The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-21 00:00:00

THE MINERS' LOCK-OUT

The lock-out among the Church Gresley miners, of
whose position we have indicated the attitude from time
to time, seems to have been the precursor of several agita-
tions of a similar character in different parts of the mining
districts of the country. For instance, about 500 colliers
are on strike in the Poynton district, resisting an attempt
of the employers to enforce a reduction of one penny in
the shilling. In various other parts of Lancashire
the coal proprietors have resolved to reduce the wages
of the colliers in consequence of the depression which'
at present prevails in the trade. The proposal to work
collieries under the double shift system has been
encountered by a most determined opposition in South
Yorkshire as well as in other parts of the colliery country.
At a meeting of the National Miners' Association held
last week at Manchester it was unanimously resolved :
" That this meeting of the Miners' National Association
Council have heard with deep regret the proposal that
seems to be gaining ground in certain districts of working
fiery pits by double shifts. This council, meeting as a body
of practical men, consider that with the principle adopted
there would be a greater loss of life than now. The council
further thinks that, as the principle will so far include night
work, it will therefore tend to debase the miners physically
and socially, as well as create more danger. The association
therefore calls upon all miners to resist the adoption of
the system wherever it may be adopted." At Ashton-
under-Lyne it appears that the masters have resolved on
reducing wages 2d. in the shilling, to work the men ten
hours a day, and not to employ union men. A meeting of
delegates from the various lodges was held last week, and
it was almost unanimously resolved to accept the reduction,
but to refuse to work ten hours per day, or to give up the
union. The chairman put it to the meeting to decide as to
agreeing to the determination of the delegates on the
second and third questions ; but he disputed the right of
those present to discuss the question decided by the dele-
gates. Ultimately a resolution was carried to resist
the working ten hours per day, and to maintain the
union. The collieries of Glamorganshire have resolved on
accepting the reduction of 15 per cent. in the rate of
wages. In the Rhondda Valley, where three-quarters of
a million tons of coal are annually raised, the men at first
objected to so large a reduction as 3s. in the pound, and
contended that the circumstances of the trade did not
warrant such a heavy decrease, which would bring
wages down to a lower point than had ever
been known in the district. Upon reconsideration,
however, they have determined to submit, on condition
that when an advance takes place in the price of coal a
proportionate rise should be made in wages. In Mon-
mouthshire matters have not been arranged in so satisfactory
a manner, and the majority of the collieries have been at
a standstill since the termination of the notice. The reso-
lution of the house-coal men not to accept the master's
terms has been so far adhered to. Unanimity does not
seem to prevail among the steam coal hands, for at Risca
and Tredegar they are employed, while at Abercarne and
Abertillery they have declined to work. Those who are
termed stationary hands, such as firemen and enginemen,
have also struck at the two last-named collieries, and the
employers have been obliged to bring workmen from other
localities to keep the machinery and pits in order. This
has created some ill-fcelinq, and increased precautions have
been taken by the p,,liee authorities, so as to prevent any
)breach of Vie Ile.l,:fs. Such are the agitations now pro-
ceeding in the coal country.

TM] POOR POSTMAN.—A correspondent sends
the following :—" If the writers of letters knew the trouble
that they give these worthy labourers, they would be more
careful in addressing their correspondents. The following
is a verbatim copy of an address on a letter sent through
the Leeds Post Office this week :--` Mary Hibson,
Crompton.' After passing into the hands of several
letter-carriers, and none of them being able to give a clue
to the place intended, a wide-awake clerk wrote on it
`Try Armley,' which was done, when it turned out to be
for ' Miss Maria Ibberson, cromptou-street, Armley,'

MR. PUGIN ON THE NEW HOUSES OF

;.PARLIAMENT.

However imposing may be the array of counter-
evidence this pamphlet contains, in reality it is of
little value by the side of a few simple facts, which
are in no way toucbedby it, and cannot be obliterated.
My father's diary cannot be disposed of in the
summary way adopted by Dr. Barry. The very
irrelevance of a portion of it only makes the rest
more striking and indisputable. Sir Charles
Barry's repeated visits to Salisbury before the com-
petition, one of them apparently extending over
a whole week, cannot lose their significancy.
The lists of drawings made by myfather, their nature
and subjects, and Sir Chas. Barry's four letters, in
which these drawings are spoken of in such exalted
terms of praise, they cannot be explained away--
a meagre amount of evidence, indeed, but suffi-
ciently strong to show how overwhelming it would
have been had I the same advantages as my anta-
gonists. Some additional facts also are produced
by them which confirm my account in many of its
details—such as that of Sir C. Barry having taken
the very unusual precaution of " turning his nur-
sery into a private office to keep his designs secret."
I have no intention of going into any detailed exa-
mination of Dr. Barry's pamphlet, because if I
succeed in taking the ground from beneath the fa-
bric he has built up, it is more than enough to
demolish it. I have in my possession 13 volumes of
my father's original compositions made in 1833-4,
which not only actually delineate, with more or less
exactitude, whether in ground-plan, outline, or de-
tail, many of the principal portions of the Houses of
Parliament, but evince the same spirit and feeling,
sense of form and proportion, finesse and delicate
perception, of which the building itself is the out-
ward expression. They seem rather to be etchings of
the completed work than drawings made to realise,
though only on paper, the ideas with which his brain
was teeming. About this very time Sir Charles
Barry was completing a church which was not, in
any single respect, an advance on his buildings of
1825 and 1826. How the same man who, in
Gothic work, had been standing still for ten years,
could suddenly imbibe a feeling to which he had pre-
viously been an utter stranger—how he could have
been, all but simultaneously, designing a structure
so atrociously bad as St. Peter's, Hatton-garden,
and one (of its kind) so perfect as the Palace of
Westminster, is absolutely inconceivable, except
that they were produced under different conditions.
They are both in the late third-pointed style, but
they have nothing whatever in common. The one
has been described as possessing " all the faults
that an utter absence of Gothic feeling could crowd
into one building ;" the other is strikingly con-
tained in the original compositions of the man with
whom Sir Charles Barry was in constant commu-
nication for months before the competition draw-
ings for Westminster were sent in, Sir Charles
having extemporised a private drawing office to
keep his designs secret from all but his wife and the
"chief witness" (p. 21) in the present case. If these
facts are taken in connection with certain entries in
my father's diaries, which receive no notice from
Dr. Barry, they have a significancy of which nothing
can deprive them. It may be perfectly true that
the drawings made in May, 1835, were drawings
of fittings and furniture for the Birmingham Gram-
mar School, but what about those described as
" compositions for Mr. Barry" in September? It
may be equally true that my father saw Sir C.
Barry respecting "designs for furnishing Dr.Jeune's
house on September 24, but after sending off five
drawings to Mr. Barry on the 25th, he was working
all night on the Parliament Houses on the 27th, and
sent off fourteen drawings on the 29th (apparently
of the central portion), with a south-east view, and
two elevations on Oct. 9. These could not have
been, as Dr. Barry implies (p. 17), drawings of Dr.
Jeune's furniture. May I ask then why, when so un-
important a matter as Dr. Jeune's furniture is noted
in Sir Charles Barry's diary, no allusion seems to
be made to the " compositions" made by my father
immediately before that time, or to the numerous
drawings forwarded to Sir Charles immediately
afterwards? Dr. Barry throws no light at all on
the "Parliament
Charles's
these particular entries, two of which, at all events,
Sir
nn e c t ed
maywith
ask,
was amln
c
areo u
scs:,
actually
o
h connected
also
visit to my father on September 24 kept a secret
(as it appears to have been the case) from Mr.
Talbot Bury? Secret visits,
and
secret offices,
and secret drawings ; for (as far as I can make out)
Mr. Wolfe knew nothing of the d •
rawings sent from
Salisbury. At least in his
evidence
he only speaks
of those made at Sir C. Barry's office ; and Mr.
Talbot Bury, although
testifying that whilst he was
at Salisbury, working on Mr. Gillespie Graham's
designs, my father was engaged at that very time
in making drawings for the Birmingham Grammar
School, he offers no proof of this ; whereas the
diary informs us that it was
on " compositions"
for Sir C. Barry that he • -•
was principally occupied,
sitting up a whole night working on the Parliament
Houses.

Again : Dr. Barry has made some mistake in
stating (p. 16) that I assert that " Mr. Barry was
at Salisbury on Sept. 1, 1835." A reference to my
pamphlet (p. 15) shows that the entry is—" Mr.
Barry all day, composition ;" ani this is the entry
in my father's pocket-book.
Dr. Barry is also in error in supposing that I have
made any confusion between the diaries, or wrongly
copied the entries for Nov. 2d and 9th, 1835. In
the diary for that year the former entry is—" Mr.
Barry arrived ;" the latter, " Mr. Barry left, paid
£99 ; " and that for Nov. 3d is, " On river front,
five compartments."
It is, of course, impossible to dispute the authen-
ticity of Sir Charles Barry's diaries, and, therefore,
if it appears from them that he was in London
from Nov. 2d to Nov. Bth-, 1835, there is an un-
doubted discrepancy between his entries and my
father's, requiring to be cleared up. I thought it
not improbable that I had inadvertently read
" Barry" for " Bury," but Mr. Bury has not once
intimated that he paid a second visit to Salisbury in
that year, and a reference to the pocket-book itself
leads me to conclude that I am not mistaken ; espe-
cially as throughout the whole year the one gentle-
man is always alluded to as " Mr. Barry," the
other simply as " Bury." In the two entries now
discussed it is " Mr. Barry" who is named. The
discrepancy is certainly singular, for the previous
visit Sir Charles paid to Salisbury, when my father
met him at the White Hart, is recorded in Sir
Charles's diary ; and it is immediately after this
visit that my father was working all night on the I
Parliament Houses, and sending off 14 drawings
(central portion) to Sir Charles on Oct. 2d, although
it would seem that no entry of my father's assist-
ance appears in Sir Charles's diary until Oct. 12th.
How is 'all this to be accounted for, and what
bearing have the various facts on each other?
The original compositions in question also en-
tirely disprove the oft-repeated assertion that my
father was incompetent to design large masses, and
that the Palace of Westminster in particular, " as
a whole, was beyond his grasp, and differs in every
particular from what would have been expected
from him." On the contrary they pourtray Palaces,
Churches, Colleges, Castles, with ground-plans,
sections, &c., complete. And in one facade the
disposition of the parts is exactly that of Sir C.
Barry's River Front.
If I represent all this truly, and I think that any
one examining the books will testify that Ido so,
it is evident on the one hand that my father's
powers did extend to the capacity of designing a
large building like the Palace of Westminster ; and
on the other that the compositions contained in these
volumes—even supposing for a moment that no
design was actually made by my father similar in
character and detail—are the origin and source
from which Sir C. Barry drew his inspirations and
succeeded, when i❑ constant communication with
my father, in producing a design, in no small mea-
sure a reproduction or adaptation of the composi-
tions themselves. Moreover, unless the Messrs.
Barry can produce designs or compositions made
anterior to them by Sir Charles, the whole mass of
evidence they offer loses its entire value, and no
self-depreciation by my father, no apparent incon-
sistency of after-events, no antagonism of details,
can dislodge me from my position. I hold in my
hand the indelible test of my father's powers. I