Year: 1872

The Striking Stokers In London.


England is paying the penalty of badly
adjusted system of work and wages in q sue
cession Of strikes, which are disturbing
nearly all the industries of that great island
workshop. These ssturnouts' have occurred
not only in the ordinary departments Of labor.
Policemen, civil service clerks, Post Office
assistants and other public servants have tried
by organized action to force an increase of
pay and now the stokers in the several gas
works have taken their turn at this argument
of standing still. Without their labor the
great city could have no supply of gas, SO its
millions Of inhabitants have been forced to
do without artificial light, except such as they
could make with lamps and candles. Five
hundred of these men have been summoned
before a police court to answer for this deed
of darkness, while two thousand of them
have gathered in Trafalgar square to talk over
the cruelties of capital and encourage each
other in the refusal to resume work till their
demands should be complied with. As un-
employed labor throngs the streets of London
it is probable that the companies will be able
to fill the places of the strikers and light the
city; and, though the community may believe
that the laborers have suffered injustice, there
will be little disposition to uphold them in
bringing inconvenience and annoyance upon
everybody even to obtain justice for them
selves. In the end it is likely that, so long as
the labor market is overstocked, great cor
porations will, in the main, be able to make
their own prices for it. and those who are not
willing to accept them will be allowed to s.go
West" and find homes where the great ma
jority are able to be their own employers


The Bushwick Avenue stable Fire


Those Poor Horses.


There is suggestion of terrible suffering in
the account of the destruction Of the Bush
wick avenue car stables. s'There were more
than hundred horses in the stables, and so
rapidly did the flames spread that only
twenty-five of them were rescued" Thus,
seventy-fve helpless horses were roasted to
death. They had no power to tell their tor
lures, or even to ask the men whom they had
SO faithfully served to avoid in future placing
horse life in such danger. It is hard enough
to be slaves to humanity without being sub
jected to such torment. But the risk Of fire
is not the only hazard to which great por-
ton Of the horses employed in our cities are
exposed They are kept by hundreds together
in close, damp, underground cellars, where
man can hardly breathe 1t seems not to be
considered by some Of our large owners that
horses require far more oxygen than man, and
that to deprive them Of it by stabling them in
crowded confined places, is to invite disease
and shorten their lives There are thousands
Of valuable animals in this city thus abused,
and it is no wonder that they fall easy victims
to contagion, or if in case of fire they are
consumed by scores. They deserve better
treatment in this respect and the owners
would serve their own interests by making
better provision for their dumb servants.


The FRENCH CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS will
reach very serious point for issue to-day.
The monarchists are, as it appears from our
Paris despatch hopeful of obtaining a ma
jority in the Parliamentary Committee of
Thirty, which will be commissioned with con-
stitutional draft and prescription power The
republicans are equally sanguine. The men,
bers Of the party of the Right will not listen
to the plan of an electoral appeal to the
people, while Gambetta, on the contrary,
advocates the dissolution Of the National
Assembly and the holding of general cleo
ton with great warmth and carnestness. A
multitude of counsellors may ensure the