and in the course of the night they destroyed
the linings of several new carriages, and cut
and defaced the panels, carving on them the
names of obnoxious persons, and threats to
their employers.

It was now time for Government to interfere.
A reward of two hundred pounds
was offered for the apprehension of each
of the first three persons who should be
convicted of either of the offences which
signalised that unhappy month. As for the
Messrs. Hutton, they were fully aware of the
importance to their country of sustaining such
a manufacture as theirs; and they knew that
it could be done only by their conducting
their own business in their own way. They
reasoned kindly with their men, even
affectionately, showing them the true state of the
case, while they declared that they would
submit to no dictation, but conduct their
manufacture in their own way, or retire from
business. By this time, the manufacture was
so large, that the whole city was interested in
its continuance.

In 1812, it was found to be desirable to
bring over an accomplished coach-painter from
London. No man was removed to make way
for this Richard Couchman. The benevolent
employers hoped to provide work for new
men by every improvement they introduced;
but some few of their people were rather
muddle-headed—confounding the employment
of an Englishman in Ireland with sending
over Irish work to be done in England; which
last was exactly the misfortune which the
Messrs. Hutton were striving to avert. They
knew that the Irish gentry would buy carriages
in London (now that every body was
frequently going to London), unless they could
have them at least as good for the same money
in Dublin. Richard Couchman gave a supper
to his fellow-workmen on his arrival, according
to custom. On that night (in December,
1812), one of his guests, Arthur Conolly, told
him that the Irishmen did not want any
Englishmen among them, and that he, for
one, would not have his work found fault
with. This man had been originally a labourer
in the yard, at eight shillings a week. He
had been taught a branch of the business by
Mr. Hutton; and was now receiving excellent
wages as a painter. After this supper, he
became so morose and sullen, that his
employers, at the suggestion of Couchman
himself, raised his wages to twenty-eight
shillings per week, to remove from his mind
any notion that he was supplanted, or out of
favour. Nothing would do, however; and he
so conducted himself, that it was necessary to
discharge him the next June.

On the twenty-seventh of August, as
Couchman and another workman were going
home in the evening, and just as they
had parted, Couchman was felled by a blow
on the head. He was not at once perfectly
insensible. He felt many more blows, "as a
sort of jar," saw many legs, the glittering
of weapons, and the ends of bludgeons. He
saw also the face of Conolly and of one
Kelly; and so did the comrade he had just
parted with, who was also struck, and had
a narrow escape. It seems to carry us back
to a very old time, to read that these two
men—Conolly and Kelly—were pilloried.
They were imprisoned for two years, and
pilloried three times.

And now came out the civic heroism of
the benevolent employers. They were very
rich, and they might have withdrawn
from business. But they knew the worth,
both of the principle for which they were
contending, and of the maintenance of such
a manufacture as theirs. They knew
themselves to be in peril of their lives. They
went out to their country houses every evening
well armed. But they issued addresses
to their men, brave as benevolent,—in which
they avowed that they knew the guilty ones
among their people, and had their eye upon
them; that they would not yield a single
point on any compulsion whatever; and that
they preserved their sincere attachment to
the faithful among their work-people, to
whom they would be faithful in return.
They escaped attack. The two sons are
living now. If it had been otherwise, all
Ireland would have rung with the shame;
for their munificence was too great to be kept
secret by their modesty.

In 1824, there was another conflict; but it
was much less serious. The coach smiths of
the city of Dublin complained of the importation,
by the firm, of certain articles of
wrought iron, different from what they were
accustomed to make; which was, of course,
the reason of the importation. The firm
declined corresponding with any but their
own men; but pointed out to them that not
a forge or a man in Ireland was thrown out
of work by their importation, while there
was increased employment for everybody else
engaged in coach-making. The business had
grown prodigiously within forty years, and
this was owing to the liberty the firm had so
carefully guarded, of improving their
manufacture to the utmost; a liberty which they
meant to keep. Their men, however, had not
yet grown wise. Some of them refused to
touch the iron work imported from England.
This stopped the manufacture, of course, as
far as the new material was meant to be
applied. The firm issued an admirable
address to the rest of their people, promising
to employ them as long as it was possible to
do so; but showing that this could be but for
a short time, if the carriages could not be
finished. They had already offered to set up
in business two of their own smiths, to copy
the English patterns, supplying them with
capital, material, and apparatus, and paying
the same price as in England: but the refusal
of the offer showed that the aim of the men
was to preclude recent improvements, and
compel their employers to make coaches in