286 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



in the behalf of Mr. Secretary Cross, a copy of 

 which I send with this. 



" I have had before me the authority of Lord 

 Shaftesbury for stating that never since the agitation 

 on the factory question has the feeling of the country 

 been so deeply moved as it has been by the martyr- 

 doms of our ' dumb companions.' " At the end of 

 his appeal for signatures he added in a footnote the 

 expression of many eminent men on this question, 

 most of which were couched in the strongest lan- 

 guage, though it may, I venture to think, be said 

 with safety that not one of those whose words were 

 cited felt more strongly upon the subject than the 

 writer of the circular himself. It was a matter of 

 deep regret to him, therefore, that the Government 

 did not see its way to amend the law in the way 

 desired, and to the last he never ceased to deplore 

 the laxity of the application of adequate measures 

 of repression. 



With the early spring of this same year (i877),when 

 the aconites in the Rectory garden were still a blaze 

 of gold and the birds were beginning to make their 

 voices heard, came a heavy blow to the rector and 

 his family, and one that cast a gloom over the house- 

 hold and parish. In the early part of March my 

 mother met with a grievous accident. She was in- 

 cautiously standing behind a cart while speaking to 

 its occupant, when the horse suddenly backed, and 

 she was thrown violently to the ground, the wheels 

 of the cart passing over her ; she was severely injured, 



