THE STATE TRIALS.* IN all probability, the majority of our
readers will declare, with vehemence, that the State trials are a subject upon which they "very much prefer to remain ignorant." They will be wrong, however ; and more than that, they will ac- knowledge themselves to be wrong, if they can only be induced to make a beginning upon the great work which is now being issued under the supervision of the State-Trials Committee. The volume just issued in no sense belongs to the class which Hood said should be ticketed "Literature Suited to Desolate Islands," books,— " Such as only one wrecked, or in small country taverns, Such as hermits would mortify over in caverns, Such as Cream might dip in, although there are few so Outrageously cornered by fate as poor Crusoe."
Instead, it is one of the most readable and fascinating works published this year, and, if judiciously treated, may afford a great deal of pleasure and interest to the general reader. What strikes one most about the book is its univer- sality. Everything comes into it,—Home-rule, the House of Lords, Limitation of the Hours of Labour, Strikes, Socialism, Disestablishment, and the literary position of Shelley. One of the appearances of Home-rule is not a little amusing and significant. It is nothing less than the opinion expressed by O'Connell as to the proper way of bringing public pressure to bear upon an Irish Parliament. In 1840, Feargus O'Connor was defending himself at York Assizes on a charge of seditious libel. If he was rightly prosecuted, he asked, why should men who had said far more violent things have been let alone P To sup- port this contention, Feargus O'Connor read out passages from the speeches of Daniel O'Connell. At the Drogheda Dinner, he declared that he himself had heard the " Liberator " use these words : "Oh, if we had but a Parliament sitting in College Green, the Kildare boys would walk in some fine morning with their short sticks, when the House was about to divide, to teach their Members how to vote." It is curious to note O'Connell's power of appreciating the essential charac- teristics of his countrymen. We cannot doubt that if a Par- liament ever does meet on College Green, the scene O'Connell describes with so much gusto will be enacted. Public opinion in Dublin would be delighted to see the Kildare boys "walking into" the Irish representatives with their sticks, short or long. Other quotations made by Feargus O'Connor show that Mr. Parnell was by no means the sole inventor and patentee of boycotting. For example, O'Connell said at Youghal, famous daring the last few years for the publication of a black. list :—" The shopkeepers have the votes, but the people have the money. Let no man spend his money with an enemy ; let every man, then, only deal with him who will support the repeal of the Union." Speaking in Kerry, he was still more violent :—" Let every man's door be marked who shall oppose the people; at all events, let tie have the satisfaction of know- ing our friends from our enemies." The trial in which these quotations occur is, however, by no means the most interest- ing in which Feargus O'Connor appears. The most striking trial in the book is that of Feargus O'Connor, who with fifty-eight other Chartists, in 1843, before Baron Rolfe, at Lancaster, was charged, amongst other things, with a seditious conspiracy to induce "her Majesty's liege sub- jects" "to unite, confederate, and agree to leave their several and respective employments, and to produce a cessation of labour throughout a large portion of this realm," with intent to bring about "a change in the laws and con- stitution of this realm." The chief interest of the trial centres in the speeches delivered by the defendants. In these speeches the condition of the working-class population in Lancashire during the forties is brought out with terrible realism. Let those who imagine that the people are worse off now than they were fifty years ago read the speech of Pilling, one of the defendants. This man, though but a poor cotton operative, seems to have possessed a wonderful gift of simple eloquence. His words bring home with extra- ordinary force the horrors of "the Factory System" as it was worked in the forties. The effect of the speech on the Court is thus described in a note by Feargus O'Connor :- "The artless and unvarnished statement of Pilling told with thrilling effect upon all who heard it. Not only the ladies, but
* Reports of State Trials. New Series. Vol. IV., 1839 to 1843. Published under the direction of the State Trials Committee. Edited by John E. P. Wallis, , of the Middle Temple. London c Eyre tuul Spottiewoode. 1892.
the jury, the Judge, and even the Attorney-General himself, were affected to tears by the truthful and touching address of this factory operative. Indeed, the Attorney-General was so over- powered by the picture drawn by Pilling of the distress which existed among the working classes previous to the turn-out, and the heartless cruelty which they experienced at the hands of the master-ninnufacturers, that he was obliged to leave the Court."
The report of the speech fully bears out this description, and we cannot recall any more affecting piece of eloquence than Pilling's address. It must not be supposed, however, that the speech is merely rhetorically effective. It is something in the man's nature which gives it its peculiar character. The true effect cannot, of course, be given in an extract. It must be read as a whole to be fully appreciated. We will, however, quote the following passage :— " My Lord, and gentlemen of the jury, it was then a hard case for me to support myself and family. My eldeet son but one, who was sixteen years of age, had fallen into a consumption last Easter and left his work. We were then reduced to Rd. a cut, which brought our earnings down to something like 16s. a week. That is all 1 had to live on, with my nine in family, 33. a week going out of that for rent, and a sick son lying helpless before me. I have gone home and seen that son—(here Pilling was unable to proceed for some time)—I have seen that son lying on a sick bed and dying pillow, and having nothing to eat but potatoes and salt. Now, gentlemen of the jury, just put yourselves in this situation, and ask yourselves whether seeing a sick son that had worked twelve hours a day for six years in a factory—a good and in- dustrious lad—I ask you, gentlemen, how you would feel if you saw your son lying on a sick bed and dying pillow, with neither medical aid nor any of the common necessaries of life ? Yea, I recollect somo one going to a gentleman's house in Ashton to ask for a bottle of wine for him, and it was said, Oh, he is a Chartist, he must have none.' Oh, such usage from the rich will never convince the Chartists that they are wrong. Gentlemen, my son died before the commencement of the strike, and such was the feeling of the people of Ashton towards my family that they collected 44 towards his burial. Gentlemen of the jury, it was under these circumstances that I happened to call at Stockport, excited I will admit by the loss of my son, together with a re- duction of 25 per cent ; for I will acknowledge and confess before you, gentlemen of the jury, that before I would have lived to sub- mit to another reduction of 2;5 per cent., I would have terminated my own existence. That was my intention."
The idea of suicide again and again occurs in Pilling's speech. Here is his description of the state in which the operatives found themselves before the strike and while in regular work : "My Lord, and gentlemen of the jury, I have only this to say, that whatever evidence has been given against me, you will make great allowance for the situation in which I was placed in respect to my family and the operatives with whom I worked. I have seen in the factory in which I have worked wives and mothers working from morning till night with only one meal, and a child brought to suck at them twice a day. I have seen fathers of families coming in the morning and working till night, and having only one meal, or two at the farthest extent. This was the state we were in at the time of the strike. In consequence of working short time, at low wages, with little food, with oppression upon oppression, distress upon distress, the people were at length nearly exhausted, both in strength, circumstances, and patience; and they were glad, as it wore, that the time was come when there was some resistance offered to the manufacturers."
Pilling was found "Not guilty."
The present volume has plenty of other trials well-nigh as interesting as that from which we have quoted. It begins with "The Presbytery of Auchterarder and Others against the Earl of Kinnoull and the Rev. Robert Young,"—the famous case which split the Scotch Church, and caused the establishment of the Free Kirk. Other important trials are those of John Frost for high-treason, of Oxford, the mad boy who shot at the Queen, for a similar offence ; and of Moxon, for publishing Shelley's Queen lifab. Perhaps, how- ever, the most generally interesting trial is that of the Earl of Cardigan for felony (i.e., for wounding a man in a duel)„ for there the curious machinery involved in the trial of a Peer by his peers was put in motion. The defendant claimed and obtained a verdict of "Not guilty," on the ground that the prosecution had not proved the wounded man's name in full. The indictment was for wounding Harvey Garnett Phipps. Tuckett, and the Crown only proved that a person with the name of Harvey Tuckett had been wounded. It was on this occasion that the Duke of Cleveland employed the formula, "Not guilty legally, upon my honour." The elaborate and. picturesque ceremonies adopted by the Lord High Steward while presiding will interest all who love the pomp and cir- cumstance of the law. We will only say, in conclusion, that the work of editing is most ably performed by Mr. Wallis. He is not afraid of making his foot-notes interesting,—a fear which haunts too many legal editors. The head-notes are marvels of conciseness and perspicuity.
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