BY A. J. TAYLOK, F.L.S., F.E.G.S. 37 



business, and agreements not to work in company of any- 

 given person, or to persuade others to leave their employ- 

 ment, or not to engage themselves. For such offences the 

 law-breakers were liable to fine and imprisonment. 



At this period the growing activity of the Unions, and 

 the frequent recurrence of strikes, intensified the anxiety 

 and enmity of the employers. 



In 1834 an incident occurred that brought into prominence 

 the disabilities under which the workers were still labouring. 



" Six Dorchester labourers," says Howell (p. 116), " were 

 convicted and sentenced to seven years' ti^ansportation, 

 ostensibly for administering unlawful oaths, but really for 

 the * crime of combination.' This conviction was so mani- 

 festly unjust, and the sentence so outrageously cruel," he 

 continues, " that some of the ablest, certainly the most 

 independent, men of that day condemned both, in no 

 measured terms ; and they resolutely demanded the re- 

 mission of the sentence on these six poor men, and their 

 immediate liberation. An immense demonstration took 

 place in the Copenhagen Fields, on Monday, March 21st, 

 1834, attended, it is said, by about 400,000 persons; and a 

 procession between six and seven miles in length, consisting 

 of nearly 50,000 workmen, proceeded to the official residence 

 of Lord Melbourne for the purpose of presenting a petition 

 with over 266,000 signatures, on behalf of those six convicted 

 peasants. After a good deal of opposition on the part of the 

 Whig Ministry of that day, backed as it was by the major 

 portion of the manufacturing classes, and, after much delay, 

 the men were * pardtmed,' and ordered to be liberated. But 

 the whole proceeding in regard thereto," the writer goes on 

 to say, "were shamefully cruel and even cowardly. The 

 men had been hastened out of the country " (to New South 

 Wales), "and, even when they were pardoned, some of them 

 did not hear of their pardon until years afterwards, and 

 these might never have heard of it until the expiration of 

 their sentence, had it not been for the merest accident of one 

 of them falling across an English newspaper in the colony." 



This case, as might be expected, gave an impetus to the 

 cause of Unionism. Stimulated by the successful meetings 

 they had been able to organise, the workers were led to make 

 an effort to establish a national federation of the whole of 

 the trades. A weekly newspaper was started to assist the 

 scheme, which for a time gave promise of success. When, 

 however, the men who had been convicted were pardoned, the 

 agitation cooled down. But the workers had got to realise 

 their power. " Permanent work," says Howell, "had already 

 begun to take the place of mere spasmodic effort ; the several 

 trades were busily employed in perfecting the machinery of 

 their organisation, and thenceforth it is not difficult to trace 



