SOME QUEER STRIKES

Shannon News, 16 October 1925, Page 2

SOME QUEER STRIKES

! SCHOOLBOYS "DOWN BOOKS." STRIKE BY MExN'TAL PATIENTS There is a wide impression that industrial strikes had their origin in the Trades Union movement, which was inaugurated and consolidated during- th e last century. Such an impression, however, is quite erronous. Although it is impossible to fix "the date of the first organised upheaval in the labour world, says an English paper, it is safe to affirm that the earliest official reference in English history to a strike is to be found in the "Calander of State Papers," dated August 17, 1535. This interesting evidence is a passage in a communication from Sir William Fitzwillliams at Dover to Mr. Thomas Cromwell, Secretary of State. The entry reads as follows: — "Refusal of workmen to work except for 6d per day. Two of the ringleaders had been .some time of the 'Black Guard' of the King's kitchen." It is necessary to note the jocular name—" Black Guard" —given to the lowest menials of the court in the reign of Henry VIII., which, in the course of time, had acquired a more sinister intrepretation. In the Loudon -Chronicle" in the month of September, 1765, numerous references are made to a general suspension of labia the northern coalfields, and the colliers ai- e stated to have "struck out" for a higher bounty before consenting to enter into the customary annual bond. Moreover, the "strike" is frequently termed the "stick" in this newspaper. In confirmation of ihe latter being an alternative wor-'d for "strike" in the earlier days it is only necessary to point to one of Harriet Martineau's first pamphlets published at Durham in 1834, entitled "The Tendency of Strikes or Sticks to Produce Low Wages." Coals to Newcastle. During the coal strike in 1765 the proverbial saying—so universally applied to useless energies—of carryingcoals to Newcastle," received a direct contradiction, since,, in a paragraph of the London "Chronicle," dated Newcastle, September I'S of that year the following passage appears:—'"Tis very, remarkable that on Wednesday several pokes of coal were brought from Durham, to this town by one of the common carriers, and sold on the sandhill for 9d a poke, by which he cleared 6d a poke.'' Very few references are made to strikes in the newspapers before the Victorian era, but in the Annual Register, dated May 9, 1768, it is related that "this day the hatters struck and refused to work until their wages were raised," and in ISO 3 the following piquant statement was made by Sir Walter Scott in a letter to Miss Seward. "I have never heard of authors striking work, as the mechanics call it, until their masters, the booksellers, should increase their pay, but if such a combination • could take place the revolt would be general in all branches of literary labour."

Tragedy and misery are almost invariably associated with strikes. On the other hand,, in a few instances, they have not been entirely devoid of the comic element; for example, there was the' ludicrous strike of schoolboys in 1889 for shorter and fewer iessons The youthful malcontents refused to attend school in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Northampton and some parts of London . The Most Farcical Strike. Probably the most farcical strike on record was that which occurred in a mental hospital in 1866. In that year there had been extensive strikes in the Clyde district. Th e male inmates of the neighbouring Murthly Mental Hospital were employed in garden work and other odd jobs in the grounds, and by some unfortunate accident one- of them found a newspaper containing a detailed account of the strikes. Ho read the report to his comrades, who there and then decided that they, too, would strike. Every r effort was made by the attendants to induce them to resume work, but without success. At length the medical officer took the matter in hand, and very tactfully suggested that the strikers should send a deputation to him. This pleased the patients, and a deputation was formed forthwith. Their "grievances" were . stated at full I length, and more pay and shorter hours were demanded. The doctor protended to agree with them, and ended by pulling out half-a-crown from his pocket, which he handed to the principal spokesman. This act gave immense satisfaction, the deputation returned to their comrades and it was decided to resume work immediately. Coin Returned to the Doctor Later in the day. however the doctor was pasing near the men at their work, when he was accosted by the man to whom he had given the coin. Beckoning him aside, he told him confidentially that the men were "such a set of disagreeable chiels," and were wrangling as to who should hold the haifacrowii, that he had decided that the doctor should keep it on their behalf. Thus the gift found its way back into the tactful donor's pocket .