Wages in fact sank to subsistence level, and the smaller the master the more he beat down his men by allowances and undercut his selling prices. Some of them kept shops as well as factories, and broke the Truck Act every day. The Chamber of Commerce in 1836 stated the average wages as follows: In 1833-4, men 17s. to 21s., women 6s. to 11s., child of 14, 3s. to 3s. 6d.; in 1836, men 21s. to 28s., women 10s. to 15s., child 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. These figures probably exaggerate slightly the rise in wages, and under the allowance system they soon sank again to the pre-union level. The general election took place in the middle of the black year 1837, and the return of the two Conservative masters, Davenport and Copeland, for Stoke-on-Trent, resulted in rioting on the part of the wage-earners who were then non-voters. These riots were repeated in a more serious form at the election of 1841, but it was the houses rather than the factories of the unpopular side that were demolished. During those busy years of the railway boom, the Trade Unions again raised their head in North Staffordshire. The third union was started in September 1843. It began with a small success—a partial strike lasting nine months—but as a rule it avoided conflicts and tried to work by moral suasion and public opinion. With this end in view they published a paper, “The Potters’ Examiner,” in which the more flagrant cases of “truck” and “allowance” were exposed. They succeeded in gradually levelling up the bad masters. A few prosecutions stopped the truck system, and allowances vanished in 1844 under gentle pressure from a strong union and doubts as to their legality. It is only fair to say that the best firms had never countenanced the “allowances,” and were glad to see the worse makers forced to drop them.