The Federation had provided very comfortable huts for them to live in on the farms and, when they had to pass through the village, they conveyed them in carts guarded by policemen. There was no necessity for that, and it was a wicked waste of time and money for which the county had to pay. The men and their wives had received instructions from me that they were not on any account to molest the strike-breakers, however great the provocation, and they loyally carried it out, for no leader of Labour in time of disputes ever had more loyal followers than I had in the St. Faith's and Trunch districts. But I could not always be with them, as I had to stump the county holding meetings in the interest of the Union, and the young folks and the women would have a little harmless horse-play. But the employers grew more bitter every day and apparently were determined to compel these poor people to break the law. Writing twelve years after this dispute I can write more calmly and yet more deliberately, and I assert without fear of contradiction that there was a deliberate attempt on the part of someone to compel these poor people in some way to lay themselves open to be prosecuted, and that the authorities were anxious to embrace the first opportunity to punish severely these poor people for daring to demand the right to live by their labour and to see their wives and children properly fed and clothed. One day the occasion arose, although no one could ever say that there was any attempt to molest the strike-breakers or in any way to use violence towards them. When these men were being conveyed from one farm to another guarded by the police about twelve of the men's wives gathered together with kettles and saucepans and sang one of the Union's songs on the approach of the blacklegs, and, although they never approached nearer than one hundred yards to the strike-breakers, they certainly followed them through the village, beating their tin kettles and singing their Union ditties. They were summoned by the police and appeared before the magistrates at the Shirehouse, Norwich. They were ably defended by our solicitor, Mr. Keefe. Although he proved that there was no breach of the law of intimidation, the magistrates bound these women over to keep the peace for six months. But soon another occasion arose for these people to be cruelly persecuted. One of the men, after urging upon his fellow workers to strike, had gone back again to work. One afternoon he went to work on his allotment. About twelve of the men went to the allotment gate with tin kettles and a concertina and waited until he came out to the road to go home, and without saying a word to him walked about one hundred yards behind him, playing their concertina and singing one of Sankey's hymns, "Kind words can never die." The wife, hearing the singing, came out into the road and began to shriek out and make a dreadful noise and shout out, "Oh, they will kill my husband!"