17 JUNE 1876, Page 15

WORKMEN'S OFFENCES.

[To THB EDITOR OF THB "SPECTATOR."]

Sllt,—In your interesting article this week on " Workmen and Offences against the Public," you seem to lose sight of one fact which vitally affects your argument. The fourth clause of the Employers' and Workmen's Act provides that any one breaking a "contract of service," so as to threaten dangerous interference with the supply of gas or water to a town, may be imprisoned, and the efforts of Sir John Lubbock and Mr. William Holms to get the words " of service " left out, or the words " or other con- tract" inserted after them, were unsuccessful. It may fairly be said, therefore, that workmen, and workmen alone, are liable to criminal procedure for these wrongs done to the community. Thus it remains to be true, I submit, " that the law has one measure for the master and another for the workman."—I am,