Generation after generation had struggled for their rights, and numerous Acts were passed to redress their grievances; but no sooner was an Act passed than ways and means were found to evade it. Then four brave men, Robert Newell, Henry Barthorpe, George Applegate, and Daniel Brown, created amongst their oppressed fellow-labourers an excitement which never subsided till the Corporation of London took their case in hand. Lieutenant Arnold, with a view to benefit them, established an office, but the publicans combined against him and drove him out of the field. The London Corporation appointed a committee to examine into the whole matter. Government was besieged, but Mr. Labouchere told the coal-whippers that they could not interfere, “as it would be too great an interference with the rights of labour.” The coal-whippers, however, were not to be daunted, and after years of unremitting toil, in which their claims had become increasingly appreciated, Mr. Gladstone prevailed upon the House of Commons to pass the Act which on the 22nd of August, 1843, received the royal assent. The Act simply provided that an office should be established where the coal-whippers should assemble, and that owners and captains of vessels discharging their cargoes by hired men and by the process of whipping should make to them the first offer to discharge their cargoes. It in no way interfered with or attempted to fix the price of the labour. This was left as a matter of contract between employers and employed. As there were conflicting interests to be consulted, the bill provided that the proposed office should be placed under the management of nine commissioners, four of whom should be appointed by the Board of Trade, and four by the Corporation of the City of London, the chairman to be the chairman for the time being of the Shipowners’ Society of London. To show how the Act has worked, we make the following extract from an appeal to the House of Commons by the Committee of the Registered Coal-whippers in the Port of London, published in May of the present year, and which bears the names of John Farrow, John Doyle, William Brown, Michael Barry, John Cronin. They say:—“The object contemplated by the Legislature in the establishment of the office was to secure to the men the full amount of their earnings _immediately_ after their labour was completed, with the exception of one farthing in the shilling, which is required to be left in the office to defray necessary expenses. At first the office was fiercely opposed by interested parties, because it broke up a system of vile, degrading, and unjust extortion, by which these men derived their profits; but this opposition soon subsided, the price of labour became equalised by an understanding between the employers and the employed, the former being at liberty to offer any price they were willing to give, and the latter to accept or refuse as they thought proper; and the only compulsory clause