New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-08-09
THE LOCKED-OUT LABORERS OF ENG
LAND AND LOUISIANA.

THE LOCKED-OUT LABORERS OF ENG
LAND AND LOUISIANA.
The active Intervention OF Exeter Hall
in the abolition of American slavery has
long since been traced to the same spirit
of antagonism which impelled the recog-
milton of Confederate belligerency. There
was no love of human liberty in fostering
with approved emissaries our sectional
! strife. The same government held in
caste bondage two hundred millions OF
East Indians. 1t made no demonstration,
even of disapproval, against the slave
grown coffee of Brazil or the slave grown
sugars of Cuba. Later it appears that there
is body of Englishmen houseless and
voiceless who labor on the lands OF others
for pittance that keeps them toiling be-
fore the goad Of starvation until the cost
of miserable sepulture is borne by the
parish in which they give up the struggle.
The REPUBLICAN has noted the labor
movement in England. 1t has shown
Joseph Arch pleading with the nobility
and hierarchy Of England to give the
laborers leasehold home, living and an
education. He has in the most loyal
manner protested that unless this shall be
done these laborers must carry their
muscle to some other market, and their
persisted hopes to land where man Is
not born to toll and die as the creature
and vassal of superior. The reply to
this humble demand has been just such
measure as the Ohio Creole on the Teche
recommends to the Louisiana planters
a lockout of the laborers, who are thus
to be brought by starvation to obe-
dience. And thereupon, as has been
noted by the REPUBLICAN, these locked
out laborers have gone forth on
a pilgrimage to show the people
of England their poverty, their ignorance,
their hopeless and helpless condition
The people everywhere have been amazed
at the exhibition and have sympathized
with money and cordial encouragement
Bendigo, once pugilist, is ridiculed as a
convert to Christianity. He carried the
aims box in the procession at Noting
| ham, and
Obtained good round sum for the cause
| of the locked out labOrers. Every street
| and window in Nottingham was crammed
with spectators as the imposing procession
paraded through the streets for full two
hours. In its midst was printing machine
mounted on wagon in full work, printing
off copies of the pilgrims songs, which
were sold as fast as they could be struck
of. This was the contribution Of the
| printers society to the pilgrims. Besides
| the printers, the lace makers, dyers, tailors,
engineers, machlnists, framework knitters,
| plasterers. riveters and fnishers, painters.
bakers, builders, bricklayers' laborers and
| many other trade organizations too numer-
Gus to mention were largely represented in
the procession, which financially proved a
success, as not less than fl02 were col
lected.
The San has not been the friend of the
| pilgrims. By this time most of them look
as if they had just returned from very
long residence in some equatorial climate.
They are weary and fOOtsore, although care
ia taken that during this sweltering weather
they do not kill themselves with pedestrian
| exercise.
This is not as another pilgrimage of the
wealthy and intellectual subjects of the
English Queen, who travelled in steam
ships and palace cars, fitted with every
thing that comfort in living could require
We have shown the poverty of these
people, and the oppression which has ex-
cited so much sympathy; let us give a
sample of their social positionand ignor-
ance:
Across green fields, sometimes resting
from the sun, amidst the newly mown hay,
the pilgrims proceeded to Lenton, a suburb
Of Nottingham, where they were fairly be-
will dered with the kindness showered upon
them. To begin with, sumptuous dinner
was provided by the subscriptions raised in
Lenton, and the Cooperative Hall, with its
crockery ware dinner services, etc., lent by
the manager, sMr. Walker, flor the repast.
The tables were decorated with flowers;
each table was attended by bevy of we'll
dressed and sympathetic young ladies.
Gentlemen in brOadclOth presided at each,
and yet they were all simply the picked
men and women of the Nottingham trades.
This sympathy of their own race seems
to have to have taken these poor laborers
by surprise:
1t is this, to them, curious revelation
which bewilders the labOrers most. "Pve
heard more than ore cry over the kindness
we have met with" was the confidential
communication of one of the laborers to me
Yesterday, land it do seem to me as if we
was being waited upon by ladies and gen.
tlemen, when they be only laborin' folk
like ourselves"
Why, these people are white! They are
of the same color with their fellow sub.
jects, and yet the social chasm which
separates these classes is as impossible as
that which paints our people of different
colors.
In one Of these poor downtrodden these
civilities seem to have awakened refec.
ton:
''Why shouldn't my missus This wifel and
my girls be like they young ladies, sir! II
is as said on. the written to the missus this
mornin', we chaps ha' been out o. the world
all our lives" The communication ex
presses the feeling of most of the pilgrims
and the sensitive ones among them, fol
there are few such to be found, not only
feel keealy the kindness showered on them
but are oppressed heavily with a sense O
their own inferiority in education and socia
position to the men of the towns. "Why,
sometimes fancy" said the laborer JUS
quoted, shat we men must look like
menagerie to they townspeople. What cal
they think Of wes We be savages com
pared to they"
"We be savages compared to they!'
Here is identically the separation be
tween capital and labor which is so sedu
lousy sought by those among us in whom