“When an Englishman takes off his coat to fight, he asks no favour from his opponent; but he does expect fair play, and if Englishmen are the onlookers he gets it, whether they like him or whether they don’t. He doesn’t expect to be struck below the belt; he doesn’t expect to be strangled on the ropes; he doesn’t expect to be hit when he is down. We stripped for a square and fair fight with Manager Sartwell, and we have fought as men should. We have broken no law; we have raised no disturbance. The police, always eager enough to arrest a striker, have laid hands on none of us. It has been a square, stand-up, honourable fight. It has been a fair fight on our side, and I am proud to have been connected with it. But in this struggle I have made one mistake. I made the mistake of thinking we were fighting an honourable opponent--with a man who would not break the rules of the ring. I was not on the outlook for foul play--for trickery. Knowing what I do to-night, I say--and I am ready to take the consequences of my words--that Sartwell is a thief, and a cowardly thief in the estimation of any honest man. He knew that the life of our fight was our money. He knew that starvation for the helpless wives and families of our men was his most powerful ally. He did not dare to break in and steal our money, because he was afraid of the law, but he took a meaner and more cowardly way of accomplishing the robbery. He appealed to the cupidity of men out of work--poor devils! I don’t blame them; they were doubtless starving--and he told them that if they masqueraded as employees of his, the Union would take them in, and pay them wages, as long as there was no suspicion aroused--that is, if these men kept their mouths shut they could draw strike pay. Much as I have always despised Sartwell, I did not think he would stoop to a trick like this. A man who robs a bank has some courage, but a man who tempts poverty-stricken wretches to commit the crime, while he stands safely aside and reaps the benefit--there is no decent word in the language to characterize him. Now, men, you know what has been done, and the result is that our treasury is as empty as if Sartwell had broken into it with a jimmy. The manager is waiting expectantly for the reward of his burglary. He will throw the gates of the works open to-morrow for you to enter and complete his triumph. The question before the meeting to-night is--Are you going in?” A universal shout of, “Never! We’ll starve first!” rose to the rafters of the building. When he first confronted the meeting that night, Gibbons feared he could not rouse the men from their evident coldness toward him; as the speech went on, increasing murmurs among the men and at length savage outbursts of rage showed him that he held them in the hollow of his hand; at the end, a word from him, and all the police in that part of London could not have saved the works from wreck and flames.