Labour in Lancashire, suddenly enraged, has fired an aimless pistol
in the air. The operatives and masters in the cotton trade met in Manchester on Tuesday, to confer on a proposal from the former to accept a five-per-cent, reduction, combined with short time. This offer the masters refused, and on the receipt of the news the workmen broke out into open rioting. In Blackburn, the windows of mill after mill were smashed, Mr. Hornby's house was wrecked, and that of Mr. R. Jackson, chairman of the Masters' Association, was burnt to the ground, the outrage being accompanied by a circumstance which, in this country and this age, is almost unintelligible. Two maid-servants were still in the house when it was fired, and a proposal is said to have been made that they should be allowed to burn with it. This, however, was too much for the leader of the rioters, who saved the frightened women. The police were quite powerless, and it was necessary to summon soldiery, before whom the rioters retired ; but next day they smashed the Town Hall windows,—that is, destroyed their own property, out of spite —and threatened to wreck the Mayor's house. In Burnley, similar mobs, besides breaking the windows of persons not en- gaged in the trade, burned a warehouse belonging to Mr. Kay, a master who works at the reduction ; and in Oswaldtwhistle, Mr. J. Howarth's house was attacked, and the police fired, wounding five persons, while another master's house was protected by a body of one hundred colliers, whom he had engaged. Up to Friday evening, no collision had occurred with the soldiers, and the streets in the disturbed localities being patrolled, external order was maintained.
