pounds should lie immediately raised; and
they suggest that all cases of prosecution
which the committee of management may be
of opinion can be legitimately dealt with by
the Association, shall be defended by, and the
penalties or damages paid out of the funds of
the Association."

Who, after this, can share the indignation
of the cotton owners when poor operatives
strike;— when they subscribe money to
sustain each other in a combination against what
they believe — though not always rightly—
to be grievous wrong. The operative strikes
against hunger, against what he thinks hard
dealing on the part of his employers. The
employer strikes against humanity, and shows
how hardly he can deal, by subscribing to
help and be helped in a struggle against the
necessity of furnishing protection to the lives
of his workpeople. The operative has a
right to withhold his labour when he is not
satisfied with its reward : the master has no
right to leave his machinery unfenced, when
the law orders him to fence it ; and, in spite
of the phrase " cases that can be legitimately
dealt with," it is evident that he associates
with other masters that he may successfully
oppose the law by the payment of a slight
annual subscription. Application is made
for it by the Association to all factory
owners, at the rate of one shilling per
nominal horse-power. This subscription will
enable him to persist in doing wrong and
to take all the consequences, without any
great harm to his pocket. Penalties are
to be paid out of the funds of the
Association. Should the struggle prove expensive,
there is a provision made in the rules of
the Association for the maintenance of funds
to an unlimited amount ; for, says the eighth
rule, ' when the balance in the hands of
the treasurer shall be less than the sum
produced by a rate of sixpence per horse-
power, the committee shall make a further
call."

"We do not know whether the employer of
the youth who was crushed the other day by
an unfenced shaft, in the manner stated by
the newspaper report to which we have
referred, had paid his money to the Association.
If he had, we suppose he will have his pocket
carefully defended from any of the
consequences which may fall upon it should he
be sued under the act in that case made and
provided.

There can be no doubt now, we think, of
the direction that will have eventually to be
taken by the law, — is it too much to hope that
it can be taken with the proper promptitude?
A time should be fixed, after which the mill-owner will leave shafts unfenced at his peril.
Being liable, as he now is, and must be made
to feel that he is, to penalties only too small
upon conviction of the simple fact that he
defies the law, he must be held legally, what
he is actually, guilty of Manslaughter,
whenever it is proved that his illegal practice has
destroyed a life. At least, the body of the
National Association could not undertake to
go to prison for its members.

CRIES FROM THE PAST.

IN my hedge-side wallet there are yet more
curiosities of London left, though I may bid
Mr. Timbs farewell, with hearty thanks.
There are some curious things and curious
people about town that are within my ken,
and whose acquaintance I should like my
readers to make. But they are of a humbler,
meaner, less historical order than the
curiosities of Mr. Timbs.* They bear, perhaps,
about the same relation to the archaeological,
artistic, or literary curiosities of the metropolis,
that one of those grotesque old pew-
ledges or ludicrously carved bench-ends you
find in mediæval cathedrals, bears to the grand
groined and fretted roof, the pillared aisles,
the altar-screen decussated with sculptured
tracery, the storied windows staining the
marble of the tombs beneath with their dim
religious light, or flashing on the epitaphs of
the good and the brave with many-coloured
glories — echoes of the Glory to which they
are gone. Mine are the curiosities of
obscurity, poverty, and the paltry devices of
a cankered civilisation. To others I leave the
memorials of arts and learning, and heroic
achievements, and pious deeds.

The cries of London are exceeding curious,
and have been so for ages. But those I
allude to are scarcely commercial. They are
not such as you will find recorded with pencil
as well as pen in old books. They do not
enter into the same category as " Lily-white
muffins! " " Hearth-stones and Silver-sand!"
"Umbrellas to mend! " " Knives and scissors
to grind, O! " " Maids, have you any coney-
skins ? " "Cherry-ripe! " " Sparragrass!"
"Hot grey pease and a suck of bacon! " (I
have a picture of this cry in action,
representing the pease merchant holding to the
eager lips of a town-made boy a small lump
of bacon secured to the end of a string — a
taste of this porcine delicacy serving as a
"relish" to the hot grey pease; but the string
being provided lest the boy in an ecstacy
of epicurean delight, should incontinently
bolt it altogether.) They are not of the same
order of cries as " Tiddy-iddy-doll! " as " Pity
the poor Prisoners in the dark Dungeon!"
—a cry popular when the infamous city-
gates were standing, and used as places of
confinement — or as that well-known, long-
continued cry of the man who sold the little
cakes with currants in them, crying:—

If I'd as much money as I could tell,
I would not cry young lambs to sell.

Nor are my cries to be confounded with the
homelier and more modern ones—the cries
that, come home to our ears, bosoms and
pockets every day in the week save Sunday:

* See Curiosities of London, page 495