npedrazzini/19thc_murder_suicide_news huggingface dataset:
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1894-02-09 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

VISIT TO TEM MA-NC/3E917U DIM:MICAS, SCHOOL.— On Saturday afternoon the students of the Rockstreet Cotton Class, together with the students of the Rochdale Technical School, paid a visit to the Manchester Technical School, where several of the officials of the school were awaiting them. The engine was started about four o'clock, and after spending about an hoar in the weaving-room, they adjourned to the preparing and spinning room, where the machinery was explained in detail by the teacher, Mr. W. Lord, thus giving the students a practical illustration from the bottom gin to the ash-acting mule. A very enjoyable afternoon was brought to a close about 6 15, when Mr. W. Heath moved a vote of thanks to the directors and the officials who had conducted them through the school, which was seconded by Mr. G. H. Whitehead, and carried.  A MANCHESTER MERCHANT ON THE OLDHAX Limerzos.—At the animal meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Mr. Samuel Ogden (merchant), president of the Chamber, in the course of an address dealing with trade, referred to the working of the Oldham spinning companies. In doicg so, he said the condition of the Oldham mills was another indication of the pressure in trade which had taken place during the past year. He saw, with reference to the Oldham mills, that whilst something like 35 companies declared moderate profits amounting to £46,000, 63 declared a loss amounting to £106,000. The result was that the £60,000 of loss would be equal to about £l,OOO per mill upon those mills where losses had been declared. That was a worse result in some degree than that of the year 1892, and that was considered a most unfortunate year. In fact, the result was as regarded the Oldham mills that if the whole capital had been invested in three per cent consols during the past two years the shareholders would have reaped a better result than they have reaped on their trade and enterprise. In the meantime their machinery was deteriorating, their buildings were getting the worse for wear, and it would soom become a very important question as to how capital could be recouped or machinery replaced. ATTEMPTED SUICIDE o a Loom
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1909-05-07 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

TEI EDITOR OF THE " FACTORY TIE."] Sir,—l have read with great regret the account of the above proposal in your columns. Having been in a factory parish for 30 years, and seeing it grow from 2,000 to 13,000 in population, I have come acroes painful instances of the evils accruing from the doing away with all fines in the mills here.  On entering a cottage I found a minder laid out on a settle. •• What's the matter?" I said.  "Eh, Vicar, we working men are the greatest tyrants to each other ao ever was. You know 1 work at —, and it's agen the rules to bring beer into the mill. The minder next to me said to his little pieoer, 'Get use a gill o' ale,' and I said, 'Bring me one, too.' The other man had been caught before, and warned. So the manager said, ' You must both pay half-a-crown fine for breaking the rules." We can't do that, Charles; our trades club won't allow us." Then you can go home and play you fora fortnight.'" They were getting about £2 10s, a week at that time, so they lost £5 each instead of 28. Lately an ex-minder was sitting in our Church Howie billiard room. "I never thought I should oome to this," he moaned. "What's to do?" "Seventeen and ninepence a week, threepence an hour, as a mill labourer." " How's that?" "Discharged for being late in the morning at my work." Here was a young man of 30. getting about £3 a week. Instead of paying a few halfcrown fines he will lose £2 a week for, say, 30 years. Roughly £3,000 As he will probably not average £1 a week in future. These are only samples of hundreds of isolated cases. Broken-hearted people make little noise, and no one agitates for them. We rmd of suicides weekly. Is there no pity I—Yours, &c., St. Luke's Vicarage, Bolton.  J. H.
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1909-04-23 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

DRIVING IN WEAVING SHEDS.  A PERNICIOUS SYSTEM.  HOW IT CAN BE COUNTERACTED.  BY LUKE PARK, PRESTON.  Before dealing with this subject I will give my definition of driving, so that I may not be misunderstood.  When an employer, either directly or through he officials insists upon the weaver turning off an amount of work which cannot reasonably be done within the prescribed time which the machinery is by law allowed to run, I call that driving.  I further say that this system of driving is practised in a number of mills.  What is this pernicious system responsible for? It is responsible for girls living in terror of the tackler coming round with the slate on the booking up day, when, if they have not done sufficient work to please, they may expect either rough language or dismissal front their emplo.iment.  _ . I have heard mothers speak of their daughters bringing nearly all their food back which they had taken for the day, the reason given being that they were no uneasy in their minds on account of their work they could not take their food.  This cruel system is also responsible for threatened and attempted suicides, as well as numerous breaches of the law, which otherwise would not happen. It is responsible for accidents caused by sweeping and doing other things whilst the machinery is in motion.  NO one can deny that driving is responsible for girls being scalped whilst sweeping under the looms which are in motion, as well as for other smaller accidents. Jinn imagine a girl's hair being torn off by the machinery! I have known several cases of scalping, and on one such occasion I inquired whether, when such an accident happened, all the other tenters were immediately stopped from sweeping the looms whilst in motion. The reply was that it made no difference.  If the employers would stop the driving weavers would not have reason to say they could not get the required amount of work off if they allowed their looms to stop for sweeping. The weavers must sweep their looms, but at some mills they are immediately ordered to set their looms on if the manager or overlooker sees them stopped for the purpose of being swept. When have the looms to be swept? Your readers may draw their own conclusion.  I know one particular ease where the weaver hack a loom stopped for the purpose of sweeping on the day she was compelled to sweep, when the manager at the top of his voice shouted " Set that loom on !" She obeyed his orders. She continued sweeping whilst the loom was running, and immediately met with an accident whirl; incapacitated, her as a weaver for life.  With whom does the responsibilitiy for this state of things lief Is it possible that it lies at the door of professed Christians? As Some of your readers may not be snare, I may say here that these workpeople are all paid by piece, so that the employers do not pay more to one person than another for the same amount of work done. It occurs to me that the strain upon the workpeople has reached such a degree that the only possible way in which it can be counteracted is by shortening the hours of labour by legislation.
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1909-04-23 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

WHO DOES THE DRIVING?  DARWEN WEAVERS' SUICIDE RECALLED.  STATEMENT BY MR. PARKINGTON  Some feeling has been canned in operative circles at Damen because of the statements made by Mr. John Taylor, secretary of the North and North-East Lancashire Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers' Association, in his evidence before the Truck Committee of the House of Commons, that 'a girl at Darwen poisoned herself through nothing at all except that she dared not face the thing at home." The matter was brought forward at the meeting of the Northern Counties Weavers' Amalgamation on Saturday, and strong exception was taken to Mr. Taylor's evidence. Mr. Parkington, the secretary of the Damen ! Weavers' Association, was instructed to make a statement to the press on the subject. Mr. Parkington asserts that Mr. Taylor's statement would never have been made if he had reviewed the verbatin reports of the evidence, for by no witness was it ever suggested that the girl dared not face the thing at home. The evidence showed that the vvas not afraid of facing the thing at home at all, for, as a matter of fact, the girl immediately went and told her foster-mother what had actually happened. The foster-mother, in her evidence at the inquest, proceeds Mr. Parkington, stated "that she was quite satisfied with the girl's earnings, and when she went to see the manager at the mill to ask the reason why the girl had been discharged, she was informed that 225, per week was considered not to be a good wage." At the same enquiry the tackler at the null also stated "that the firm had been to him and told him that he would have to hurry the weavers up, and that if he did not obey someone else would." In faco of this evidence Mr. Parkington says he fails to see where Mr. Taylor makes out any case that the driving was done at home in the case he mentions as occurring at Darwen. Further than that, adds Mr. Parkington, the remarks of the Coroner, when summing up the evidence, destroy Mr. Taylor's suggestion. Proceeding, Mr. Parkington says that Mr. 'fltylor was asked the question as to whether the abolition of fines in mills would interfere with discipline, and he replied" Yes," adding that they would discharge weavers instead of fining them, and that suicides would follow. On this point Mr. Parkington points out that to-day, in addition to fining weaver., they also discharge them for spoiling work, and he has yet to learn of anyone in Darwen committing suicide through being dincharged for spoiled work.
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1909-10-22 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

ENCROACHMENTS ON WEAVERS' LISTS.  Our readers would probably be more amused than edified by the contribution of a critic in last week's issue in connection with our opinions and policy on the question of encroachments on the weavers' lists, whether in the form of narrow cloth being woven in broad looms at narrow loom prices or in any other way. The article he attacked so savagely stated "nowt," nor proved "nowt," so he says, and yet he took the greater part of a column in trying to take it to pieces. If he would calmly and dispassjonately reread our articles, he would probably hesitate at rushing off at a tangent, for he would discover that we never advocated that tveavers should not be financially supported for refusing to weave narrow cloth in broad looms at narrow loom prices; that is, when the employers deliberately and persistently insisted on putting these cloths in the looms and when the warps were actually in the looms and the employers demanding that they should be woven. We asked him what he would do if the employers said to every weaver who had a loom standing to-day that they could have it going if they would weave at 5 per cent below list, and if all those weavers turned up at the Weavers' Office and demanded pay on the ground that they were suffering because they declined to work under list?  We need no reminding of the sufferings of the operatives during bad trade, shortage of work, stoppages, and other , unfortunate trade exigencies that have long been the lot of the workers generally. We yield to none in our sympathy for them on these occasions, as our columns testify every week. The amount, however, that an operative shall draw from a trade union is a matter of business, not sentiment. If a weaver only pays fourpence or sixpence per week to her trade union, she can only have benefits accordingly, and no amount of twaddle about sacrifices will make fourpence go as far as eightpence or a shilling. Under no circumstances has a weaver the right to expect more from her trade union than she has paid for. Singularly enough, one of our contributors, in dealing last week with stripe goods in check looms, put the point we have been trying to get our correspondent to see pithily and concisely in the last paragraph of his conununication. We advise our critic to look it up. We hope, in any case, he will not persist in misunderstanding our position. We are sticklers and fighters for the list. We still say the points he raised in his first communication need qualification and skilful handling at the hands of officials who want to keep the lists intact, and the societies from financial suicide at the same time.  _ At the Olympia Exhibition on Saturday the world's shorthand championship was decided as follows :-1, Mr. R. T. Garwood, 220 words a minute ; 2, Mr. Hubert Byers, 220 words a minute; 3, Mr. F. W. Smart, 220 words a minute. Among the defeated car.didates was Mr. Godfrey, who has been champion of Eng.. land and A merica for two years.
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1909-04-16 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

THE LOOM CONTROVERSY.  " Lancashireman," whose latest letter we print this week, is evidently one cf those individuals impossible of conviction to any views or opinions contrary to those which he makes his own special brand for the time being. He has a knack of " believing," and hugging a certain idea or theory, and then setting himself to marshal and line up arguments in support of that position without the slightest regard to their applicability to the subject under discussion. He reminds us of the man "who was easily led the way he wanted to go." We have the utmost aversion to the semblance of even discouraging discussion in our columns on a subject so important as the loom, but candour compels us to express the well considered opinion that the continuance of the present controversy on the lines so characteristic of " Lancashireman's " methods, and so regardless of the simple elements of logic, will do more harm than good, and will be far from edifying to the great bulk of our readers. It should be sufficient for him that not a single weaver, overlooker, manager, or manufacturer has taken up the cudgels on his behalf. We respectfully insist that " Lancashireman " has never given full proof in these columns, a year ago, or at any other time, that weaving costs are considerably highpr here than in any other country. He was contradicted then, and will be again, probably, so long as he persists in the assertion. He evidently does not appreciate the distinction between "wages" and "weaving costs." He shirks again the pith of the whole position when he declines to face our question as to the country where a yard of cloth is manufactured more cheaply than in Lancashire. If he gives up this position, as he appears to do, every other phantom argument tumbles to the ground. He writes as if every loom on the Continent and in America was on full time and every operative fully employed, while here we were on the verge of financial ruin and industrial suicide. His picture, however, is distorted, and is an unblushing perversion of the facts. As custodians of the operatives' interests we are reluctantly impelled, but from a sense of duty, to warn the workpeople of the modernised reproduction of the "spider and fly" tragedy as dramatised by "Lancashireman."
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1891-07-24 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

BUNTING MB AUNT.  That was the night, the situation, the dogs and the cats and the weather. As for the man lie appeared a little later on at a house in Brushstreet, pulled the bell until the furniture rattled, and when someone threw up a window and asked him what on earth and splinters he wanted, the midnight caller sweetly sang  I am looking for my aunt. But to find her, oh ! I can't, Though I've travelled till I'm nothing but a shedder; She eloped a year ago, And it gave me such a blow That my sadness keeps a-growing on me sadder. Then the householder called him a, crank and lots of other names, and threatened him with instant death, and finally fired his revolver in the air to scare him away. But he didn't scare. He carefully placed his hat on the ground and lesmed against a tree, and sang: 06, wherever I do stray, I can't help but feel this way, And perhaps it is heemise my heart 13 breaking; There is nought my soul to cheer, _ _And 1 feel so sad and drear, .  And I soon "Come along," interrupted an officer, who had been attracted by the firing, and the prisoner came. "Lost your aunt, eh ?" queried the court as the prisoner stood before him and answered to the name of John Harris. "yes, sir." "And you grieve and are sad ?" " The same." "Well, I can't find your aunt, but I can cure your complaint. My prescription calls for sixty days in the Workhouse, with plenty of hard work and mush and molasses for dinner." "Have I deserved a bastile ?" "The court decides you have. Fall back." "I'll commit suicide !" " That's nothing to me. Fall back." "No prison bar shall ever stand be—'' Bijah carried him back into the corridor and gave him a ham sandwich to stay his stomach, and when the omnibus backed up he looked as cheerful and resigned as an old log house.
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1891-04-17 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

LOVE, SUSPICION, AND DEMOS. James Wheelock drives a delivery waggon for a grocer, and the reason be has been behind in delivering your orders will now be made plain;  He fell in love in Cherry-street, The girl she banged her hair; She also used just paint enough To make her passing fair. And when he told her how he loved, She smiled on him galore; And proudly wore the diamond ring Which came from the Dollar Store. That was love. Everything was gorgeous, and James didn't care a cent who had to wait for their dinners if he could only get a seat in the kitchen beside his angel. Suspicion cropped out one day when he happened to be at the ferry dock, and  Espied the image of his heart— The girl he loved so well— Take passage on a ferry boat With a conceited swell. She endeavoured to lull his suspicions by saying that the swell was her father, but the very next evening she was discovered eating three dishes of ice cream in company with a youn,2 man who had a gold front tooth and a tin ear. This was too much. The golden tie was severed, and the beautiful angel owned up that she had simply loved James for the watermelons and plums he had brought her.  "I'll hie to the river," said James to himself, " 11l hie to the river. and there My woes I'll expunge by taking a plane, And thus I'll untangle this snare." But be didn't plunge. He halted at a saloon to brace up, and he braced so much that he became disorderly and had to be taken in by the police. "This is a sad case," sighed His Honour, when the story had been told. "Yes. sir, and I wish that I was dead." "It is still your intention to commit suicide ?" "Yes, sir. I shall drown myself in less than an hour." "I hardly think it. In an hour from this you will be eating breakfast at the Workhouse. I'll make it thirty days." "You may have my feelings some day." "Never. Please stand back." "Let me off and I'll agree not to kill myself." "Too late; please fall back." "Say, I was only fooling." "Well, I wasn't. The sentence is for thirty days, and this sad tale is ended.
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1891-12-11 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

NOTHS.—As Christmas approaches the workpeople, who have been thrown out of employment by the recent fires in Stockport, are becoming anxious as to whether they will get full employment. At Mesars. Balfe's cotton mill, where several hundred operatives were thrown out of employment, we have not heard of any steps being taken to erect it new mill. At the other mill that was burnt down— Messrs. Christy's—steps are being taken to re-build the mill. The strike at Messrs. John Eaton and Son's hat works, Swallow-street, Stockport, still continues as far as the men are concerned. Messrs. Eaton have a full complement of hands at work, having obtained non-union men.  A PoirrpoNstraxr.—Debrown (calling on friend): "Why, hello, Jonjones, I expected to find you dead. I thought you inteeded to commit suicide to-day." Jonjones : "So I did, but I'm not feeling very well to-day, so I've put it off for a few days."  Sonny (aged seven, to mother in mourning) : "Can't Igo to the funeral ?" Mother: "No, doer." Sonny (in disgust): "Oh, no, of course not; you know bow to enjoy yourself, though—two funerals n one month!"  Mr. Bungle: "Listen to Jumper playing on the French horn."—Mr. Finnigan "No wonder oi eudn't ondersbtand the tune. Whoi doesn't he play on an English wan? Everybody doesn't know French." A few evenings ago as father and daughter were mutually recalling incidents of the latter's (Ail& hood. " I shall never forget," said the young lady. "how you ton % me out of church oue Sabbath, when I was about three years old, and pnnished me for playing. I can remember the tingling of that switch to this day." " Very strange, ver strange." said the father; "I don't reoollect the circumstance at all." "Au, well, papa, you were at the other cud of the switch, you know."
The Cotton Factory Times. — 1891-01-23 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

THE BITER BIT.--A correspondent writes: A manager of a well-known spinning company has quite recently performed several feats in the art of "eating the leek." A few weeks ago a dispute occurred at his mill with the packers, who are members of the piecers' branch of the Operative Sr inners' Association, which asked for an advance of 5 per cent on their behalf. He said he did not care--er words to that effect—for the secretary or their association. The result was that as the increase was not paid the piecers struck work. After he had brought matters to a crisis in this manner. and the mill being threatened to be stopped unless matters were placed as before, lie consulted his.directors, and it is reported that as he had gut these piecers into the street he must get them again into the mill. Although he said he did not care for the officials or the association he had to bow to the stir rn that was gathering. and this do a big climb &p.m. But it did not end here, for his company was several days afterwards appearing in the police court for running overtime, and the selfsame individual whom the manager had defied was sitting in judgment upon him. There again the manager was " sat on, and once more "ate' the leek," but his company had to pay the piper. Perhaps increasing years will bring with it calmer judgment and increasing wisdom.  THE SUICIDE or A Mr-siettn.--An inquest was held at the Town Hall on Friday afternoon last, into the circumstances attending the death of William Crowther, a minder, lately residing at 4. Riponstreet, who was found drowned in the Marlaud Mills reservoir on the Wednesday previone.—The widow of the deceased stated that on Wednesday the deceased Saw her off at the Werneth Railway Station, as she Was going to Bolton to seek work for him. He had been discharged from Clarence Mill, in consequence of a dispute without notice on Monday, the sth instant, and on Wednesday last tveek he asked her twice if she would drown herself with him. He asked her several times before Saturday, when she wont and told his father, who told her to take no notice of him ; thinking he did not mean what he said—Joshua Kay Robinson, eagineer at Marland Mills, in Green-street. spoke to finding the body about a quarter-past one o'clock on Wednesday afternoon in the lodge attachettto the mill. With assistance it was got out. He did not think it had been long in the water, as it was not swollen. The jacket and hat of the deceased he found near the wall, and a note was in the latter which was apparently addressed to his wife, and ran as follows: Sarah Ellen Crowther, No. 4. Back Soho-street, off Newport-street, Bolton. My name is William Crowther, 32, Coppice-street, Oldham. Hoping you will bury me, as it my last call on you. So good-bye all. I am tired of life."--The jury returned a verdict of " Suicide whilst of unsound mind." MR. S. R. PLATT fix