Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
But it is not alone the landlords who become obnoxious to the peasantry,
when they seek to do them good by giving them profitable employment. The
same hostility is extended to others who attempt the same object, if
they endeavour to get "a fair day's work for a fair day's wages." Mr
M'Donald, the superintendent of the Killaloe Slate Quarries, was shot at
and desperately wounded in the presence of three men, who refused to
arrest the assassin, for no other reason than because he endeavoured to
have justice done his employers; and the following extract from the
report of the Irish Mining Company of Ireland, contains the particulars
of as wanton an outrage as can well be conceived:--
"At Earlshill Colliery, possession of which was recovered on 4th of
April last, considerable progress had been made in sinking two
engine-pits, one of which was sunk forty-four yards, the other
twenty-six yards, on the 20th October, when the steward in charge
of the works, Martin Morris, was shot at and severely wounded on
his return from the colliery to his house; and although large
rewards have been offered for information that might lead to the
conviction of the authors and perpetrators of the outrage, they
have not been made amenable to justice. And your board having
reason to believe that the outrage was contemplated with a view to
impede free action by your agents in the proper management of the
works, and having been satisfied, on minute inquiry, that there was
no cause of complaint on the part of the men employed against the
steward or manager of the works; and some of the men employed on
contract, subsequent to the outrage committed on Martin Morris,
having received threatening notices to resign their contracts on
pain of death, your board deemed it advisable, means not having
been yet devised for affording due protection to the men employed,
to order that the works should be suspended on the 20th December;
and the works have been suspended accordingly. The working of South
Balinaslick Colliery has been suspended for the same reason--Martin
Morris having had charge of the underground works in both
collieries. If your board and its agents in the management of those
works had neglected the moral duties of such an establishment as
yours in this important district, some excuse might be offered by
the Guild for the outrage committed--the first, however, your board
has had to complain of during twenty years that your works have
been in operation; but the following facts prove that the company's
duties have been duly and literally attended to. The men are
promptly paid weekly--contractors as well as daily labourers. The
contractors at Earlshill, at the period in which the outrage was
committed, earned on an average 2s. 6d. per day, some so much as
3s.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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