ion to be idle: nor was the mighty pause to be
confined to these great enterprises. Every trade of every kind and
description was to be stopped: tailor and cobbler, brushmaker and sweep,
tinker and carter, mason and builder, all, all; for all an enormous
Sabbath that was to compensate for any incidental suffering that it
induced by the increased means and the elevated condition it ultimately
would insure--that paradise of artizans, that Utopia of Toil, embalmed
in those ringing words, sounds cheerful to the Saxon race--"A fair day's
wage for a fair day's work."

Book 6 Chapter 7

During the strike in Lancashire the people had never plundered, except a
few provision shops, chiefly rifled by boys, and their acts of violence
had been confined to those with whom they were engaged in what on the
whole might be described as fair contest. They solicited sustenance
often in great numbers, but even then their language was mild and
respectful, and they were easily satisfied and always grateful. A body
of two thousand persons, for example--the writer speaks of circumstances
within his own experience--quitted one morning a manufacturing town in
Lancashire, when the strike had continued for some time and began to be
severely felt, and made a visit to a neighbouring squire of high degree.
They entered his park in order--men, women, and children--and then
seating themselves in the immediate vicinity of the mansion, they sent a
deputation to announce that they were starving and to entreat relief.
In the instance in question, the lord of the domain was absent in the
fulfilment of those public duties which the disturbed state of the
country devolved on him. His wife, who had a spirit equal to the
occasion, notwithstanding the presence of her young children who might
well have aggravated feminine fears, received the deputation herself;
told them that of course she was unprepared to feed so many, but that,
if they promised to maintain order and conduct themselves with decorum,
she would take measures to satisfy their need. They gave their pledge
and remained tranquilly encamped while preparations were making to
satisfy them. Carts were sent to a neighbouring town for provisions;
the gamekeepers killed what they could, and in a few hours the multitude
were fed without the slightest disturbance, or the least breach of their
self-organised discipline. When all was over, the deputation waited
again on the lady to express to her thei