The Pall Mall had, on Thursday, a letter from a
fictitious knob-stick,—a literary actor like the amateur casual,—who got himself up as a journeyman tailor from the country, and carried - work out of a West-End shop in the hope of being dogged and threatened by the men on strike. The bait took, and he was promised a pound a week to take "the trade" back, and go out on strike with the others. He did not, however, elicit anything which could possibly be called threats of intimidation from the Unionists, who expressly told him that if he did not choose to join them he should not be molested. The fictitious knob-stick, to do him justice, seems to have been a little ashamed of his position, when he found himself taken into the counsels of the men with 'considerable good-nature,—which counsels he intended to betray. There is something much more questionable, we think, in this proceeding, than in serving as amateur casual to test the casual ward of a workhouse. That is a Parliamentary institution, which the public has a right to test, but in this case the battle is a fair struggle between masters and men, in which it would not seem quite right to betray to either counsels heard under false pretences in the camp of the other. Supposing this social dramatist had got into a secret council of the masters by the same means and published them, would not the master tailors have been justly incensed ? As it turned out, however, there was no im- portant secret to betray.
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