The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-03 00:00:00

;'url topsails because it is blowing hard or because

;he sails are stiff with wet and fi:ost.

The doctor

must go out at all hours and assist at the most diffi-
cult and disagreeable operations. Everybody, that
does his duty, has his trials, to his health, to his
temper, to his brain, or his affections. So the case
of these poor Irishmen—and most of them are Irish-
men—working their joints stiff and their faces
rough with incessant toil, is only of a piece with
the rest of human life, though work may not always
show itself so much on the outside. That what do
the facts of their condition prescribe for them ?
They must work as much as they can while the
fine weather lasts ; they cannot work in frost or in

rain, they cannot do much in the short days ; once
at work, the scaffold once up, the mechanism once
arranged, the materials once coming in, the supe-
rintendents once engaged, builders, architects,
tradesmen, contractors, clerks, all once at their

posts, it behoves employers to do the work as
quickly as possible. A great capital is neoesaary in
all these arrangements, and it mnst bring in returns
soon. All these are the natural conditions of the

trade, and these are not always compatible with
short hours and holidays. Wait a little, and these
things will come when they are not wanted; but a
fine August in London is not the time or place for
a builder's holiday. One might as well try to stop
a ship in a storm, or a sicknes while the doctor is
preparing the remedy. The house must be finished
as quickly as possible, or everybody will be ruined
who has any concern in it. _ _

This is the peculiar hardship, the injury, and
the crime of a builders' " strike" in the middle of
summer. Of course, the clever fellows behind the

scenes, who sit all day at the tap of the " Wolf in
Sheep's Clothing" and tipple at the cost of their
dupes, select the time because it is the most unfit
for stopping. They choose the time as a ruffian
does when he wants to smash a railway train. He
lays a log across the rail, not at a station, but mid-
way between two stations, and where the rail
crosses a river or a deep valley. It is just now the
worst time for everybody. The contractor is
anxiously calculating whether he can roof in or
break the neck of his job before winter. The
labourer has just got out of debt, and is hoping to
save enough to live when frost and rain stop his
work. Proprietors and employers are looking on,
and calculating the time when they may expect to
occupy the house or receive a dividend from the
concern. Every cloud in the sky makes them
anxious that no time be lost. This is just the
moment when every man on the building finds that
he must stop. Generally speaking, he would gladly
give a sovereign out of his own pocket to be able ';.o
go on quietly, but he must go with the rest. So
everything stops, everything spoils. The builder
has borrowed large sums of money at high interest,
or has creditors to meet; at all events, he has a
large " plant," which only pays with much use. If
it is an object to do the thing when the greatest
mischief may follow, then this is the right time.
What time so proper to shoot a man down as when
he is sitting at his fireside with his wife and family ?
But common sense and common feeling tell us that

this is not the right way to advance rights, or to
do good to anybody. No wonder that poor Daniel
O'Connell told the present Lord Chancellor confi-
dentially that " strikes" were the bane of his coun-
try—that they ruined, first masters, then men,
and so drove away trade and capital. If in Lon-
don labourers are underpaid, this is not the way
to better them. The right way can never be so
wrong. It cannot answer; it never has answered,
and it will not answer. The poor fellows who
throw down their hods or their shovels at such
bidding may be'sheep, but the men who bid them
are wolves.

As a matter of course, the Master Builders have
taken measures of defence. They have been told
that Messrs. Trollope have only been selected for
the first victims, and that all the rest are to follow ;
so they have accepted the challenge, and declared
ar with the " Conference of the United Building
Trades." They are resolved not to employ men
who profess to obey another master, and who may
therefore at any moment leave them in the lurch.
Self-preservation justifies this step. Nobody is
bound to do that which places him in bondage, and
which may utterly ruin him. A master knows best
what wages he can afford to pay, and what hours
and other rules it is necessary to enforce ; but if any
day—on the Ist of August, for example—he may be
obliged either to give higher wages or shorter
hours, or see his works stop, altogether, then, of
course, he may be ruined against his will and better
knowledge. The Master Builders have simply de-
manded the privilege of free Englishmen in resolv-
ing not to employ the members of a mischievous
conspiracy. Every labourer can consult his own
interests in his own time and fashion. Every la- ,
bourer has opportunities. He can follow work all
over the town—all over the country—all over tho
world. He can save money and become a master
himself. One of the largest contractors in the last
generation, represented by a name in the list of
Master Builders this day advertised, used the point
with pride to a very well built house, in the facing
of which he had himself laid every brick. There,
are the same opportunities in these days. But the
whole question of employment is one between mas-
ter and man, and no man will ever live to be master
unless he is content to be man till then. Wo pity
these poor fellows. We pity the privations they
must suffer. We pity their wives and children..
We pity their f9lly, and, more than all, the ill pas-
sions sure to be fostered by the " strike," if it goes
on. But we tell them they have done an act con-
trary to common sense, English fairness, and Chris-
tian charity, in suddenly striking at a time calcu-
lated to ruin their masters. They have compelled
their masters to defend themselves by the only
means in their power, and the Trades' Unions are
alone responsible for the quarrel and all its conse-
quences.

STRIKE IN THE BUILDING TRADE.

We have been requested to publish the following
letter, addressed to the Chairman of the United
Trades :

" Sir,—l hope the United Trades will lose no
time in taking measures to let it be known that
the other trades in the country have no connection
with the United Building Trades,' and that they
will not support them in the unprinciplod and
wicked course which they are taking in organising
a strike, which, unless prevented, will become
general in London on Saturday. That body, I
understand, are led by a few reckless men, who
are regardless of the consequences they are entail-
ing on hundreds of families. Had they merely
sought to reduce the hours from four o'clock to two
o'clock on Saturday, so as to secure a half-holiday,
they would have had the sympathy of the country
generally with them; but, as it'is, many even of
their own number see the folly and injustice of
asking ten hours' pay for nine hours' work, espe-
cially in a trade more healthy and less exposed to
evil influences than hundreds of others. However
much I regret and deplore strikes, yet there are
occasions when, remonstrances having failed, the
injustice inflicted on the working men by the
masters is so flagrant that strikes become justi-
fiable. Instances are but too frequent where
masters cruelly neglect and oppress those in their
employment, and by such eons uct place a diffi-
culty in the way of right-minded employers car-
rying out their benevolent schemes.

-
However, the lull in foreign and domestic
politics offers now a prospect that questions of
social reform will be attended to in the next and
ensuing session of Parliament, but if such unprin-
cipled strikes as these take place the feeling towards
the working classes will be changed, and legislation
on the subject will retrograde instead of advance.
It is for this reason that I address you, in the hope
that a decided demonstration on the part of the
other tracTes may yet stop these infatuated men,
and that they will yield to wiser counsellors, as
among them there must be many good and Chris-
tian men who may be induced, if not to control, at
least to separate themselves from their misguided
companions.

" the strike of the United Building Trades can-
not succeed, as, though they may effect the ruin of
a few of the small
,contractors and master build-
ers, the principal contractors will receive the sym-
pathy of their employers, and in most cases the
delay in the completion of a building is of no seri-
ous consequence. _ _

"Your obedient servant,

" Grosvenor-square, Aug. 2."

" KINNAIRD."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir:—In common with all who have seen the
working of the Bricklayers' Association I read
your to-day's leading article with great interest,
and, believing this association to be at least as in-
jurious to the men and their interests as it is to
those of their employers, I sincerely hope that your
attack may be the means of breaking its power
once for all. I take the liberty of making known
to you the circumstances upon which this opinion
was founded. About two years ago we were erect-
ing at our Battersea works some engineers' and
other shops, involving a good deal of brickwork,
and employing about 120 bricklayers; the best of
these employed on the parts requiring special skill
were paid ss. 6d., the rest ss. a-day, which we had
ascertained to be full pay for the class of work at
the time. A young man (paid by the association,
as we were informed, 7s. a day), watched the men
at work from the road, and spoke to them, and
there were some murmurs for the extra 6d., but
nothing seemed very serious till at one dinner time
almost all except our regular old hands left work,
and a prinfed placard was posted about the neigh-
bourhood, stating that bricklayerS were not to
work at " Prices's." As we have not the character
of being hard with our people, this was not plea-
sant, but our only answer was a counter notice
that we wanted bricklayers, but that no member of
the association need apply. As the most impor-
tant part of our brickwork had been finished we
were in a very comfortable position, and intended,
if necessary, to go on quietly till the advanced
season made the supply of bricklayers much
greater than the demand for them. However,
within tcu days and Vo cnout our
brickwork was all going on again, and we were
informed that the association had had er.ougb
of " Price's ;" but "Price's" had not had enough of
it. We traced the way the strike had been organ-
ised, and the accounts we then heard of the com-
pulsion which had been exercised over numbers of
well-intentioned, hard-working men, who were per-
fectly satisfied with what they knew to be right
pays
sanl
and edre
itooicceonintinthuse
haotpewoofrktiismakes
us, e
class being freed from the tyranny of the few talk-
sawidho before, longed
talk-
ing men who seem at present to be their absolute
masters.—l am, sir, your most obedient servant,
G. F. WILSON.

Price's Patent Candle Company,
Belmont, Vauxhall, July 30.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—ln consequence of numerous inquiries we
shall be much obliged if you will permit us to state
through the medium of your columns that the strike
is confined to our building works, and that our deco-
rative, upholstery, and cabinet works are in no way
affected thereby.—We are, sir, your most obedient
servants,

GEORGE TROLLOPE and SONS.

HEALTH OF LONDON DURING THE

WEEK.

(From the Reiistrar:lienerar s Report.)
The return of births and deaths in London issued
by authority of the Registrar-General for last week
indicates some improvement in the state of the
public health. The deaths during five weeks had
constantly increased, and in the week ending
July 23 had risen td 1,605. A mitigation of the
intense heat, accompabied by occasional showers,
has been followed by a decrease of the deaths,
which in the week ending last Saturday were
1,419. The mean temperature of the air was 67.4
deg. in the first week of July, 71 deg. and 69 deg.
in the two subsequent weeks, and last week it was
67 deg.
In the ten years 1849-58 the average number of
deaths in the weeks corresponding with last week
was 1,148 ; but, as the deaths returned for last
week occurred in an increased population, they
should be compared with the average raised in
proportion to the increase, namely, with 1,262.
Tho result is that the deaths of last week exceeded
by 157 the number which the average rate of mor-
tality for the last week of July -would have pro-
duced.

The decrease in the deaths of last week from
diarrhoea as compared with those of the previous
week is not great, for the numbers were succes-
sively 415 and 382; but the complaint appears to
have been less aggravated in its character, as the
deaths referred to " cholera" and " choleraic diar-
rhoea" were 39 in the previous week, and last week
were only 19. Out of the 382 cases in which diar-
rhoea is recorded, 356 occurred to children. It was
shown in the last report that this disease was fatal
chiefly in the east districts, rind the same observa-
tions hold true in regard to the present returns,
for 109 deaths from it occurred in that portion of
the metropolis, viz., 29 in Shoreditch, 27 in Beth•
nal-green, 12 in Whitechapel, 9 in St. George's-
in-the-East, 20 in Stepney and Mile-end Old-town,
12 in Poplar. There were 14 in Westminster, 20
in Marylebone, 30 in St. Pancras, 16 in Islington.
Of the 19 deaths referred to cholera, 5 were those
of adults, and one of these is returned thus :—" On
July 23, at Kensal-green gasworks house, an
engineer, aged 43 years, diarrhoea (18 hours),
Asiatic cholera (3 days), collapse (48 hours)."
Scarlatina was fatal in 36 cases, diphtheria in 16,
smallpox in 23.
Last week the births of -881 boys and 922 girls.
in. all 1,8.03 children, were registered in Londoi
, In the ten correspouding weeks of the years 1839.
. 58 the average number was 1,485.
At the Royal. Observatory, Greenwich, the mean
height of the barometer in the week was 29.909 in.
The, barometer fell from 30 in. on Monday to 29.68
on Saturday. The mean temperature of the air
in the week was 67 deg., which was 4.8 deg.
above the average of the same week in 43 years (as
determined by Mr. Glaisher). The mean daily
temperature was above the average on every day
after Sunday, and on Wednesday and Thursday
this excess was about 2 deg. The thermometer in
the shade fell to its lowest point, 46.5 deg., on
Monday, and rose to its highest, 85 deg., on "Wed-
nesday. The range of temperature in the week was
therefore 38.5 deg. ; the mean daily range in the
week was 20.8 deg. The mean dew-point tempe-
rature was 57 deg. ; and the difference between
this and the mean air temperature was 10 deg.
The mean degree of humidity of the air was 70.
The mean temperature of the water of the Thames
was 71.7 deg., which is 4.7 deg. above that of the
air. After Monday the'wind blew from the south-
west. The rain measured in the week was 0.03 in.,
which fell on Saturday.