THE SHEFFIELD DISCLOSURES.

Southland Times, Issue 722, 11 September 1867, Page 2

THE SHEFFIELD DISCLOSURES.

■*■ The following summary of Mr Broadhead's confessions, as published by the " Pall Mall Gazette," brings out in bold relief the horrible nature of these Trades "Union crimes. The " Gazette" says : — Mr Broadhead continues his revelations at Sheffield after a fashion which is interesting, notwithstanding a certain monotony by which it is undoubtedly characterised. The following analysis of his confession may interest our readers, and is a curiosity in itself: — 1. He hired Dennis Clark to blow up Hellewell for being brought into the trade contrary to rule. "¥e expected if he was admitted a member we should have him on the box, and it was to drive him from the trade that he was blown up." Price, either £3 or £5. 2. He caused the horse of Elisha Parker to be hamstrung. 3. He hired George Pearce to hire someone to shoot Parker, Price* £2Q to £30,

4. He hired some one (he thought Crooked, the murderer of Linley), to blow u\> the boilers of Firth and Son. Price, £5. 5. He hired Crookes to lame Hellewell. He explained laming to mean " wounding him in one of his limbs, so as to prevent him working." Crookes watched him several nights with a gun, and was in the act of firing when another man got in the way. 6. He wrote a threatening letter to Messrs Firth and Sons, of Sheffield, saying, "If I bnt move my finger, you are sent to eternity as sure as fate." 7. He paid Crookes for throwing a canister of gunpowder down the chimney of the house of Simuel Baxter. Baxter had " held himself aloof from the trade," and Broadhead thought he " ought to contribute." 8. He hired Crookes to try and blow up Joseph Wilson's house. Price perhaps £10. 9. He employed Crookes to throw a can of powder down Pool's chimney. The object was to " alarm Linley, who was living with Pool" (his brother-in-law). " Pool had done us no harm whatever." Price, £5 or £10. 10. He employed Crookes to blow up Holdsworth by putting powder in his cellar, for employing non-society men. Price £6. . 11. He employed Crookes to blow up Eeaney's house, for giving Fearnehough work. 12. He paid Crookes £15 to blow up Eearnehough. 13. He embezzled £30 to pay for shooting Parker. He wrote letters expressing his abhorrance of these acts, " and for that," he says, " I known I shall be held up to the execration of the whole world." Upon making this observation, we are told "he commenced weeping." Mr Broadhead says of himself, " I was the Treasurer of the Amalgamated Saw Trades, and till last night" (Thursday night), " when I resigned, I was the treasurer of the National Association of Organised Trades." This last-mentioned body is an association of trades throughout the kingdom. It includes the carpenters, masons, joiners, tailors, and others. Its object is to resist lock-outs. The number of Sheffield members is 6000 or 80ii0, and the total number perhaps 60,000. This, we think, is enough for the present about Mr Broadhead. His breast must be by this time unusually clean, but it may be doubted whether even now it is quite as it should be.