The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-03-07 00:00:00

NORTH LANCASHIRE ASSIZES

FRIDAY.
Mr. Baron ROLFE entered the Nisi Prius Court at half-
past twelve o'clock, and the trial of the Chartists proceeded.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said that, after the MSS-
exlmination of Buckley, yesterday, by John Wilde, from
which it was elicited that he was kept in the chair of a public
meeting by force, he should (Her no further evidence against
him. John Wilde was consequently discharged.
Thomas Pitt was also discharged, the evidence against him
not being sufficient.
Joseph Hibbert, clerk to the magistrates at Hyde, spoke
of the disturbed state of Hyde, commencing about the 7th or
Bth of August. The magistrates assembled from day to day.
Joseph Little is special high constable of Hyde, and it was
his duty to make reports to the magistrates of what was going
on. The book now produced to me [the one from which Little
gave his evidence] has frequently been in my office when the
magistrates meet, and is the book Le uses to enter his reports

111.
Cross-examined.--I know of no particular distress at the
time in Hyde. I did not hear of any notice for a reduction

of wages.
John Brooks, manager and overlooker of Mr. Pratt's mill,
at Stalybridge, stated that, on the 7th of August, a mob of
several thousands came to the mill, and ordered the hands to
be turned out. He remonstrated with the mob, but they
said they would have the bands out, and that neither that nor
any other mill should work till they had got their rights.
The weekly hands in the mills were getting more wages than
they did several years ago. The spinners were receiving
from 225. to 365. per week, according to the quantity of the
work done. There were about 300 hands in the mill.

Cross-examined by Mr. DUNDAS.-1 don't know that the
hands at Bailey's were under notice of 25 per cent. reduc-
tion. Bailey's mill was stopped about a month.
Cross-examined by Mr. O'Connor.—The amount of wages
paid by me is £3lO in a fortnight. A single-dicked mule
spinner can get £6 6s. per fortnight, from which we deduct
ten per cent. and 4s. for gas. At a double-dicked mule he
can get £lO 13s. per fortnight, from which there is twenty
per cent. deducted, and 3s. per week for gas. The spinners
pay their own piecers out of this. After deducting the
amount paid to 35 spinners, the average of the other hands
would be about 7s. 6d. per week. There was great distress
in the neighbourhood, and there had been committees of
shopkeepers to relieve the distress.
Cross-examined by James Leech.—The wages 25 years
ago were, one carder 175., two strippers 12s, and 11s., frame
tenders Bs. 6d. The wages now are one carder 195., two
ditto 305., one grinder 135., five ditto 14s. each; strippers on
piece-work make from 13s. to 175., frame tenders 10s., 95.,
Bs. 6d. We are spinning 80's to 160's. Ten years ago we
had spinners who were spinning on 1300 spindles, and twenty
years ago they were spinning on 648 spindles. Some now
are working 2000 spindles. Some of our hands are living in
cottages belonging to the firm, but we don't force them to
live in them. We stop the rents in the counting-house be-
fore their wages areyaid..

Thomas Ifose, of. Brookfield, near Glossop, said that he
occupied a portion of Shepley's mill, at Glossop. He de-
scribed the attack made on that mill on the 10th of August.
The hands were turned out, and the mob threatened if they
went to work again they would make them incapable of
working. He was at the meeting at Mottram Moor, on the
17th of August. A man named Booth made a speech in
reference to the expenses of the royal household, and told
them how expensive a thing monarchy was. It was men-
tioned that the railway men were gone to work again, and
the meeting came to the conclusion to stop them. The mob
went towards the railway to stop the workmen. The mill
was opened again on the 26th of August, and about twelve
o'clock on that day, several thousand persons came to the
mill, and endeavoured to stop work again, but they were
resisted by the workpeople. On the 30th, a mob again
attacked the mill, and broke the doors and windows, and the
doors and windows of houses in the neighbourhood. The
military were brought to the spot, and the mob was dispersed.
Cross-examined.—l know of no contemplated reduction of
wages, except that as I was paying a farthing a cut more than
any one else, I was going to reduce them to the same level.
At the meetings of the 11th and 12th, it was resolved that it
should not be a wage question. It was the Charter they
were going for.

The placard which had been so often spoken of by several
witnesses, as issued by the Chartist Executive Committee,
was here put in and read. The copy put in was taken from
the walls in Hyde, by Little, the high constable.
George Nasmyth, of the Bridgewater Foundry, Patricroft,
spoke of the mob I.:eing at Eccles on the 12th of August, and
saw them go to 11r. Tetlow's. He was at one of the meet
ings. and heard them recommend peace, law, and order.

. „
Nathan Pryor, of the Bridgewater Works, Worsley, iden-
tified Morrison and Macartney, the former as having been
present when the hands were turned out, and the latter as
speaking at a meeting at Eccles in very violent terms.
George Wroe, of Eccles, also identified Macartney.
Samuel Turner, of Ashton, farmer, was at a meeting in
Stalybridge on the 9th of August, when Southam took the
chair. Pilling spoke about going to Manchester to meet the
masters, and told them not to resume labour till they got the
wages of 1840. He went to Manchester with them, and saw
them turn out the hands of several factories. He was with
the mob when they entered the town, and saw Mr. Maude
speak to him. He saw Leigh at Ashton, but not afterwards.

CARESPONDENCE.

THE COPYRIGHT!AND THE LIVERPOOL

.MERCURY

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
Six,—l should not have troubled you again ahout
glaring inconsistency of the Mercury, in advocating the cause
of protection with one breath and with the next that of not
protection, but that the editor, in an article at tempting this
his inconsistency, sets out with a statement notoriously falla-
cious.
He says, "Tories cannot reason, never c Auld, and
what is more, never will be able to do so." In writing this.
either he was serious or he was not ; if the former, he must
have known he was uttering a deliberate falsehood, and
thereby pkcing the whole of the article in a ridiculous redi-
cament, that of being totally false; if the latter—that is. that
he was not serious, but merely jesting—then is it not fair a e
should conclude that he could not answer the arguments 1:e
so ardently contemns ? Tories cannot reason ; therefore,
since they are irrational, unthinking, non-reasoning beings,
and beings that never will reason, why does he not employ phy-
sical force towards them as he does towards his ass, if he be
worth one ? If they be irrational beings, and cannot there-
fore reason, why is he every day of his life reasoning with
and against them ? since, if they cannot reason, they must he
devoid of that faculty by which the force of reasoning is ap-
prehended. " Tories cannot reason"—bah!
But, sir, all this is foreign to the subject, as was at least
one-half of the article in the Mercury in defence of a mono-
poly in literature. To use a significant expression, the
editor was completely flabergastered. and w not Int?wne
in
make a retreat sufficiently speedy ; or, as a k
friend of np
the bookselling line remarked, be slacked the question
but if he have any regard for his reputation as a reasoner, let
him return to it with more particularity, and show, if he can,
why the man who bestows his time, labour and capital in the
cultivation of the soil should not be protected as well as the
man whose time, labour and capital are devoted to the
cu.lti-
vation of literature. Why should not tbe man who subsists
by the profit of land be protected as well as he who subsists
by the profit of manuscript?
I am, sir, yours respectfully,
A BOOKSELLER.

March 1

THE MERCURY'S ANTI-CORN-LAW ADVOCACY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SlR,—Some time back you kindly permitted me to expose
through your columns a little of the Mercurysjesuitry ; that my
letter told on the obdurateness of its editors is evidenced from
their excusing the insertion of the paragraph in question, on
the plea of its having gone the round of the most respectable
papers, meaning, I suppose, the organs of popery and free-
trade in every thing calculated, however remotely, to degrade
" church principles" to " social and papistical impurities,"
and our high-principled and spirited yeomanry to factory
slaves. 'Tis true they called me a " snarler ;" but consi-
dering the extent of their "Billingsgate" vocabulary, I do
not think I have had reason to complain, and should not in
all probability have again troubled myself to disturb their
complacent inanity bad they not again ventured, in the cal-
lousness of " Anti-Corn-Law Leagueism," on the awful
impiety of assuming to know the mind of God, (" who giveth
not account of any of his matters Job 33-13,) and to pre-
sume on that assumption to warp the dealings of God with
His chosen people into the service of the Anti-Corn-Law
League. Under these circumstances, I hope you will again
give me a place in your valuable paper for a few remarks on
the following extract from the Mercury of last Friday :
"THE NATIONAL DISTRESS.—`An Old Churchman,'
observing on the order for a thanksgiving, on account of our
successes in the east, expresses a hope that there will be a day
of fasting and humiliation appointed, when the nation may
implore the Almighty to mitigate the present great distress.
To the piety of this wish we cordially respond, but against its
propriety there is this objection : the electors of England,
exercising a sacred trust for all the people, have appointed
six hundred and fifty-eight law-makers, a great majority of
whom wilfully keep the people on this side the ocean starv-
ing, and on the other side ill clothed, because they will no.
allow nations freely to exchange their surplus produce with
each other; this is, therefore, a wilful national fault of our
own, and there is no warrant, either in Scripture or in the
visible arrangements of Providence, for
rbveerselievi continue ng that relief
will be granted by miracle, when we pely an
evil of our own creating. Manna would not have been
showered down upon the Israelites in the wilderness, if they
had obstinately maintained a corn law, keeping out supplies
from fruitful lands around them."
It is not my intention to offer any observations on the
object of " An Old Churchman," said to be a correspondent
of the Mercury's, but I would in all seriousness ask him
the co-
how
he reconciles it with church principles to figure in
lumns of the Mercury? Neither do I intend to waste time
and paper on the PROPRIETIES of the Mercury. though it is
very true they must hold very curious notions of propriety,
as well as of the gullibility of their readers, when they expect
them to digest such a mass of absurdity as the aforegoing.
My business at present is with the last paragraph ; for, until
the editors of the Mercury can show that we have prevented
apnludsdporopdrueeceenwtioththeearch"
other,
freely to exchange their sur-
nti-
surd assumptions can only be coalinsihdiesreeTaalsgeonineetgierenasteAf
i-
Corn-Law BOUNCE, and nothing more: but when they so
audaciously tell us " manna would not have been showered
down upon the Israelites in the wilderness, if they hgd ohgti-
nately maintained a corn law, keeping out supplies from
fruitful lands around them," they deserve witipplug
come forth you hypocritical editors of theMercurypu
fishers of Blackburn s iligant speech against Bible education
—and let us know in your next publication (as you assume
to know the will of the Almighty therein) how it came to
pass that the Israelites had need of " manna," since they
had (and did not keep out) " supplies from fruitful lands
around them ?" Call on your " gods" of the Anti- Corn- Law
and Repeal Associations to help you in the dilemma in which
you have placed yourself, if they can Evans's, Earle's,
Blackburn's, Bright's and RathboneYs—vou are welcome to
all; for in the name of common sense fdefy them to prove
otherwise than that you have been guilty of impious block-
headism. What an example do you afford of the necessity
of the Bible education ? What a triumph have you now
afforded to the advocates of the evil of education not based
on religious principles? Henceforth keep your friends,
for
of
the town-council from agitating the education question
the apt illlustration you will afford the conservative members
would render the " pillory" a comparative comfort to what
you would have to undergo. Should you find yourselves
of
unable to account on Scriptural elucidation for God dealing
with his people, I will endeavour, if the editor the
STANDARD will allow me, to enlighten you thereon ;
in the
mean time, I would earnestly call your attention CO the fact,
" that plenty of corn and wine" is throug his obedient Scripture
ple, totally unconnected with earthly commerce or feelings.
" When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?
and when he hideth his face, who then can behold him ?
whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only."
—Job 34-29.
y ur next Hoping yIo u
remain,will
ylodkueiranrdsenoughobedient toservant, make a place for this in
LOOK-OUT.

olrek
t, i t
snhee.
......
_ DREADFUL COACH ACCIDENT.—On Thursday evening
last, as the day coach from London was coming towards
Tasburgh, when it reached the hill near the bridge the coach
overtook a brewer's dray, ran against the cart and upset,
turning over a deep place by the side of the road. The dray-
man drove on as if nothing had happened, leaving word at
the outside
pa respecting the accident. Mr. Scott, one of
the outside passengers, was thrown off and fixed between the
coach and a tree, which was cut down in order to extricate
him. The driver was thrown ooffpeang.ainTsthea
ttwreoeulliseiaddefispprosstt,
hni
sd
head w as
hveei rnyg m
laid c I i
completed rt.io uThe
egnrudya :mild
the
cwl
ii
lag shf
rtiasgl
issloitotih:eri
do nao‘r,ffe.
lsteenagdefirsrsetseaac4paeindstutnhheusrttu of a tree, and killed on—tihie)sw
night
trsbteaitiridg nveorbyladmarek
acannd bfoeggaytt,ached to the coachman,Eß.—lle theare
little. The horses were very little hurt. Mr. Scott was thee'
only outside passenger beside the driver and guard.
Express.
ll aa cs et
guard.—lpswich
,cloesclicied a
THE Pun-mous SITCATioS OF THE STEAM
happy to be enabled to state Lichtha steam vesseli,nsuopposed
at
timaking
to be the Rhadamanthus, w we reported
paper as being in danger of going ashore near theurp
towards
where the Killarney was lost, providentially escaped.;
pears that Mr. Galway, who lives near the Rennies,
n It up-
blown in, broadsibdaegwthasoffrothme
an-
steam-vessel with a white chimney, about, ten o'clock, , la-
bouring to get towards Cove harbour, the sea
breaches over her, as it was blowing a storm
After some time she was
Barry's head, the next point west of Rennies
where a
she neared the land she appeared to drop both bowerh
chors, as her head came round to the wind
the S.
and though her engines continued t
neared the land until she got within her own length
rock at Barry's head inside the buoy, laid
frigate was lost some years ago. Here she held
the hundreds who crowded the cliffs around e on, though
moment that she would strike on the rock,
anrected every
if she did that she must have gone to pie it was feared
doubtful whether any of those on boardces, while it is
saved. 11Ir. Whitcombe, officer of coast-guard, could have been
cove, sent an express to Sir Robert Hagan at Robert's
was done to secure assistance, but fortunately
and everything
two o'clock the wind veered and the tide ebbed,
y at half-past
abled the vessel to weigh anchors and get red, which en-
tution. off .—Cork Consti-
ESCAPE FRO! PRISON.—In the earl
a man named George Hawes, a native of part of last month
(and connected with an extensive gat, Cheshunt, Bucks
who had been apprehended with five g of sheep-stealers),
stealing upwards of 30 shppp from tLthers, charged with
oroke through the roof of Windsorit,nournood or
clear away. At the time of his esc• gaol, and got
cover him but his night shirt and theape he had nothing to
off his bed, the whole of his clothes hrug he had taken from
from him by the gaoler, for the better aving
been taken awaY
upon his being locked up for the ni 1 security of the prisoner
he was brought before the bench of 't.
Yesterday morning
Larkins, an active local constable ofmagistrates at Eton by
apprehended him at Plymouth. It that district, who had
upon his escape first made his appeared that the fellow
assisted by some notorious way to Slough, where be was
which enabled him to proceed
characters with clothes and money,
train to London. The n the same night by the lugguage-
name, in the 67th Regimexnt morning he enlisted, in his own
after remaining there four e of Foot, in the 'metropolis, and
at Plymouth, where he ur
days was sent to join the regiment
stable on Sunday Inutil. was taken into custody by the consta-
last, just as the troops were leaving
the church to proceedut'g
o the barracks He was yesterday
sent by the Eton bench of magistrates ;la custody to Amers-
ham, whence he will be fully committed to Aylesbury gaol
to take his trial with the rest of the gang at the ensuing'as-
sizes for the county of Bucks. He was attired yesterday in
his military uniform, and appears about 20 years of age.
SAVAGE SUPERSTITION•—Of all the superstitions which
still linger in the Highlands, there is none so heartless, cruel,
barbarous, and degradingnone so baneful and distressing
in its consequences, none so insulting to humanity, and none
so disgraceful to professing Christians, as that which relates
to suicide, actual or supposed. A very striking instance of
this sort of superstition was lately displayed at the farinstead
of Hilton, near Tain. A poor, sickly, unattended, helpless
woman, went out to fetch water from a neighbouring well,
or pool, for her children, who were lying ill of a fever ; ,c hile
at the pool, which is quite shallow, she was suddenly seized
with vertigo, or a fit of fainting; she unfortunately tell for-
ward into the water, and, there being no help at "hand, she
was either suffocated or drowned. This, according to the
most trustworthy report, would be teensy clusion arrived at
by any jury of intelligent men. Now, iad of sympathising
with the distracted husband, his aged and bedridden father,
and his sick and motherless children, the nighbours stood
shrinking and loathingly aloof from them eir agony.
Mr. Munro, the farmer of Hilton, whose conduct with re_
spect to this sad case was honourable alike to his heed and
his heart, used all his influence to obtain a decent Christian
burial for the unfortunate. deceased, but in vain. Ignorance
and prejudice at once decided that she was a suicide • and
superstition and bigotry cried " Away with her to the 'Mor-
rich Mor !"—the damp, dreary, and dismal border of thy_
Fain Frith, where, on the day of judgment, a multitude of -
so-called suicides may start up, to give their testjeami,,
the intelligence, charity, and humanity of the "` Holy 'l7 to
of Ross." This disgrafill affair, however, hating and
come to
the knowledge of the rain authorities, they veil
ordered the body to be clisintered and examined by: properly
me-
dicalmen, who, after a careful consideration two
of all •
cumstances, reported that, in their opinion this the m-
a " accidental death by drowning." The f was a case
corpse
decently coftined, and interred in the c was then
the ruined chapel of St. Dutl • anta h d
ius,—joha -, A, e- to
.s, ts. Aurnal.