The Commonwealth. — 1866-10-27 (London, England)

OUTRAGES AT SHEFFIELD AND NOTTINGHAM.  It is a notorious fact that within the ranks of labour are to be found some of labour's most deadly enemies. We do not suppose that the anomaly we have alluded to is peculiar to this class alone; there are, doubtless, internal foes to be found in all classes. The lord who, by virtue of the power accompanying his social position, seduces the daughter of a tenant or his bailiff, ior who figures n the Divorce Court as a corespondent, or in another court as a ruined spendthrift, is as much a foe to his order as the drunken and besotted workman is to his. Still the ugly fact remains—the worst foes to labour are to be found in labour's own ranks, and it shall be no fault of ours if they are not condemned and gibbeted. Within a few days there have been committed two outrages—one at Sheffield; the other at Nottingham. It is not our intention to recapitulate the facts already so widely made known by the public press, but it is our intention, while branding the perpetrators of those terrible crimes with infamy, to proclaim that there is not a trade's union in existence that would countenance such deeds or that would not hand the miscreants over to justice had its members the slightest knowledge of the guilty persons. What better proof can we give of the truthfulness of the above statement than the fact that the Trades' Council of London, and the leading men of the trades of Sheffield, are moving heaven and earth in order to bring the murderers to justice. _  They have stipplemented the reward; they have publicly denounced these atrocities; they have offered to render every assistance in their power, and their most bitter foes must give them credit for having done and being prepared to do all that can be justly required of them. They are, in fact, no more responsible for these• crimes than one lover is for the crime of another' and it would have been as reasonable to condemn every quaker in existence for the murder of Sarah Hart, as to hold that men belonging to trade societies are in any way responsible for such outrages as those which have so recently shocked the people of Sheffield and Nottingham. Can any one suppose that such crimes would die out if trades' unions ceased to exist? Are there no instances on record where men have battered out each other's brains over quarrels originating in antagonistic interests, where such organizations as those referred to have been unknown. All the facts with which we are acquainted would go to prove that were no trade societies in existence, the struggle to live would become fiercer and more bitter, and that in consequence such crimes would be multiplied rather than diminished. We are fully aware that those who oppose trade combinations and those who are opposed to the enfranchisement of labour will make capital out of these crimes—that the former will endeavour to make them the ground for legal interference with trades' unions, and the latter put them forth as additional proofs of the unfitness of the toiler to possess the franchise; but, although we regret that our opponents should have the opportunity of pointing to crimes like these, 'we are satisfied that the great bulk of the community will not condemn a class for a deed or deeds which the members of that class universally deplore and condemn.  We have no desire to paint the working classes in false colours, it would be strange if, when the medical profession has furnished at least four candidates for the gallows within about as many years, the working class, numbering its millions, were entirely guiltless. We commenced by stating that the worst foes to labour were to be found in labour's own ranks, we will conclude that there also its best friends are to he found. The men who have met at Sheffield and elsewhere, and condemned these cowardly assassinations are the true representatives of the feelings of their class, and to them the toilers of the world are largely indebted. L.  Mr. Disraeli, according to the Pall Mall Gazette, Is preparing a comprehensive Reform Bill, which includ.e household suffrage and a 2)l. franchise in ciunties.