But the little knot of apostles to whom Lord Shaftesbury's letters introduced us, and into whose intimate _conciliabules_ his recommendations caused our admittance, was to my mother, and yet more to me, to whom the main social part of the business naturally fell, a singularly new and strange one. They were all, or nearly all of them, men a little raised above the position of the factory hands, to the righting of whose wrongs they devoted their lives. They had been at some period of their lives, in almost every case, factory workers themselves, but had by various circumstances, native talent, industry, and energy, or favouring fortune--more likely by all together--managed to raise themselves out of the slough of despond in which their fellows were overwhelmed. One, I remember, a Mr. Doherty, a very small bookseller, to whom we were specially recommended by Lord Shaftesbury. He was an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, and a furious Radical, but a _very_ clever man. He was thoroughly acquainted with all that had been done, all that it was hoped to do, and with all the means that were being taken for the advancement of those hopes, over the entire district. He came and dined with us at our hotel, but it was, I remember, with much difficulty that we persuaded him to do so, and when at table his excitement in talking was so great and continuous that he could eat next to nothing. I remember, too, a Rev. Mr. Bull, to whom he introduced us subsequently at Bradford. We passed the evening with this gentleman at the house of Mr. Wood, of the firm of Walker and Wood, to whom also we had letters from Lord Shaftesbury. He, like our host, was an ardent advocate of the ten hours' bill, but unlike him, had very little hope of legislative interference. Messrs. Walker and Wood employed three thousand hands. At a sacrifice of some thousands per annum, they worked their hands an hour less than any of their neighbours, which left the hours, as Mr. Wood strongly declared, still too long. Those gentlemen had built and endowed a church and a school for their hands, and everything was done in their mill which could humanise and improve the lot of the men, women, and children. Mr. Bull, who was to be the incumbent of the new church, then not quite finished, was far less hopeful than his patron. He told me that he looked forward to some tremendous popular outbreak, and should not be surprised any night to hear that every mill in Bradford was in flames.