bound
to carry out, and he felt therefore bound to remind
them that the effect that would result from their
acquitting the prisoner must necessarily be a belief
that the crime was committed by the witness Hig-
hams. He argued that there was not a single cir.
cumetance in the case that would justify them in
coming to this conclusion, and that there was an
entire abgence of anything like a motive on his part
for the commission of such a dreadful crime. With
regard to the prisoner, however, he was afraid that
the evidence left no doubt that she was maddened
by jealousy at what she conceived to be the differ-
rence of her paramour towards her, and that under
the influence of this feeling she destroyed the life of
the child, intending at the same time, very pro-
bably, to have taken his life also if she had been
able to do so.

At this stage of the case the trial was adjnurned

The C)al Trade.

CHESTERFIELD, Wednesday.

A very large and influential meeting of the non-
unionists was held in the Barrow-Mll Schools on
Tuesday evening last, when upwards of 800 persons
were present. Mr. Markham occupied the chair.
The Cllmomas, who, on rising, was received with
loud cheers, said that he congratulated them most
sincerely upon the great demonstration for the vin-
dication of their rights as Englishmen for the free-
dom and liberty of labour. (Cheers.) It was a
source of the greatest possible satisfaction to him to
find so large an increase in the numbers of the non-
union men, which amounted at that moment -to
1,052, who were exclusively employed in connexion
with the mineral department of the company. The
promoters of that great movement were entitled to
the praise and gratitu.le of their fellow-workmen in
coming forward, as he was convinced that the move-
ment would confer an inestimable benefit on the
working men of England. As the education and
intelligence of the people extended the non-union
movement would be inare fully appreciated ; it was
to the working inen of Staveley that the great move-
ment for the vindication of their rights as English-
men was especially due ; and to prevent the possi-
bility of any dispute as to originators of the move-
ment he had given instructions for a book to be pre-
pared, which would record the first and all subsequent
meetings of the non-union men, and on the 31st of this
month the names of every non-union man employedien
the mineral department of the Staveley Company
would be entered, awl the book deposited in the Bri-
tish Museum. It had been a disgrace to the manufac-
turers and artisans of this country that theyhad per-
mitted locomotives to be manufactured in the centre
of France, that had been brought to this country at
considerable cost, and were now running upon the
Great East Railway. The Belgian manufacturers had
supplied large quantities of rails for the East Glou-
cestershire Railway, which were delivered at the port
of Gloucester at a less price than they could be ob-
tained from an English manufacturer. During the
past winter a large quantity of castings were re-
quired by the Leeds Corporation, which were com-
peted for by a Belgian firm, and it was stated by
the Leads papers that their tenderscwhemrewniythinhao
few shillings of that of the Staveley pa
obtained the order. These examples would serve'who
obtained to
show, he said, how keen was the competition with
foreigners. Many of the rules and regulations of
the trade societies were, in his opinion' most unjust
and detrimental to the interests of the working man.
Their fundamental rules were to make every man
equal ; the idle and industrious apprentices, as soon
as they had completed their apprenticeships, were
bound by the rules of many societies to receive the
sameamount of wages as the skilful and experienced
working-man, who, again, was restricted in his la-
bou
ran h
and prevented from using his talent to the best
advantage
family. In macnoyultdrafodre tsheeeiebteinesefithey did hn
soetl fa
l al
on wd
the employer of labour to have more than one ap-
prentice for every seven workers; the master se-
lected the apprentices, and it might so happen that
not one working-man in twenty had the privilege
of obtaining for his children employment in his own
trade. Many families would, no doubt, wish to fol-
low the same employment as their fathers, but they
were not allowed by their trade societies to do so.
What he (the chairman) wanted to know was on
what principle any society
had a right to interfere
with the liberties of the working-man's children.
(Cheers.) If every trade society carried out the
same rigid rule, and if the common labourers
were to do so also throughout the country,
and they had as much right to protect their
own labour as the skilled artisan, what would be-
come of the population of the country, and how
would it be employed? It had been stated that there
were 1,200,000 paupers in this country, and if the
development of trade societies were to extend, the
paupers must increase in a much larger proportion.
If a master was willing to give employment to the
sons of one of his workmen, it was his (speaker's).
opinion that it was the bounden duty of the father
to assist his children, and not to conspire for his own
personal benefit to defraud them of their rights and
liberties as Englishmen. (Loud applause.) The
rate of labour uudoubtedly depended upon sup-
ply and demand; if there was a superabundance of
labour, wages were low ; but if, on the contrary, as
was the case in that district, there was a great de-
mand for labour, wages steadily increased ; and this
great principle could not Le modified by the rules
or regulations of any trade societies. The collie, ies
and ironworks of that district, he said; had been
developed by the freedom and liberty of labour; and
it was very important for the working men to clearly
ascertain their relative position in that district as
compared with Yorkshire, where the works were al-
most entirely under the dominion of the trades' unions.
The population in this immediate locality had in-
creased 60 per cent, within the last ten years, and
the wages paid at Staveley were higher than in any
other colliery district in the kingdom. If they were
not so, why, he asked, did men come from Yorkshire,