conclusive. The prisoners were defended by
Henry, now Lord Brougham. At that day it
was a peculiarity of the law in trials for such
crimes as the prisoners were charged with, that
while their counsel could cross-examine the
witnesses for the crown, and examine the witnesses
for the defence, they could not address the jury
on behalf of the accused. This palpable and
cruel injustice no longer exists. Mr. Justice
Le Blanc, the presiding judge, summed up the
evidence clearly and impartially. At the close
of the summing up the jury retired, and
returned in twenty-five minutes, bringing in a
verdict of 'Guilty' against all the prisoners,
who, upon being asked if they had anything to
urge why sentence of death should not be
passed upon them, severally declared that they
were 'Not Guilty,' Thorpe adding, 'Evidence
has been given false against me, that I declare.'
Before and after the conviction an impression
possessed many minds that Smith was not as
culpable as the rest, and that he was as much
sinned against as sinning. This feeling was
strengthened by the fact that the jury singled
him out from the rest, and, the day before the
execution, recommended him to mercy; but the
recommendation was disregarded. The trial
concluded on Wednesday, the 6th of January. In
those days death followed quickly upon
conviction, and on the Friday following the execution
of the three men took place at York. In
the short interval between conviction and
execution the prisoners were very penitent, yet
persistently refused to make any acknowledgment
of their guilt. Mellor declared 'that he
would rather be in the situation he was then
placed in, dreadful as it was, than have to
answer for the crime of their accuser (Walker);'
adding, that 'he would not change places with
him for his liberty and two thousand pounds.'
To prevent the possibility of rescue, the place of
execution was guarded by a strong force of
cavalry and infantry, and at nine o'clock in the
morning, in the presence of a vast assemblage
of people, the murderers met their doom.
Though deeply affected, they made no confession
of their guilt. On the Saturday but one
following, fourteen more persons were executed
at York for crimes of a similar character; a
wholesale execution which has since had no
parallel in England."

Walker, the informer, was ever after shunned
and detested. His ill-earned money did not
prosper; he became poor, and in his old age
had to apply for parish relief at Huddersfield.

"The members of the firm of Messrs. Abraham
and John Horsfall took the death of their
son and nephew greatly to heart; and the father,
Mr. Abraham Horsfall, from thenceforth
appeared to imbibe a dislike to Marsden. The use
of the obnoxious machinery was discontinued at
Ottiwells, and cropping by hand resumed; and
in a few years afterwards their mill property in
Marsden was disposed of, Bankbottom Mills
passing into the possession of Messrs. Norris,
Sykes, and Priestley; and Ottiwells to Messrs.
Abraham and William Kinder. It is related
that, after his son's death, Mr. Abraham Horsfall
never again entered the mill at Ottiwells, and
when riding past on his way to Bankbottom, he
invariably averted his face from the mill, as if
its very sight was hateful and painful to him."

On the 9th of January, Haigh, Dean, Ogden,
the three Brooks, Walker, and Hirst were tried
for the attack on Cartwright's mill. Haigh,
Dean, Ogden, Thomas Brook, and Walker were
found guilty and hung. The rest were
acquitted.

After this wholesome severity, the Luddites
never made much head in Yorkshire. The spirit
of resistance was roused, leaders were wanting
to the rioters, and the better class of workmen
began to shrink from combinations that, beginning
in destroying machinery, soon ripened into
murder.

Brandreth and his treason, terribly expiated
on the scaffold at Derby, belongs more to the
history of political agitation. The Nottingham
riots were not attended with circumstances so
interesting as those we have given, and the
burning of Messrs. Wire and Duncroft's
manufactory at West Houghton, in Lancashire, on
the 24th of April, 1812, we have no room to
describe here.

The record of the Luddite riots is a black and
warning page in the social history of England.
It is a melancholy picture of ignorance, of
useless crime, and of cruel vengeance, yet it was
by such painful and blood-stained steps that the
English workman learned the madness and folly
of combinations against progress. Cobbett,
with his fine vigorous Saxon sense, refuted the
arguments of the Yorkshire rioters in his
admirable and most useful "Letter to the
Luddites." He says:

"To show that machines are not naturally and
necessarily an evil, we have only to suppose the
existence of a patriarchal race of a hundred men
and their families, all living in common, four
men of which are employed in making cloth by
hand. Now, suppose some one to discover a
machine by which all the cloth wanted can be
made by one man. The consequence would be
that the great family would (having enough of
everything else) use more cloth; or, if any part
of the labour of the three cloth-makers were
much wanted in any other department, they
would be employed in that other department.
Thus would the whole be benefited by this
invention. The whole would have more clothes
amongst them, or more food would be raised, or
the same quantity as before would be raised,
leaving the community more leisure for study or
recreation. See ten miserable mariners cast on
shore on a desert island, with only a bag of wheat
and a little flax-seed. The soil is prolific; they
have fish and fruits; the branches or bark of trees
would make them houses, and the wild animals
afford them meat. Yet, what miserable dogs
they are! They can neither sow the wheat,
make the flour, nor catch the fish or the animals.
But let another wreck toss on the shore a spade,
a hand-mill, a trowel, a hatchet, a saw, a pot, a