ich had
struggled hard to get on its legs again, soon became a hotbed of
discontent. The hatters held meetings, the paper-makers were aroused,
and then began preparation for another grand strike. The weavers from
Coldbridge and Stilford sent over a deputation to Hope Mills, warning,
exhorting, and threatening. "No system," said they, "should interfere
with mutual strength and protection."

And this was not all. It seemed as if Yerbury meant to make them the
scape-goat of every thing. Robert Winston was broadly caricatured; and
there was a bit of insulting abuse, calling them traders in their
brethren's blood, pasted up on the gate-post. "The Evening Transcript"
went over the system of co-operation, and showed to its own
satisfaction, that it was a system full of errors and miscalculations
based on the credulity of workmen. It hinted that the same mysterious
cause which reduced profits last year would reduce them again next year,
that at the end of the five years the bread and cheese would come out
just even, although there had been a great deal more bread than cheese,
as everybody knew. If the corporation were working for the best
interests of the men, why had they not sold off stock when every one
knew prices were going permanently down, instead of waiting to sell it
below cost? Why had they paid exorbitant prices for wool when the market
was flooded with it? Why had they not done this or that? until one
wondered why, understanding the woollen-business so well, and being able
to see just where enormous profits could be made, and losses avoided,
they had not all gone into it themselves. The article wound up with a
covert and insulting insinuation. Human nature was the same, the world
over. Men of the highest probity and honor had succumbed to temptation:
these men who had never really been in any responsible position had yet
to be proved. If men like David Lawrence and Horace Eastman could not
make a stand against fluctuations and difficulties, it was hardly likely
success would crown any such abnormal undertaking.

Jack did not see the paper until the next day. Some one laid it
surreptitiously on his desk. His face flushed darkly at the attack upon
his honesty, and for a moment all the belligerency of his boyhood rose
to the surface. He had half a mind to hunt up the writer of the article,
and pound him to a jelly with his two fists. But presently he laughed to
himself, and then made a tour of the mills in his cheerie