508 Cornish China Clay . [October, 
gether inappropriate, even if it only serves to exhibit the 
sturdy independence and almost stubborn fixidity, when 
once a purpose is resolved upon, of the Cornish character, 
glossed over, as that character is, by a spirit of extreme 
enthusiasm for whatever is undertaken. For our friends on 
the western side of the Tamar, in spite of the extinction of 
their language and the gradual decay of Cornish superstitions 
and prejudices, have still some remarkable traits of dispo- 
sition quite as distinctive as those of any native of the 
Land o’ Cakes or the Emerald Isle. Doubtless had the 
masters, during the time of the strike in question, been 
other than Cornish ones, the men would have obtained 
compliance with their demands long before they carried 
their actions to such an excess of riot as was reached ; and 
had the labourers been other than Cornishmen, affairs, 
under the determined measures of the masters, would have 
assumed a pacific appearance much sooner than they did. 
Emboldened by the “ big talk ” of those persons who pre- 
ferred hearing the sound of their own voices to performing 
honest labour, the members of the Union, towards the close 
of 1876, arranged to strike work on a certain day, and it 
was also agreed that those non-unionists who determined to 
work on that day should be forcibly prevented from so doing. 
Notices to this effeCt were posted up in the various towns 
in the St. Austell district, and accordingly, on the day in 
question, the unionists refused to work, and some most dis- 
graceful scenes occurred.* The non-union men had, in the 
words of a local paper, to “ cut and run,” many of them 
having to hide for hours from the vengeance of the unionists. 
The men on strike visited the various works where the non- 
uniorists were employed, obliging the latter to discontinue 
their occupation. This was done for several days, and 
although few deeds of violence were aCbually perpetrated, 
threats were very freely used, and the non-union men were 
in a state of great alarm. On the ringleaders of the strike 
being apprehended, one of them was fined £5 and costs for 
* The following extract from a letter which appeared in the “ Plymouth 
Daily Mercury” during the time of the strike above described, may serve as 
an instance of the excess of violence to which the Cornish working classes 
can allow themselves to be driven. It refers to a strike among the tin and 
copper miners some years previous. During the strike in East Cornwall it 
was “ considered a trivial matter to place a poor fellow across a pole, and to 
shoulder him through the village of Gunnislake until the life was nearly jolted 
out of his body, to the delight of the leaders of the strike. The magistrates 
of Callington, however, took a different view of the matter, and Bodmin Gaol 
had in consequence some extra occupants for a considerable period after the 
strike had died out.” 
