although no one was within a hundred yards of him, nor did they intend to be. But this was enough. The men were summoned by the police to appear before the magistrates at the Shirehouse, Norwich, on August 20th. Mr. Keefe was instructed to defend the men. I was unable to attend the court as I had to attend to two other emergency committees in connection with the harvest disputes. But Mr. Herbert Day, the Vice-President, was present in the court on behalf of the Union, and, although the police were unable to bring one solitary witness forward to swear that they saw anyone touch the old man or even go near him, the magistrates decided to convict and fined the men L5 each with costs. The total amount was L60 16s. or three months in prison. Mr. Herbert A Day at once wrote out a cheque for the amount and prevented the men from going to prison. This money he paid out of his own pocket and never took a penny from the Union, and, further, for months in addition to what the Union, paid the men with families he gave the married men with families 1s. per child. The report of the conviction, when it appeared in the daily papers on August 22nd, caused widespread consternation and indignation at such a sentence being passed on poor helpless men. Never before since the scandalous sentence of seven years' transportation passed on the Dorchester labourers on March 15, 1834, by Judge Baron John William, the prosecution that was ordered by Viscount Melbourne, the Whig Home Secretary who was out to crush the rising spirit of Trade Unionism, had there been such outspoken criticism of any magistrates' sentences, nor had there been such a spirit of indignation. On every Labour platform throughout the country the sentence was denounced as being most unjust and cruel, and, instead of it in any way damping the spirit of the labourers, it created a widespread interest, and through the efforts of my assistant I was able to report up to September 30th that we had enrolled into the Union in Norfolk over 1,800 members. Many expressions of gratitude were given to Mr. Day for his great spirit of humanity and kindness. But many of the leading Trade Unionists thought it would have been best to have let the men go to prison and to have taken steps at once to get the conviction quashed, which they said we should have had no trouble in doing, as it would have been the means of bringing even a more widespread sympathy to the men and to our cause.