The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGU4,
ST 1859

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.
and
CHEAP EXCURSION to CHIPPENIIA3I,IIATIT
BRISTOL from Paddington on SUNDAY, August 7th, at
745 a.m., returning the same day from Bristol at 6 30 p.m.;
Bath, 7 o'clock ; and Chippeham, at 730 p.m. Fares—ChP-
penham and Bath, 12s and 6s. ; Bristol, 14s. and 78.

----------
(*REAT WESTERN RAILWAY.-
On SATURDAY, August 6th, an EXCURSION
TRAIN will leave Paddington at 2•30 p.m. for OXFORD
(Fares, Os 6d and 45.), Banbury (8s and ss), Leatniro,ton
and Warwick (10s 6d and 6s), Birmingham (12s and 78), West
Bromwich, Wednesbury, and Bilston (12s 6d and 7s 6d), and
Wolverhampton (13s and Ss), returning on 3londay, August
eth, from Wolverhampton at 5 0 p.m., and intermediate
stations as per handbills.
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GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.-
EXCURSION TRAINS at LOW FARES will leave
the Paddington Station at 10 15 a.m., for Oxford (Fares,
fs 6d and 4s), Banbury (8s and ss), Leamington and Warwick
(10s and Birmingham (12s and 7s), Westbromwich, Wed-
nesbury, Bilston (129 6d and 78 6d), Wolverhampton
(13s and 8s), Wellington and Shrewsbury (17s and 10a),
Llang-ollen Road and. Chester (18s 6d
Bth, and 11s), Birkenhead
and Liverpool (219 and 128 6d), on' the returning on the
12th ; on the 12th, returning on the 15th ; on the 15th, return-
ing on the 19th); on the 19th, returning on the 22d ; and on
the 22d, returning ou the 2Gth of August. The tickets are
only available for the re.pective trains for which they are
issued, For further particulars see handbills.
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UONDON & NORTH-WEShatTER RAILWAYLF-
-ILA Notice is Hereby Given, t the next HA
YEARLY MEETING of the LONDON and NORTH-
WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY will be held at the
Euston Station, London, on FRIDAY, the 19th day of
August, at Twelve o'clock at noon precisely, for the trans-
action of they, eneral business of the Company ; and after
such general business iB concluded the Meeting
will be made SPECIAL, for the purpose of submitting
for the consideration and approval of the Shareholders
an agreement proposed wbe entered into b the Bies terke rnnheaand
d
Railway Company with the London and Noyrth-W
Great Western Railway Companies, for the transfer of the
undertaking of the Birkenhead Railway Company to the
London and North-Western and Great Western Companies
jointly, and for other purposes.
Dated this 21st day of July, 1859.
CHANDOS, Chairman.
C. R. MOORSOM, Deputy Chairman:
C. E. STEWART, Secretary.
Euston Station.

mETROPOLITA N, COUNTIES, AND
GENERAL LIFE ASSURANCE SOCIETY,
27, Regent-street, Waterloo-place, London, B.W.
Life Assurance, Annuities, and Endowments.
Loans on real and personal security.
F. FERGUSON CAMROUX, Manager.

THE STRIKE IN THE BUILDING
TRADE.

MONSTER MEETING IN HYDE-PARK.
Yesterday evening, between 40,000 and 50,000
of the workmen connected with the building trade
met in Hyde-park, for the purpose of considering
the step the master builders were about to take in
shutting up their shops rather than concede the
hour per day asked for by the men. •
The arrangements for holding the meeting were
very good. The assembly arranged themselves in
a circle, and some thousands sat on the ground,
thus enabling those in the back rows to see what
was going on. In.the centre a platform of chairs
was raise for the speakers, and chairs were, pro-
vided for the committee and the representatives of
the press. The proceedings were of a most orderly
character, and not the slightest approach to a dis-
turbance occurred.
Mr. TRACY, .a working man, occupied the chair,
and said the object in calling them together that
evening was not to argue the question of the nine
hours' movement, but to make a demonstration to
prove that the assertion made" by the masters,
" that the working classes cared not about the
movement," was false, and also to prove that the
working classes had the movement at heart, and
were determined to make it a success. (Cheers.)
This movement did not originate from idleness on
the part of the men, but from the tyranny exercised
towards them by the masters, and which they called
political economy. Another motive for that
meeting was to call upon them to rise up
and oppose the tyranny their masters would
inflict upon them by the terms of that
document which they were trying to impose
upon them. Their forefathers had fought for their
rights ; but those days had gone by, and they had
new the sword of reason and intellect to fight their
battles with. (Cheers.) These were the days of
morality, and though 'it was said they wanted to
obtain that to which they had no right, they were
anxious to preserve law and order, and had as great
a-desire to preserve propertyas those who possessed
it. After what they had done would they sign
themselves as slaves:, and give up every liberty by
putting their hands to that fiendish document?
(Loud cries of " No, never?") Would they do for
their children what their forefathers would not do
for them ? (No). Then they must stand up and
show their employers and the Government, which
was supporting them, that they would rather die in
the workhouse, and for iiim*olf, he would rather
die in the street and let his bonds lie unburied till
Doomsday, than sign it. Their =plows had met
their request with the most lawyer-like polioy, not
by argument, but by misrepresenting their ease to
the public. They had not time then to argue the
question, because a meeting there after sunset was
illegal, and therefore he would not dwell longer on
the subject, but call upon them all to maintain
order, and after the meeting was over to disperse
quietly to their respective homes. (Cheers.)
Mr. CREMER, a joiner, moved that this meeting
views with regret the position of antagonism as-
sumed by the employers, inasmuch as the spirit
they display is calculated to widen the breach al-
ready existing, by endeavouring to trample out the
spirit of humanity which originated and still ani-
mates the nine hours' movement, and as the pledge
which they would extract from us by signing the
document they propose 'submitting would rob us of
every privilege of freemen, and reduce us to the
condition of serfs, we determine to use every moral
power of resistance, and pledge ourselves to use all
constitutional means, for bringing the nine hours'
movement to a successful termination." (Cheers).
He expressed the great amount of diffidence he felt
in proposing this resolution, because any word he
might drop might have a great effect upon
his fellow-workmen for weal or woe ; but
it was only his paramount sense of duty
that decided him to undertake so responsible
a position. The reasons and the arguments
made use of by their, enemies were many and
various. The Times of last Saturday thought
proper to honour them with an article—he said
honour, for it was an honour to them to have
brought the question so prominently before the ,
public that the leading paper of the day had no-
ticed them. But when the Times honoured them
with an article it pursued a course which he ex-
pected they would pursue. It wrote in the inte-
rests of a class which they always had been mixed
up with—and that was the moneyocraey of the
country. It said they were acting in the spirit of
a bygone age, and in a few lines after, before the
editor's ink could have been dry, he recommended
them to follow the spirit of a bygone age; such
was the inconsistency and sophistry of the I imes.
He condemned the strike as the spirit of a bygone
age, and yet recommended them to continue to
work 10 hours a day because their forefathers had
done so. The reason they had gone on so long in
the spirit of a bygone age was, because their em-
ployers were deaf to the feelings of humanity.
They had brought the question before them for the
last 18 months, and they were deaf to their appeals.
Would the working men now allow their masters
to crush theM down to the position of serfs ? (No,
no.) That would be the position they would be
placed in, for they would abnegate their rights as
freemen. • When their forefathers worked 10 hours
a day there was not the same amount of competi-
tion that there was at present, and a man now did
three times the amount of work in 10 hours that
our forefathers did. (Cheers.) 'Would those pre-
sent assist them in getting that one hour ? (Yes,
yes, and cheers.) If their employers closed their
shops, they must act in a firm, respectful, and
courteous manner ; and if they saw any one at-
tempting to commit a breach of the peace, they
must endeavour to prevent it, for their employers
were endeavouring to their utmost to get them into
a breach of the peace, and if they could their pun-
ishment
would be severe. He concluded by urging
them, in the words of Shakepeare, to be true to
themselves, and then they could not be false to any
one. (Cheers.)
Mr. BLOOMFIELD, a bricklayer, seconded the re-
solution, and said the quesion that evening resolved
itself into this whether they were to exist as free-
men or whether they were to become slaves. The
masters had held their meeting, and had told them
they must be slaves. They were, in fact, to be
"ticket-of-leave men," with this exception, that
those men had their tickets to show their freedom,
while the working men were to have theirs to show
their slavery. (Cheers and laughter.) The em-
ployers had put forth a pamphlet by a so-called
" factory operative," which was entirely fallacious
in its arguments and its statements. It was, in
fact, only a defence of that bugbear, the so-called
political economy.. Everything in political economy
was against labour,.then let them go against p
tical economy. According to the programme of
the Times, a number of men at work on a job must
not complain of a grievance, for if any two men
spoke together upon it, they. would be at once
accused of attacking the principles of political
economy. The masters had given them a challenge,
were they prepared to accept it ? (Yes, yes.) He
said they were.
Mr. OSBORNE, a plasterer—They had to decide
that night whether they would sign that detested
document which was a disgrace to the concocters
of it and to the country. (Cheers.) The shoemakers
struck some years ago, and when both parties were
nearly exhausted, the differences were settled in
one day by arbitration. The document was with-
drawn, the men received a proper remuneration for
their labour, and went tz, work cheerfully. Their
own differences might be settled by arbitration if
the masters would. (Cheers.)
Mr. PACEIC, a mason, felt surprised that the me-
tropolitan builders should have assumed the position
they had, for they must know something of the
great strike at Liverpool.
Mr. POTTER then addressed the meeting, and
was enthusiastically received. He said he was,
anxious to offer some explanations to them, be-
cause the master builders and a portion of the
press had grossly misstated the nine hours move-
ment. After twenty months' delay and three
memorials the masters had met, and came to con-
clusions contrary to truth, to gentlemanly conduct,
and to justice. , They were not satisfied with tak-
ingdhuacdt cwohmicehtoacsoancbluosdiyontshaseytohatdhenmeveenr'sthfouutugrhet
the part which they ought to have taken,
butcon
of. He asked the meeting what they thought of
the statement of the master builders in the Times
of Saturday last. He read the document the men
were required to sign, to the effect that they would
not join any society that would interfere with any
master, and that they recognised the principle that
each man should engage with his master sepa-
rately. (Hisses.) He had to inform the master
builders that they had not to fight the builders of
London alone, but the men of the whole country.
A meeting would take place to-morrow (this day)
at Oxford in favour of the movement ; and there
were no less than 80 of the principal towns of
England that had sent in their approval of the
movement, and their determination to support it.
(Cheers.) They had been charged with being
liberal at other people's expense, and not saying
anything about a reduction of wages ;
he saw working men living in garrets with
six in
but w

a room, out of work three months in a year, and
averaging only a pound a week, he did not think
they could afford a reduction of wages. (Hear,
hear.) Sir Morton Peto had said that this nine
hour movement would cost the country £300,000 a
year, but if it did, how could it be better spent
than in improving the working classes ? (Cheers.)
Sir Morton Peto advocated the Saturday half-
holiday, which cost the country £200,000 a year,
and yet he would resist this demand, which wonld
cost only £lOO,OOO a year more, and be a much
greater boon. He could not say more to them
than " Liberty to them that dared to contend for
it." (Vociferous cheers.)
The resolution was then carried, and three hearty
cheers were given for the nine hours' movement.
Immediately afterwards a copy of the Times
newspaper, suspended from a gibbet, was burned
amid the hisses of the multitude.
The meeting then quietly dispersed.

THE INGRATITUDE OF ITALY TO

FRANCE.

There is a cessation in Italy of that vigorous
enthusiasm which kept up continual plaudits so
long as the French kept up their succession of
victories, and the Constitutionnel immediately cries,
" It would be too painful to believe that Italy is
ungrateful." The French ear had become accus-
tomed to sounds of thankfulness and sounds of joy,
to transports of delight, and to the extravagant in-
toxication of recovered freedom. Peace has b. en
made, and a " horrid sound of silence " collies over
the scene. The French press complains that im-
mediately the conflict ceased the Italian gratitude
seemed spent. The peace of Villafranca has stopped
the cries of joy, has frozen up all their flowing
sympathies, has crushed their hopes, and dissipated
their illusions. " Italy delivered," say the disap-
pointed benefactors, " differs little in mood from
Italy oppressed." Yet M. de Cassagnac is ready to
prove that :.11 has been done for Italy which, an
Emperor of the French ought to have risked and
laboured at for that country. So much the worse
for her if she does not know that she is substan-