1867.1

MURPHY.

327

as he termed himself, delivered his tirades. The low Irish, after their manner, violently resented the foul abuse poured forth by the lecturer on a religion and a priesthood to which they were warmly attached. The Orange partisans of Murphy rallied round him in still larger numbers than their opponents. A fight ensued, many persons on both sides were seriously injured, and for two or three days Birmingham was kept in a state which could only be paralleled by the Lord George Gordon disturbances in London during the last century. The military was called out, the riot-act read, and very serious mischief was done. The only gainer by these disturbances was Murphy himself, whom they made more notorious than ever, and who received from all quarters invitations to repeat his lectures, and encouragement to persevere in his mischievous career. He went on his way, reviving the old no-popery feeling which had so long lain dormant, and creating riots in almost every town where large numbers of Irishmen resided, till at last he became a victim, and, as his friends regarded him, a martyr, to the fury which he had succeeded in exciting.

The wonderful effect which his lectures produced was not wholly due to the fanaticism either of his supporters or his opponents. There was another and a more disgraceful motive at the bottom of his success. The attempts he made to stir the dying embers of Orange fanaticism would have been utterly ineffectual, but for the strong tradesunion feeling that existed against the Irish because they were ready to work for less than the English, and their presence in our manufacturing towns kept down the rate of wages. Another cause of the extraordinary sensation that Murphy succeeded in creating is to be found in the indignation which was awakened among all classes of Englishmen by disturbances of a very different character which had been raised by the Fenian organisation to which we have already referred, the members of which, incapable indeed of encountering a single regiment in the open field, but capable of inflicting very serious injury on persons and properties, were still pursuing their course of mischievous agitation with a reckless disregard of the wrong they inflicted. Some of the members of this secret confederacy had formed the design of seizing

Chester Castle, and obtaining possession of the arms stored in it and they were only prevented from making this audacious attempt by finding that their designs had been communicated to the authorities of the town, and that measures had been taken to defend it. At Manchester two men named Kelly and Deasy, after a severe struggle were apprehended by the police, and found to be armed with loaded revolvers. They were recognised by the chief constable of Liverpool as being two officers of the so-called Fenian army. On the 18th of September they were brought before the stipendiary magistrate at Manchester, by whom the case was remanded for farther examination. They were then ironed and placed in the prison-van to be conducted to the borough gaol on the Hyde-road. Just as the van had passed under the bridge of the London and North-Western Railway a considerable number of men fired on the cortége and killed one of the horses. They then rushed out, and one of the assailants shot Sergeant Brett, a policeman, who was in the van and refused to deliver the keys of it to the attacking party. They then broke open the door and liberated the prisoners it contained. Kelly and Deasy at once made their way off, and found a place of concealment. A man named Allen, said to be the person who fired the shot by which Brett was killed, was pursued and apprehended, as were also about twenty other men who were supposed to have taken part in the rescue of the prisoners. This attack, made in the open day, in the neighbourhood of one of the largest cities of the empire, produced a profound sensation throughout the country. Rewards were offered for the recapture of Kelly and Deasy; the soldiers stationed at Manchester had orders to keep within their barracks and to be ready to act at a moment's notice; the city police were armed; the prisoners were escorted to the gaol by a large body of cavalry and an omnibus filled with infantry prepared to act at a moment's notice; the mayor of the city and several other magistrates followed in carriages, to be ready to give orders in case any attempt at rescue should be made; and a strong detachment of infantry guarded the gaol. Other persons who were suspected of having taken part in the rescue were subsequently arrested. A special commission was issued for the trial of the prisoners, and

EXECUTION OF BRETT'S MURDERERS.

329

1867.] Justices Blackburn and Mellor, the judges appointed under it, at once set out for Manchester. After some delay the trials of the persons accused of being more immediately concerned in the murder of Brett were proceeded with; and the jury, after deliberating for two hours, pronounced them guilty. Judge Mellor, in passing sentence, said that no one who had been present during the trial could doubt the justice of the verdict, and added that he should be deceiving the prisoners if he were to hold out to them any expectation that mercy would be shown to them. Three of them, Allen, Larkin, and Gould, were executed. Great efforts had been made by their fellow-conspirators to save them; the ministers had been threatened with assassination; and such was the alarm which the audacity of the Fenians had inspired, that up to the last moment there was a strong and prevalent expectation that some great blow would be struck and some great effort made to save Allen and his two companions from their impending fate. The inhabitants of Manchester felt as if they were sitting on the crater of a volcano from which an eruption might burst forth at any moment. On the other hand, the authorities had taken effectual precautions against any attempt that might be made to rescue or avenge the murderers. The sentence of the court was carried out in the most orderly and tranquil manner on Saturday the 23rd of November, in the presence of about 12,000 persons, who behaved with a propriety seldom displayed at public executions.

On Friday the 10th of December another reckless and desperate attempt, attended by the usual disregard of the injury or loss of life to innocent persons which it might cause, was made in London. Some Fenians were confined in the house of detention at Clerkenwell. Information had been conveyed to their keepers that an attempt would be made to release them by blowing-up a portion of the wall of the building in which they were confined. The police were therefore instructed to be on the alert, and the prisoners were prevented from taking exercise in the yard at the usual time. However, on the above-mentioned day a man was observed wheeling a large barrel towards the prison, and with the assistance of a companion placing it in contact with the wall. After an ineffectual attempt the two men lighted a fusee projecting from the barrel, and

ran away. They had scarcely disappeared when it exploded with a report that shook the metropolis, and was distinctly heard for many miles beyond it. The wall against which the barrel had been placed bounded the yard in which the prisoners were usually recreating at this hour. Had they been there, they would have run a great risk of being either killed or seriously injured. The wall was two feet in thickness and twenty feet high, and a breach was made in it by the explosion twenty feet wide at the bottom and seventy feet at the top; so that the prisoners who had escaped injury might have made their way out without difficulty. But the damage done was not confined to the prison wall. Several houses near to the spot where the barrel had been deposited, were almost entirely destroyed. Six persons were killed on the spot, six more died soon after, and at least a hundred and twenty were more or less seriously injured. Timothy Desmond, Jeremiah Allen, and Ann Justice, who had frequently visited the prisoners and had been seen lurking about the prison just before the explosion occurred, were arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in the outrage. Ultimately a man named Barrett was tried, convicted, and executed.

These events, but especially the murder of Brett, produced a profound impression throughout England. It was regarded not only as a crime of great atrocity, but also as an indication of a deep-seated disease in the body politic, requiring other and more thorough remedies than had hitherto been applied; and the state of public opinion thus produced made Mr. Gladstone feel that the time had come when the Irish Church question might be faced with a fair prospect of success.

Outrages even more base and cowardly than those committed by the Fenians were this year brought home to members of English trades-unions. The atrocities perpetrated by some of them had attracted general attention; and Lord Derby's government issued a commission to inquire into their organisation and rules. The general object of the societies whose character the commission was appointed to investigate, was to protect the interests of the workmen of the different trades they represented, and to raise and maintain the market-price of their labour. But the manner in which they pursued these objects was very

1867.1

TRADE OUTRAGES.

831

different. In some cases the action of the men was moderate, and the rules fair and reasonable; in others they were absurd or infamous. In some cases the members of the trade were free to join the union or to abstain from joining it as they thought proper, and no illegal measures were employed to compel non-unionists to become members against their will; in other cases the most frightful outrages were perpetrated against those who refused to join the union, or, having joined it, to submit to the dictation, often exceedingly stupid and arbitrary, of its governing body. One objectionable feature common to almost all these societies was, the combination of a provident club with a trades-union; thus giving the council power to punish those who refused to comply with all their unionist requirements by depriving them of the benefit of a club to which perhaps they had contributed for many years, and to which they had looked forward as a sure resource in sickness and old age.

The control obtained by these or by still more questionable means was exercised with excessive harshness. Every member of the union was required to strike as often as the governing body might think proper, however well he might be satisfied with the wages he received; he must not take piece-work or work overtime; and he was subjected to a variety of regulations with regard to his trade, the violation of any one of which would bring on him condign punishment. To work too diligently was a crime which was frequently visited with especial severity. In a word, the members of these unions were ruled with a tyranny that was almost insupportable; and the most infamous means were resorted to in order to compel persons to join the unions, or to punish them for their refusal; and these means were justified by those who resorted to them on the ground that the non-unionists obtained the benefits which resulted, or were supposed to result, from the action of the union, without helping to defray the expenses, or sharing the risks which attended this war between labour and capital. Such were the associations into the nature and character of which the Trades-Union Commission was appointed to inquire.

The town of Sheffield had long been notorious for outrages of a peculiarly diabolical character perpetrated, as