poverty, it would certainly have compelled the labourer, if it had not been for the National Union, to cast himself entirely on his master's mercy.
It is said that when the soldiers arrived at Wootten, they were somewhat disconcerted at the sight of groups of sad-eyed men standing about in enforced idleness, and they told the farmers that they hoped the people would be civil, as they could easily get the assistance of 200 or 300 men in a couple of hours. "Don't be alarmed," was the reply; "our men are the quietest people in the world." But although the Wootten people may be quiet and peaceable, it may not be so elsewhere, as may be seen by a letter published in the Daily News, from an Essex labourer, some time in August. It was an act cruelly exasperating, very much like brandishing the red flag in the face of the poor, worried, badgered bull.
It is a happy thing that the new movement for union among the labourers is under the leadership of Christian men, who in their own religious communities have had some practice in fellowship; for the labourers, feeling their ignorance and inexperience, follow their leaders unreservedly. A little while ago the men of Wootten and the neighbourhood marched into Woodstock to the number of 200 or 300 men. One who witnessed the sight, said that he never saw a more orderly procession in his life, and when it was over their leader dismissed them all, saying, "Now go home, lads, and don't let any one have a word to say against you."
For the mass of the labourers are like men feeling their way in the dark; they crave for guidance. As my informant, a young labourer, whose health had been ruined by the abject slavery of his great employers to bad customs of modern society, very touchingly put it, "They want some one to tell them whether their thoughts are right or not." They have no helps; they are too poor to buy books or to take in magazines. An occasions Cottager or British Workman or Police News finds its way amongst them, and is preserved and pasted on the cottage walls for the sake of its pictures.
But it is evident that Methodism has been quietly doing a good work amongst them. The Primitive Methodist United Free Church has a circuit in this neighbourhood with eighteen chapels
