both strike and agitation, arranged for the holding
of meetings, traversed England from one end to the
other, preached peaceful and legal agitation, and carried
on a crusade against the despotic Justices of the Peace
and truck masters, such as had never been known in
England. This he had begun at the beginning
of the year. Wherever a miner had been condemned
by a Justice of the Peace, he obtained a habeas
corpus from the Court of Queen’s bench,
brought his client to London, and always secured an
acquittal. Thus, January 13th, Judge Williams
of Queen’s bench acquitted three miners condemned
by the Justices of the Peace of Bilston, South Staffordshire;
the offence of these people was that they refused to
work in a place which threatened to cave in, and had
actually caved in before their return! On an
earlier occasion, Judge Patteson had acquitted six
working-men, so that the name Roberts began to be a
terror to the mine owners. In Preston four of
his clients were in jail. In the first week
of January he proceeded thither to investigate the
case on the spot, but found, when he arrived, the
condemned all released before the expiration of the
sentence. In Manchester there were seven in jail;
Roberts obtained a habeas corpus and acquittal
for all from Judge Wightman. In Prescott nine
coal miners were in jail, accused of creating a disturbance
in St. Helen’s, South Lancashire, and awaiting
trial; when Roberts arrived upon the spot, they were
released at once. All this took place in the
first half of February. In April, Roberts released
a miner from jail in Derby, four in Wakefield, and
four in Leicester. So it went on for a time
until these Dogberries came to have some respect for
the miners. The truck system shared the same
fate. One after another Roberts brought the
disreputable mine owners before the courts, and compelled
the reluctant Justices of the Peace to condemn them;
such dread of this “lightning” “Attorney
General” who seemed to be everywhere at once
spread among them, that at Belper, for instance, upon
Roberts’ arrival, a truck firm published the
following notice:
“NOTICE!”
“PENTRICH COAL MINE.
“The Messrs. Haslam think it necessary, in order to prevent all mistakes, to announce that all persons employed in their colliery will receive their wages wholly in cash, and may expend them when and as they choose to do. If they purchase goods in the shops of Messrs. Haslam they will receive them as heretofore at wholesale prices, but they are not expected to make their purchases there, and work and wages will be continued as usual whether purchases are made in these shops or elsewhere.”
This triumph aroused the greatest jubilation throughout the English working-class, and brought the Union a mass of new members. Meanwhile the strike in the North was proceeding. Not a hand stirred, and Newcastle, the chief coal port, was so stripped of its commodity that coal had to be brought from