I had, however, one great trouble. My dear wife, who had been such a help to me, began to fail in health, both mentally and bodily, and I saw the end was coming. During the summer it was my misfortune to be insulted by a drunken man, a son of a small farmer at Sharrington. I was advertised to address a meeting near the old cross at Sharrington. On my arrival at the place of meeting this man lay on the green drunk. As soon as I commenced to speak he commenced to brawl and shout so that no one could be heard. When I asked him to be quiet he got up and struck me a violent blow in the chest. What else he would have done had he not been stopped I am unable to say. As it was I was laid up for a week and had to go to a doctor. The man was summoned before the Holt Bench and he was fined L1. The Executive at the meeting held on April 24th decided that the Union should be affiliated with the Trade Union Congress, and that we should pay on the basis of 3,000 members. I was elected delegate to attend the Congress at Ipswich on September 6th, which I did, and had a most cordial reception by the delegates and was especially mentioned in the President's address. I attended the Congress and spoke on the system of tied cottages. Mr. Smillie, on behalf of the miners, moved the following resolution:-- This Congress urges upon the Labour Members in the House of Commons to take up at once the question of the eviction of workmen and their families from their homes during trade disputes and do everything possible to pass into law a measure that would put an end to this cruel method of warfare. Although this resolution did not quite meet the case of the agricultural labourer, I supported it, as it gave me an opportunity to bring before the public's notice the difficult position the tied cottage system put the agricultural labourers in. I made the following speech:-- The delegates coming from the large centres of industry have no idea of the seriousness of the question from the standpoint of the agricultural labourers. If a town worker is evicted from his house he can soon get another in an adjoining street. That is not the case with the agricultural labourer. If he is evicted from his cottage he cannot get another in the same village nor in any of the five or six villages near him. I hold in my hand a copy of an agreement which an agricultural labourer has to enter into with the landlord on some estates before he takes his cottage. It reads as follows:-- "I, the undersigned, agree to hire the cottage in the Parish of................the property of....................at a rental of................and agree to give the cottage up at a week's notice should the landlord require it for any other workman. I also agree not to keep any pigs or fowls without first obtaining permission from the landlord or his agent.