The day arrived on which the masters were to have an interview with the
deputation of the workpeople. The meeting was to take place in a public
room at an hotel; and there, about eleven o’clock, the mill-owners who
had received the foreign orders began to collect.
Of course, the first subject, however full their minds might be of
another, was the weather. Having done their duty by all the showers and
sunshine which had occurred during the past week, they fell to talking
about the business which brought them together. There might be about
twenty gentlemen in the room, including some, by courtesy, who were not
immediately concerned in the settlement of the present question; but
who, nevertheless, were sufficiently interested to attend. These were
divided into little groups, who did not seem by any means unanimous.
Some were for a slight concession, just a sugar-plum to quieten the
naughty child, a sacrifice to peace and quietness. Some were steadily
and vehemently opposed to the dangerous precedent of yielding one jot
or one tittle to the outward force of a turn-out. It was teaching the
workpeople how to become masters, said they. Did they want the wildest
thing hereafter, they would know that the way to obtain their wishes
would be to strike work. Besides, one or two of those present had only
just returned from the New Bailey, where one of the turn-outs had been
tried for a cruel assault on a poor North-country weaver, who had
attempted to work at the low price. They were indignant, and justly so,
at the merciless manner in which the poor fellow had been treated; and
their indignation at wrong took (as it often does) the extreme form of
revenge. They felt as if, rather than yield to the body of men who were
resorting to such cruel measures towards their fellow workmen, they, the
masters, would sooner relinquish all the benefits to be derived from
the fulfilment of the commission in order that the workmen might suffer
keenly. They forgot that the strike was in this instance the consequence
of want and need, suffered unjustly, as the endurers believed; for,
however insane, and without ground of reason, such was their belief,
and such was the cause of their violence. It is a great truth that you
cannot extinguish violence by violence. You may put it down for a time;
but while you are crowing over your imaginary success, see if it does not
return with seven devils worse than its former self!
No one thought of treating the workmen as brethren and friends, and
openly, clearly, as appealing to reasonable men, stating exactly and
fully the circumstances which led the masters to think it was the wise
policy of the time to make sacrifices themselves, and to hope for them
from the operatives.
In going from group to group in the room, you caught such a medley of
sentences as the following—
“Poor devils! they’re near enough to starving, I’m afraid. Mrs. Aldred
makes two cows’ heads into soup every week, and people come many miles to
fetch it; and if these times last, we must try and do more. But we must
not be bullied into anything!”
“A rise of a shilling or so won’t make much difference, and they will go
away thinking they’ve gained their point.”
“That’s the very thing I object to. They’ll think so, and whenever
they’ve a point to gain, no matter how unreasonable, they’ll strike work.”
“It really injures them more than us.”
“I don’t see how our interests can be separated.”
“The d⸺d brute had thrown vitriol on the poor fellow’s ankles, and you
know what a bad part that is to heal. He had to stand still with the
pain, and that left him at the mercy of the cruel wretch, who beat him
about the head till you’d hardly have known he was a man. They doubt if
he’ll live.”
“If it were only for that, I’ll stand out against them, even if it is the
cause of my ruin.”
“Ay, I for one won’t yield one farthing to the cruel brutes; they’re more
like wild beasts than human beings.”
(Well, who might have made them different?)
“I say, Carson, just go and tell Duncombe of this fresh instance of their
abominable conduct. He’s wavering, but I think this will decide him.”
The door was now opened, and the waiter announced that the men were
below, and asked if it were the pleasure of the gentlemen that they
should be shown up.
They assented, and rapidly took their places round the official table;
looking as like as they could to the Roman senators who awaited the
irruption of Brennus and his Gauls.
Tramp, tramp, came the heavy clogged feet up the stairs; and in a minute
five wild, earnest-looking men stood in the room. John Barton, from
some mistake as to time, was not among them. Had they been larger-boned
men you would have called them gaunt; as it was, they were little of
stature, and their fustian clothes hung loosely upon their shrunk limbs.
In choosing their delegates, too, the operatives had had more regard to
their brains and power of speech, than to their wardrobes; they might
have read the opinions of that worthy Professor Teufelsdröckh, in _Sartor
Resartus_, to judge from the dilapidated coats and trousers which yet
clothed men of parts and of power. It was long since many of them had
known the luxury of a new article of dress; and air-gaps were to be seen
in their garments. Some of the masters were rather affronted at such a
ragged detachment coming between the wind and their nobility; but what
cared they?
At the request of a gentleman hastily chosen to officiate as chairman,
the leader of the delegates read, in a high-pitched, psalm-singing voice,
a paper containing the operatives’ statement of the case at issue,
their complaints, and their demands, which last were not remarkable for
moderation.
He was then desired to withdraw for a few minutes, with his
fellow-delegates, to another room, while the masters considered what
should be their definite answer.
When the men had left the room, a whispered, earnest consultation took
place, everyone reurging his former arguments. The conceders carried the
day, but only by a majority of one. The minority haughtily and audibly
expressed their dissent from the measures to be adopted, even after
the delegates re-entered the room; their words and looks did not pass
unheeded by the quick-eyed operatives; their names were registered in
bitter hearts.
The masters could not consent to the advance demanded by the workmen.
They would agree to give one shilling per week more than they had
previously offered. Were the delegates empowered to accept such offer?
They were empowered to accept or decline any offer made that day by the
masters.
Then it might be as well for them to consult among themselves as to what
should be their decision. They again withdrew.
It was not for long. They came back, and positively declined any
compromise of their demands.
Then up sprang Mr. Henry Carson, the head and voice of the violent party
among the masters, and addressing the chairman, even before the scowling
operatives, he proposed some resolutions, which he, and those who agreed
with him, had been concocting during this last absence of the deputation.
They were, first, withdrawing the proposal just made, and declaring all
communication between the masters and that particular Trades Union at
an end; secondly, declaring that no master would employ any workman in
future, unless he signed a declaration that he did not belong to any
Trades Union, and pledged himself not to assist or subscribe to any
society having for its object interference with the master’s powers;
and, thirdly, that the masters should pledge themselves to protect and
encourage all workmen willing to accept employment on those conditions,
and at the rate of wages first offered. Considering that the men who now
stood listening with lowering brows of defiance were all of them leading
members of the Union, such resolutions were in themselves sufficiently
provocative of animosity: but not content with simply stating them,
Harry Carson went on to characterise the conduct of the workmen in no
measured terms; every word he spoke rendering their looks more livid,
their glaring eyes more fierce. One among them would have spoken, but
checked himself, in obedience to the stern glance and pressure on his arm
received from the leader. Mr. Carson sat down, and a friend instantly got
up to second the motion. It was carried, but far from unanimously. The
chairman announced it to the delegates (who had been once more turned out
of the room for a division). They received it with deep brooding silence,
but spoke never a word, and left the room without even a bow.
Now there had been some by-play at this meeting, not recorded in the
Manchester newspapers, which gave an account of the more regular part of
the transaction.
While the men had stood grouped near the door, on their first
entrance, Mr. Harry Carson had taken out his silver pencil and had
drawn an admirable caricature of them—lank, ragged, dispirited, and
famine-stricken. Underneath he wrote a hasty quotation from the fat
knight’s well-known speech in _Henry IV_. He passed it to one of his
neighbours, who acknowledged the likeness instantly, and by him it was
sent round to others, who all smiled and nodded their heads. When it
came back to its owner, he tore the back of the letter on which it was
drawn in two, twisted them up and flung them into the fire-place; but,
careless whether they reached their aim or not, he did not look to see
that they fell just short of any consuming cinders.
This proceeding was closely observed by one of the men.
He watched the masters as they left the hotel (laughing, some of them
were, at passing jokes), and when all had gone he re-entered. He went to
the waiter, who recognised him.
“There’s a bit on a picture up yonder, as one o’ the gentlemen threw
away; I’ve a little lad at home as dearly loves a picture; by your leave
I’ll go up for it.”
The waiter, good-natured and sympathetic, accompanied him up-stairs; saw
the paper picked up and untwisted, and then being convinced by a hasty
glance at its contents that it was only what the man had called it, “a
bit of a picture,” he allowed him to bear away his prize.
Towards seven o’clock that evening, many operatives began to assemble
in a room in the Weavers’ Arms public-house, a room appropriated for
“festive occasions,” as the landlord, in his circular on opening the
premises, had described it. But, alas! it was on no festive occasion that
they met there this night. Starved, irritated, despairing men, they were
assembling to hear the answer that morning given by their masters to the
delegates; after which, as was stated in the notice, a gentleman from
London would have the honour of addressing the meeting on the present
state of affairs between the employers and the employed, or (as he chose
to term them) the idle and the industrious classes. The room was not
large, but its bareness of furniture made it appear so. Unshaded gas
flared down upon the lean and unwashed artisans as they entered, their
eyes blinking at the excess of light.
They took their seats on benches, and awaited the deputation. The latter,
gloomily and ferociously, delivered the masters’ ultimatum, adding
thereto not one word of their own; and it sank all the deeper into the
sore hearts of the listeners for their forbearance.
Then the “gentleman from London” (who had been previously informed of the
masters’ decision) entered. You would have been puzzled to define his
exact position, or what was the state of his mind as regarded education.
He looked so self-conscious, so far from earnest, among the group of
eager, fierce, absorbed men, among whom he now stood. He might have been
a disgraced medical student of the Bob Sawyer class, or an unsuccessful
actor, or a flashy shopman. The impression he would have given you would
have been unfavourable, and yet there was much about him that could only
be characterised as doubtful.
He smirked in acknowledgment of their uncouth greetings and sat down;
then glancing round, he inquired whether it would not be agreeable to the
gentlemen present to have pipes and liquor handed round, adding that he
would stand treat.
As the man who has had his taste educated to love reading falls
devouringly upon books after a long abstinence, so these poor fellows,
whose tastes had been left to educate themselves into a liking for
tobacco, beer, and similar gratifications, gleamed up at the proposal of
the London delegate. Tobacco and drink deaden the pangs of hunger and
make one forget the miserable home, the desolate future.
They were now ready to listen to him with approbation. He felt it; and
rising like a great orator, with his right arm outstretched, his left in
the breast of his waistcoat, he began to declaim with a forced theatrical
voice.
After a burst of eloquence, in which he blended the deeds of the elder
and the younger Brutus, and magnified the resistless might of the
“millions of Manchester,” the Londoner descended to matter-of-fact
business, and in his capacity this way he did not belie the good judgment
of those who had sent him as delegate. Masses of people, when left to
their own free choice, seem to have discretion in distinguishing men of
natural talent; it is a pity they so little regard temper and principles.
He rapidly dictated resolutions and suggested measures. He wrote out a
stirring placard for the walls. He proposed sending delegates to entreat
the assistance of other Trades Unions in other towns. He headed the list
of subscribing Unions by a liberal donation from that with which he was
especially connected in London; and what was more, and more uncommon,
he paid down the money in real, clinking, blinking, golden sovereigns!
The money, alas! was cravingly required; but before alleviating any
private necessities on the morrow, small sums were handed to each of the
delegates, who were in a day or two to set out on their expeditions to
Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, etc. These men were most of them members
of the deputation who had that morning waited upon the masters. After
he had drawn up some letters and spoken a few more stirring words, the
gentleman from London withdrew, previously shaking hands all round; and
many speedily followed him out of the room and out of the house.
The newly appointed delegates and one or two others, remained behind to
talk over their respective missions, and to give and exchange opinions in
more homely and natural language than they dared to use before the London
orator.
“He’s a rare chap, yon,” began one, indicating the departed delegate by
a jerk of his thumb towards the door. “He’s getten the gift of the gab,
anyhow!”
“Ay! ay! he knows what he’s about. See how he poured it into us about
that there Brutus. He were pretty hard, too, to kill his own son!”
“I could kill mine if he took part with the masters; to be sure, he’s but
a stepson, but that makes no odds,” said another.
But now tongues were hushed, and all eyes were directed towards the
member of the deputation who had that morning returned to the hotel to
obtain possession of Harry Carson’s clever caricature of the operatives.
The heads clustered together to gaze at and detect the likenesses.
“That’s John Slater! I’d ha’ known him anywhere, by his big nose. Lord!
how like; that’s me, by G—d, it’s the very way I’m obligated to pin my
waistcoat up, to hide that I’ve getten no shirt. That is a shame, and
I’ll not stand it.”
“Well!” said John Slater, after having acknowledged his nose and his
likeness; “I could laugh at a jest as well as e’er the best on ’em,
though it did tell agen mysel, if I were not clemming” (his eyes filled
with tears; he was a poor, pinched, sharp-featured man, with a gentle and
melancholy expression of countenance), “and if I could keep from thinking
of them at home as is clemming; but with their cries for food ringing in
my ears, and making me afeard of going home, and wonder if I should hear
’em wailing out, if I lay cold and drowned at th’ bottom o’ th’ canal,
there; why, man, I cannot laugh at aught. It seems to make me sad that
there is any as can make game on what they’ve never knowed; as can make
such laughable pictures on men whose very hearts within ’em are so raw
and sore as ours were and are God help us.”
John Barton began to speak; they turned to him with great attention. “It
makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see that
folk can make a jest of striving men; of chaps who comed to ask for a bit
o’ fire for th’ old granny as shivers i’ th’ cold; for a bit o’ bedding,
and some warm clothing to the poor wife who lies in labour on th’ damp
flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose little voices are getting
too faint and weak to cry aloud wi’ hunger. For, brothers, is not them
the things we ask for when we ask for more wage? We donnot want dainties,
we want bellyfuls; we donnot want gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want
warm clothes; and so that we get ’em, we’d not quarrel wi’ what they’re
made on. We donnot want their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us
from the rain, and the snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover
us, but the helpless ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us
with their eyes why we brought ’em into th’ world to suffer?” He lowered
his deep voice almost to a whisper:
“I’ve seen a father who had killed his child rather than let it clem
before his eyes; and he were a tender-hearted man.”
He began again in his usual tone, “We come to th’ masters wi’ full hearts
to ask for them things I named afore. We know that they’ve getten money,
as we’ve earned for ’em; we know trade is mending and they’ve large
orders, for which they’ll be well paid; we ask for our share o’ th’
payment; for, say we, if th’ masters get our share of payment it will
only go to keep servants and horses—to more dress and pomp. Well and
good, if yo choose to be fools we’ll not hinder you, so long as you’re
just; but our share we must and will have; we’ll not be cheated. _We_
want it for daily bread, for life itself; and not for our own lives
neither (for there’s many a one here, I know by mysel, as would be glad
and thankful to lie down and die out o’ this weary world), but for the
lives of them little ones, who don’t yet know what life is, and are
afeard of death. Well, we come before the masters to state what we want
and what we must have, afore we’ll set shoulder to their work; and they
say ‘No.’ One would think that would be enough of hard-heartedness, but
it isn’t. They go and make jesting pictures on us! I could laugh at
mysel, as well as poor John Slater there; but then I must be easy in my
mind to laugh. Now I only know that I would give the last drop of my
blood to avenge us on yon chap, who had so little feeling in him as to
make game on earnest, suffering men!”
A low angry murmur was heard among the men, but it did not yet take form
or words. John continued:
“You’ll wonder, chaps, how I came to miss the time this morning; I’ll
just tell you what I was a-doing. Th’ chaplin at the New Bailey sent and
gived me an order to see Jonas Higginbotham; him as was taken up last
week for throwing vitriol in a knob-stick’s face. Well, I couldn’t help
but go; and I didn’t reckon it would ha’ kept me so late. Jonas were like
one crazy when I got to him; he said he could na’ get rest night or day
for th’ face of the poor fellow he had damaged; then he thought on his
weak, clemmed look, as he tramped, footsore into town; and Jonas thought,
maybe, he had left them at home as would look for news, and hope and get
none, but, haply, tidings of his death. Well, Jonas had thought on these
things till he could not rest, but walked up and down continually like
a wild beast in his cage. At last he bethought him on a way to help a
bit, and he got the chaplain to send for me; and he tell’d me this; and
that th’ man were lying in the Infirmary, and he bade me go (to-day’s
the day as folk may be admitted into th’ Infirmary) and get his silver
watch, as was his mother’s, and sell it as well as I could, and take the
money, and bid the poor knob-stick send it to his friends beyond Burnley;
and I were to take him Jonas’s kind regards, and he humbly axed him to
forgive him. So I did what Jonas wished. But, bless your life, none of us
would ever throw vitriol again (at least at a knob-stick) if they could
see the sight I saw to-day. The man lay, his face all wrapped in cloths,
so I didn’t see _that_; but not a limb, nor a bit of a limb, could keep
from quivering with pain. He would ha’ bitten his hands to keep down his
moans, but couldn’t, his face hurt him so if he moved it e’er so little.
He could scarce mind me when I telled him about Jonas; he did squeeze
my hand when I jingled the money, but when I axed his wife’s name, he
shrieked out, ‘Mary, Mary, shall I never see you again? Mary, my darling,
they’ve made me blind because I wanted to work for you and our own baby;
O Mary, Mary!’ Then the nurse came, and said he were raving, and that I
had made him worse. And I’m afeard it was true; yet I were loth to go
without knowing where to send the money.… So that kept me beyond my time,
chaps.”
“Did you hear where the wife lived at last?” asked many anxious voices.
“No! he went on talking to her, till his words cut my heart like a knife.
I axed the nurse to find out who she was, and where she lived. But what
I’m more especial naming it now for is this—for one thing, I wanted you
all to know why I weren’t at my post this morning; for another, I wish
to say, that I, for one, ha’ seen enough of what comes of attacking
knob-sticks, and I’ll ha’ nought to do with it no more.”
There were some expressions of disapprobation, but John did not mind them.
“Nay! I’m no coward,” he replied, “and I’m true to th’ back-bone. What I
would like, and what I would do, would be to fight the masters. There’s
one among yo called me a coward. Well! every man has a right to his
opinion; but since I’ve thought on th’ matter to-day, I’ve thought we han
all on us been more like cowards in attacking the poor like ourselves;
them as has none to help, but mun choose between vitriol and starvation.
I say we’re more cowardly in doing that than leaving them alone. No! what
I would do is this: Have at the masters!” Again he shouted, “Have at the
masters!” He spoke lower; all listened with hushed breath:
“It’s the masters as has wrought this woe; it’s the masters as should pay
for it. Him as called me coward just now, may try if I am one or not. Set
me to serve out the masters, and see if there’s aught I’ll stick at.”
“It would give the masters a bit on a fright if one of them were beaten
within an inch of his life,” said one.
“Ay! or beaten till no life were left in him,” growled another.
And so with words, or looks that told more than words, they built up a
deadly plan. Deeper and darker grew the import of their speeches, as they
stood hoarsely muttering their meaning out, and glaring, with eyes that
told the terror their own thoughts were to them, upon their neighbours.
Their clenched fists, their set teeth, their livid looks, all told
the suffering which their minds were voluntarily undergoing in the
contemplation of crime, and in familiarising themselves with its details.
Then came one of those fierce, terrible oaths which bind members of
Trades Unions to any given purpose. Then, under the flaring gaslight,
they met together to consult further. With the distrust of guilt, each
was suspicious of his neighbour; each dreaded the treachery of another. A
number of pieces of paper (the identical letter on which the caricature
had been drawn that very morning) were torn up, and _one was marked_.
Then all were folded up again, looking exactly alike. They were shuffled
together in a hat. The gas was extinguished; each drew out a paper. The
gas was relighted. Then each went as far as he could from his fellows,
and examined the paper he had drawn without saying a word, and with a
countenance as stony and immovable as he could make it.
Then, still rigidly silent, they each took up their hats and went every
one his own way.
He who had drawn the marked paper, had drawn the lot of the assassin! and
he had sworn to act according to his drawing! But no one, save God and
his own conscience, knew who was the appointed murderer.