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At length the law was vigorously set in motion; numbers of the misguided Luddites were apprehended; some were executed; and after several years' violent commotion from this cause, the machine-breaking riots were at length quelled. Among the numerous manufacturers whose works were attacked by the Luddites, was the inventor of the bobbin-net machine himself.
As the country was lately about to take my life at its own expense it would not greatly disapprove of my doing so at my own, especially as the lesson to the Luddites would have been so wholesale a one that the services of the troops in this part of the country might have been dispensed with for some time." "Did you recognize any of the men concerned?" "I am glad to say I did not," Ned replied.
He believed that the presence of the soldiers was ample protection for the mill, and he hoped that ere they left the town the first excitement would have cooled down, and the Luddites have turned their attention to other quarters. Ned met Bill on the following Sunday. "I suppose, Bill," he said, "there is a rare stir about Foxey using his new machinery?"
For not only his Tory politics, but his love and regard for the authority of the law, made him despise the cowardice of the surrounding magistrates, who, in their dread of the Luddites, refused to interfere so as to prevent the destruction of property. The clergy of the district were the bravest men by far. There was a Mr. Roberson of Heald's Hall, a friend of Mr.
Feyther had not gone to the 'Cow. He sat smoking at home. Bill had dropped in, and they sat talking of the doings of the Luddites till it was later than usual. Feyther was sorry afterward, because he said if he had been down at the 'Cow' he might have noticed by the talk if any one had an idea that anything was going to take place." "Then he didn't go out at all that night, Polly?"
She was anxious to write of things she had known and seen; and among the number was the West Yorkshire character, for which any tale laid among the Luddites would afford full scope. In "Shirley" she took the idea of most of her characters from life, although the incidents and situations were, of course, fictitious.
The deep barking of a dog within instantly resounded through the building. Half a minute later Mr. Cartwright's voice within demanded who was there. "It is I, Ned Sankey open at once. The Luddites are upon you!" The bolts were hastily undrawn, and Ned rushed in and assisted to fasten the door behind him. "They will be here in a minute," he panted out. "They are just behind."
They say that my writing is trash; they call the Letter to the Luddites seditious trash; they say that I am an ignorant fellow, a shallow man, and so forth. Why, then, are they in a passion? Why not laugh at me and my trash? Why name me at all? Why break silence after so long a period?
He was the first that had offered any resistance to the progress of the "Luddites," who had become by this time so numerous as almost to assume the character of an insurrectionary army. Mr. Cartwright's conduct was so much admired by the neighbouring mill-owners that they entered into a subscription for his benefit which amounted in the end to 3,000l.
"It is, indeed. Horsfall was a fine, generous, high spirited fellow, but he was specially obnoxious to the Luddites, whose doings he was always denouncing in the most violent way. Whose turn will it be next, I wonder? The success of this attempt is sure to encourage them, and we may expect to hear of some more bad doings.
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