chester delegates be heard, presses motion
—Mr. Chairman, will that delegate tell us,
as a man, that these men have anything to say
concerning this present strike and lock-out,
for we have a deal of business to do, and
what concerns this present strike and lock-
out is our business and nothing else is. (Hear
hear hear!)—Delegate in question will not
compromise the fact; these men want to
defend the Labour Parliament from certain
charges made against them.—Very well, Mr.
Chairman, Then I move as an amendment
that you do not hear these men now, and
that you proceed wi' business—and if you don't
I'll look after you, I tell you that. (Cheers
and laughter)—Coom lads, prove 't then!—
Two or three hands for the delegates; all the
rest for the business. Motion lost, amendment
carried, Manchester deputation not to
be heard.

But now, starts up the delegate from
Throstletown in a dreadful state of mind.
Mr. Chairman, I hold in my hand a bill; a bill
that requires and demands explanation from
you, sir; an offensive bill; a bill posted in
my town of Throstletown without my
knowledge, without the knowledge of my fellow
delegates who are here beside me; a bill
purporting to be posted by the authority of  the
massed committee sir, and of which my fellow
delegates and myself were kept in ignorance.
Why are we to be slighted? Why are we
to be insulted? Why are we to be meanly
stabbed in the dark? Why is this assassin-like
course of conduct to be pursued towards us?
Why is Throstletown, which has nobly assisted
you, the operatives of Preston, in this great
struggle, and which has brought its. contributions
up to the full sevenpence a loom, to be
thus degraded, thus aspersed, thus traduced,
thus despised, thus outraged in its. feelings
by un-English and unmanly conduct? Sir, I
hand you up that bill, and I require of you,
sir, to give me a satisfactory explanation of
that bill. And I have that confidence in
your known integrity, sir, as to be sure that
you will give it, and that you will tell
us who is to blame, and that you will
make reparation to Throstletown for this
scandalous treatment. Then, in hot blood,
up starts Grutfshaw (professional speaker)
who is somehow responsible for this bill. O
my friends, but explanation is required here!
O my friends, but it is fit and right that you
should have the dark ways of the real
traducers and apostates, and the real un-English
stabbers, laid bare before you. My friends,
when this dark conspiracy first began—But
here the persuasive right hand of the chairman
falls gently on Gruffshaw's shoulder.
Gruffshaw stops in full boil. My friends, these are
hard words of my friend Gruffshaw, and this
is not the business—No more it is, and once
again, sir, I, the delegate who said I would
look after you, do move that you proceed to
business!—Preston has not the strong relish
for personal altercation that Westminster
hath. Motion seconded and carried, business
passed to, Gruffshaw dumb.

Perhaps the world could not afford a
more remarkable contrast than between the
deliberate collected manner of these men
proceeding with their business, and the clash
and hurry of the engines among which their
lives are passed. Their astonishing fortitude
and perseverance; their high sense of honour
among themselves; the extent to which they
are impressed with the responsibility that is
upon them of setting a careful example, and
keeping their order out of any harm and
loss of reputation; the noble readiness in
them to help one another, of which most
medical practitioners and working clergymen
can give so many affecting examples;
could scarcely ever be plainer to an
ordinary observer of human nature than in
this cockpit. To hold for a minute, that the
great mass of them were not sincerely actuated
by the belief that all these qualities were
bound up in what they were doing, and that
they were doing right, seemed to me little
short of an impossibility. As the different
delegates (some in the very dress in which
they had left the mill last night) reported the
amounts sent from the various places they
represented, this strong faith on their parts seemed
expressed in every tone and every look that
was capable of expressing it. One man was
raised to enthusiasm by his pride in bringing
so much; another man was ashamed and
depressed because he brought so little; this man
triumphantly made it known that he could
give you from the store in hand, a hundred
pounds in addition next week, if you should
want it; and that man pleaded that he hoped
his district would do better before long; but
I could as soon have doubted the existence
of the walls that enclosed us, as the earnestness
with which they spoke (many of them
referring to the children who were to be
born to labour after them) of " this great,
this noble, gallant, godlike struggle." Some
designing and turbulent spirits among them,
no doubt there are; but I left the place with
a profound conviction that their mistake is
generally an honest one, and that it is
sustained by the good that is in them, and not by
the evil.

Neither by night nor by day was there any
interruption to the peace of the streets. Nor
was this an accidental state of things, for the
police records of the town are eloquent to the
same effect. I traversed the streets very
much, and was, as a stranger, the subject of a
little curiosity among the idlers; but I met
with no rudeness or ill-temper. More than
once, when I was looking at the printed
balance-sheets to which I have referred, and
could not quite comprehend the setting forth
of the figures, a bystander of the working
class interposed with his explanatory
forefinger and helped me out. Although the
pressure in the cockpit on Sunday was excessive,
and the heat of the room obliged me to