Needham emptied and refilled a glass. “I’d hang every man who strikes,” he said. “Look at ‘em here,” he went on, producing a hand-bill which he offered to Reuben. “After the peace of Amiens,” it read, “the wages of a Journeyman Weaver would amount to 2/7 1/2 per day or 15/9 per week, and this was pretty near upon a par with other mechanics and we maintained our rank in society. We will now contrast our present situation with the past, and it will demonstrate pretty clearly the degraded state to which we have been reduced. “During the last two years our wages have been reduced to so low an ebb that for the greatest part of that time we have... the Journeyman’s Wages of 9d or 10d a day or from 4/6 to 5/--per week, and we appeal to your candor and good sense, whether such a paltry sum be sufficient to keep the soul and body together.” “What do you think of that?” asked Needham. “Printing it, mind you, spreading sedition and disaffection like that. Not a word about their wives and children all taken into the factories and all taking good wages out. If commerce isn’t to be unshackled and free of the attacks of a turbulent and insurrectionary spirit, I ask you, where are we? Where’s our chance of keeping law and order when the law permits weavers to combine and yap together and issue bills like yond? It’s fatal to allow ‘em to feel their strength and communicate with each other without restraint. Allow them to go on uninterrupted and they become more licentious every day. What do you say, Hepplestall?” “Why, sir, it’s you who are making a speech, and I may add a speech containing many very familiar phrases.” “Aye, I’ve said it before, and to you. I might have spared my breath. But hast heard the latest? Dost know that the strikers in Blackburn destroyed every power-loom within six miles of the town and... and...” Mr. Needham drew in breath... “and they’ve been syringing cloth wi’ vitriol. Soft sawder in yond hand-bill, ‘appeal to your candor and good sense,’ aye and vitriol on good cloth when it comes to deeds.” “Yes, I heard of that. A nasty business, though I understand the authorities have dealt strongly with the outbreak.” “Aye, you’re a philosopher, because it happened at a distance from you. It’s some one else’s looms that’s smashed, and some one else’s cloth that’s rotted. What if it were youm, Hepplestall?” “We don’t have Luddites here.” “You allays think you’re out of everything. Now I’ve brought you the facts and you know as well as I do what’s the cause of this uppishness of the lower orders. It’s Peel, damn him. One of us, and ought to know better. Sidmouth’s the man for my money. Sidmouth and Castlereagh. There was sense about when they were in charge. Now, we let the spinners combine and the weavers combine and they’re treading on our faces. Well, are you standing by your lonesome as usual or are you in it with the rest of us to petition against workmen’s combinations? That’s a straight question, Hepplestall.”