The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1912-07-20
FOR JOINING A TRADE UNION
The Most Amazing Labor Prosecutions On Record.


was issued by the local magistrates.
cautioning workmen against form
ing and Joining unions-and threat
ening transportation for seven years
as a penalty. Three days later six
men were arrested and thrown into
Dorchester Jail. Their names were
George and John Loveless, brothers;
John and Thomas Stanfield, also
brothers; James Brine, and James
Hammett. .-- H..
Brought before q magistrate-the
Identical man whom they had con-
suited in regard to their wages
they were charged with having at
tended an "illegal" meeting on the
previous 9th Of December, two months
before the arrests, The only wit
ness against them was g. common
informer' named Legs. who had OBJ
tanned membership OF their society
by the usual means employed by such
persons.
Sent for trial, the men were duly
paneled at Dorchester on March 18th,
1884. AS they had done nothing IL
legal under any act relating to trade
unions or any similar societies, they
were charged under the Act Of 1867,
passed for suppression of mutiny
among seamen and marines This, it
is interesting to note, is the same
measure under which the recent
"syndicalist" prosecutions were con-
| Quoted.
Found guilty, in summing up
against the men said: mot for any,
thing they had done, or intended to
do, but as an example to others he
! considered it his duty to pass SEN
| tence Of seven years transportation
on each prisoner"
More Amazing Still.
| Petitions for revoking the sentences
| were got up all over the kingdom,
but before Lord Melbourne and the
government would consent to consid-
er the matter prisoners had been hur-
ried out Of England. Eminent law
yers took up the case, and proved that
the men had been illegally convicted.
| More surprising still, less than a
| month after having approved the
| convictions, the Times wrote: ''The
! crime which called for punishment
! was not proved; the crime brought
home to the prisoners did not justify
the sentence"
And now comes tho most amazing
part Of this truly remarkable affair.
| Two months after the trial Lord John
Russell stated in the house of COM
mons that '*the Dorchester unionists
| were to be set at liberty, and sent
! back to England free Of expense and
with every necessary comfort"
At that moment the men were on
their way to the convict settlements.
Three years later they were still con-
| victs in Tasmania.. One Of them,
| George Loveless, only learned that he
had been "pardoned" on reading an
article to that effect in a London
| newspaper he accidentally got hold
of. And this was two and a half
years after he.had been respited.
Immediately on seing the state
ment, >Loveless addressed q letter to
tho Hobart Tasmanian, inquiring
whether his five companions (whom
he had lost sight of) had been re-
leased, and II so, why he had. not
been included.
was the Pardon AN "Bluff'?
The result was that after a while
Loveless was sent for to interview
the colonial authorities at Hobart
From these he learned that he had
been pardoned-and that the reason
he had now been sent for was to Of
! fer him a free passage home.
On official suggestion Loveless had
sometime previously sent for his wife
to join him in Tasmania, and for any
thing he knew she might even then
be On the way out. Consequently he
asked to remain until such times as
she either arrived or he heard from
her by letter. To this request he
got the following reply in writing:
IT have to inform you that unless
you go (home) by the present oppor-
tunity, the government will not be
able to give you free passage
Josiah spode,- October 8th, 1885,"
I.oveless did not accept the "oppor-
tunity," but when, some time later
he received a letter from his wife
asking him to come home instead Of
her going out to Tasmania, he again
applied for a passage. After great
difficulty, and many lndignities. this
was at length secured, and on the
ship Eveline, Loveless ultimately ad'
rived in London in June, 1837-three
years after he had been pardoned
OF his comrades In misfortune, only
Hammett appears to have returned ia
ENGLAND. What became Of the Other
four. does not seem to be exactly
| known.
And now the questions naturally
arise. Was the pardon Of these mer
merely government bluff to allay
public indignation, II not, why and
by whom was it withheld? And why
was every .subterfuge tried to keep
the men. In Tasmania II ~
There Is an ample answer to the
latter questionable things these men
saw, and their own cruel wrongs and
suffer1ngs, II told in England, would
have inflamed the whole country
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