THE MAIL.

Evening Star, Issue 3008, 9 October 1872, Page 4

THE MAIL.

THE MEAT QUESTION. The food agitation in England has recently entered up u a new ami very remarkable phase. The exorbitant prices demanded for all kinds and qualities of butchers’ meat have long been complained of at home ; but at last, owing to the enhanced charges for coal, fruit, vegetables, and almo-t every article of domestic consumption, the pressure became intolerable to the needier classes ; and in many parts of the country those who are the first to feel the brunt of dear provisions the wives and mother.-;—have-been goaded into open revolt. The women of the north are in insurrection against the butchers. They have foresworn dear meat for ever. In many of the more populous towns, they have handed themselves together in selfdenying confederacies, and phdgerl themselves to abstain from butchers’ meat until the price is very much reduced. The poor butchers are having a very hot time of it north of Manchester, and, owing to the exasperation excited against them, are ready, in some places, in considerable danger, in Wigan and its iv ighbovhood the excitement was int use. The rough, sturdy miners’ wives are carrying everything before them. They have not only struck again-T the con sumption of meat themselves, but by a species of terrorism they combine to prevent other people patronising the slaughtermen. One Saturday night, as we read, great crowds assembled round tire shops and stalls, and deterred quiet people from making their usual purchases. Those who were courageous enough to buy were hooted and abuse;!, and several eases were reported of meat having been forcibly taken away from the purchasers. At 11 at night the prices were reduced to (id and 7d a lb., and at those figures the simps were cleared out. 7'ho agitators at Black rod, Mcndley, and Jive other places adjoining' were not so successful ; but they unanimously carried a resolution, amidst much cheering, that any woman who gave mure than /u per ib. for meat at the market on Friday and Saturday should forfeit their husband's wages for the week. At Cmiseit, which is one of the herd-quarters of the agitation, groups of women severely handled one of their own sex, who ventured to make “a purchase from an obnoxious butcher. The police had to interfere ; hut so deter mined is the resistance there to high prices that the butchers have ceased to kill meat, and the population is r educed, in spite of itself, almost to a vegetarian diet. So great has been the excitement at Leigh, Chowbent, and other neighboring places, that the committee of the Leigh Anti-Beef Association has issued an earnest appeal to the people, requesting them not only honorably to keep the pledge they have taken, but also to abstain from intimidation, from hooting, and from stonethrowing round butchers’ shops, and from molesting purchasers, so that the interference of the police may not be needed. Similar accounts could be multiplied from other large towns in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Durham. The spirit of resistance to famine prices is seizing upon all classes of the population, and the sympathy of the butchers is a remarkable and hopeful feature in tire aviiatioii. But at the present stage of the movement the prospects of appreciable permanent benelit are not very cheering. Merc indignant and barren protests will avail little to reduce charges while the food supply is so inadequate to the country’s growing wants. The key to the difficulty was supplied by Mr TaUermau, in the yet more distant towns of the North. Hearing of the agitation prevailing in Newcastle and 'BitcsImad, and the formidable stakes of the women amiinst clear meat, that gentleman ran down from London to those grimy towns, took with him a plentiful assortment of Australian preserved meats, prepared a banquet, to which he invited rich and poor, and held some vi ry i li’eetive public meetings, winch were attended with the happiest results, Many of the butchers have been won over to the cause of alimentary reform, and are now selling Australian meats in large and daily increasing quantities. The women, too, who have hitherto been the most stubborn and uurea' oning opponents of tinned meats, have been enlist ed in great numbers. Mr Tallerman’s visit was attended with considerable trial ; he secured the countenance and cooperation of the leading men of the dist.iot —mayors, manufacturers, merchants, ami

j ministers; the press cordially aided the movement, and the puzzled public felt at once that he had supplied the true weapon ! by winch alone that /'aunt-headed monster, meat, was to be vanquished. rnosF.crrro.N ok hush puiksts. 'Phe House of Commons has not any night been more crowded than when Mr ’nut brought oil liis resolution, censoring the now famous judgment of Mr Justice Keogh, and pro]losing his removal from the bench. The speech; s. however, Kll short of gt ncral expectation. Mr butt severely critised those faults of taste and those extravagances winch we all condemn, but while arguing that the language of the judgment was partisan, intemperate. insulting, and licentious, scarcely raised the main issue to show that it was ■ unjust, Other speakers came nearer to the point, but although the debate was adjourned, it was without profitable result. Meanwhile, Mr Justice Keogh has been on circuit, escorted by a pilot engine, and protected by soldiers and police, and he has gone through hi- duties without interruption, notwithstanding the threats that were freely uttered, for the wrath of the people seems to have expended itself in burning his effigy. Me has not cowered, but on several occasions boldly justified his conduct. His brethren on the bench appear to support him. Lord Chief Justice Whiteside, for example, put the matter plainly the other day while on circuit himself. “It is the first time,” he said, “having read legal biography rather extensively, that I ever read or heard of a judge being impugned who was right in his law and facts, yet was censured for having expressed himself too warmly, and in a spiiit that may depend upon the disposition raid temper of the man. But if you censure, you should first; inquire whether what he has uttered was deserved ; and the inquiry may lead to the conclusion that facts existed to warrant the use of the language used.” The Galway Vindication Fund has nearly reacted L10,(J00, and will be further stimulated by the determination of the Government to prosecute the priests. The Irish Attorney-General had announced this fact before the debate in the House of Commons, that proceedings would be taken against twenty-two persons named in the report of Mr Justice Keogh as having been guilty of undue influence or intimidation. Amongst these persons are. besides Captain Nolan and his brother, nineteen Roman Catholic priests, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clonfert. The Times questions win ther the kind of clerical influence exerted has yet been brought within legal restraints ; and though I Hah lawyers are more confident on the so j'-ot, it is extremely doubtful if any. Iris'i jury can be found to convict. THE rKESID ENTAL ELECTION. The contest begins to wax warm in America, Mr CLas. Sumner has declared for Mr Greeley, whose chances have wonderfully improved. His general policy is now defined as “ the overthrow of party despotism, ’ whied bounding phrase his critics interpret as simply “ the overthrow ” of Grant, and apparently it is hostility to Grant’s administration more than any principle which unites Southerners with .Northern men, and Liberal Republicans with Lemocrats, in his favor. I have nowhere seen a more amusing illustration of the relation in which Mr Greeley really stands to the Democratic party than in a story told by Mr Robert Vance, of North Carolina, a brother of the ex-governor, in a speecli delivered in favor of his nomination. ; e said there was an old preacher into whose hymn-book some bad b ! >y had pasted the old song—“ Id Crimes is dead, tiiat good old man, we ne’er shall see him more.” On opening his book one day before a sermon, his eyes fell on this hymn. He read the first verse, and stopped with surprise. He wiped his specs, and read it again, and said, “Brethren, I have been singing out of this book for 40 years ; I have never recognised this as a hymn before, but it’s here, and 1 ain’t agwine to go back on my book now ;so phase raise the tune, and we’ll sing it through if it kills us, “Now,” said Mr Vance, “we have been singing Democratic hymns for 40 years down here, and we have never recognised Greeley as a Democrat before ; but if the Baltimore Convention puts him in our hymn-books, we’ll sing him through if it kills us.” Mr Greeley shows the power of a practised writer in the letters which are his manifestoes. He lays stress himstlf on civil reform, and, as a first step would forbid the re-election of any Prcsid' nt, by which means, he thinks, the temptation to corruption would be greatly le scucd, and an efficient working staff come to be permanently retained. STRIKES. Increasing agitation pervades the labor market. With the exception of the masons, the Loudon building traffic are. still on strike. A formidable strike of 400 goods porters and clerks in the depots of the London and .'orth-Western Railway has taken place, lasting a week, and causing great inconvenience. ’ Great discontent and agitation exist among the employes of other companies. Concessions and increased pay have been granted to the city police. The bakers have appealed to Messrs Bruce and Gladstone fur redress, and for the reduction of their hour-; of labor to 12. The West End and City waiters arc following suit, and the omnibus and car drivers insist on a reduction of hours and occasional undays. Colliers’ strikes are as frequent as ever. Owing to the continuous advance in the price of coals a panic prevails. Wallsend c als are oils per ton, and arc expected to rise to 50s. O) e railway has begun to import from Belgium. But the most curious “strike” of all that have yet taken place in England has been a strike of the butchers in Huddersfield, a nourishing Yorkshire town, where they shut up their shops, and declared that they would not sell any more meat for a fortnight. The c. st of meat is one of our .groat grievances just now, but it does not app.avr bow this sort of petulant protest against the exclusion of foreign cattle is to help u* out of our difficulty. Large meeting of working people have been held in many of the northern towms to protest against the present prices, and sometimes men and sometimes women have been the speakers, urging everyone to desist from eating meat tili these prices are reduced. At a meeting of butchers in .Manchester lately, it was stated that the British supply of meat had been dt c filing for the last thwc yearn, while the demand among the working-daises has trippled. Formerly they ate meat on alternate days, but now, said one butcher, “it was chop and steak and frizzle and fry all the week long.”