The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-08-17

Thursday night is only q slight foreshadowint
Of the evils they are bringing upon the country
The Miners Outrages In Pcnnsylvanaa--
The Duty or Honest W0rkingmen.
At Centralia, in one of the Pennsylvania
mining districts, crime was perpetrated on
the night Of the 18th instant which belongs to
class that must be trampled out on the free
soil OF America. certain number of miners,
appears went to work In opposition to the
insolent dictation of some secret labor organ
ization known there as the ssMolly Maguires, -
and a murderous ambush, by which one man
out of party of six was left for dead with
seventeen buckshot in his body, was the result.
No clew, we are informed, has been obtained
Of the identity or whereabouts Of the skulking
would-be murderers. This is disheartening
and a direct disgrace to the authorities of the
place. Labor combinations are all very well
to regulate the price of labor by fair means;
but when the mask, the musket and the
bludgeon are the main arguments with which
men seek to impress their convictions upon
fellow workmen they become an insupporta-
BILE tyranny.
In England, some years since, Parlia-
mentary inquiry into labor outrages at
Sheffield disclosed the workings of a
system of organized murder, which
startled that virtuous country with record of
manning and assassination that left the Thug
gism Of India good deal in the shade. Men
were killed or had an arm or leg blown off
if they became obnoxious to this Anglo-Saxon
''Vehm Gericht." Tools and machinery were
destroyed and houses blown up, and terror
was everywhere the portion of the laborer as
well as the employer The murders were
accomplished at about ten pounds sterling
head. which was dispensed by an innkeeper
named Broadhead, who decided when, where
and on whom the ''rattening' process was to
be carried out. An almost complete immu-
nifty from punishment prevailed, and the
history Of cowardly crime which came out bit
by bit was only reached by an understanding
that no witness before the Commission should
be indicted for anything he confessed. The
blood Of religious England ran cold at the
recital, but Sheffield was rid, for the time at
least, of its labor tyrants.
Now, we emphatically protest against Broad
headism or "rattening" being introduced into
this Republic where the ballot Is in the hands
of the workingman and all the legal and moral
influences OF hand by which capital can be
compelled to give fair days wages for fair
days work. The pauper paid cutters Of Shelf
field pleaded the utter impossibility Of main
tanning fair rate of wages without bloodshed;
but not even the most ignorant miner can
advance that argument here Labor in
England is surrounded with the curse Of caste,
which pervades all aristocratic governments
and the ignorant workingman may often feel
that, heavily weighted as he u.s. no ordinary or
legal measure can assist him where the law
making power is in the hands Of those he
believes the enemy of his class. The occur
renee at Centralia demands that Pennsyl-
vania, for her own fair fame, should annihilate
organized murder, and the miners should see
that in slaughtering their fellow workmen they
are Strengthening their own cause and cutting
themselves off from the sympathy which in
America would inevitably be on their side if
their demands we're pressed with the frmness
and moderation of intelligent citizens. AS it
is they will stand alienated from consideration
while murder is attempted in their name, and
the Broadheads, ''Molly Maguires'' or what
ever name they are known by are permitted to
sneak away from their ambush to be after
wards sheltered and screened from the eye Of
justice. The miners should deliver up the mis-
creants and rescue themselves from the dis
grace that the assassins bring upon them.