excite the demand for fair play in the minds of the English public.
The decision of the Quarter Sessions, in April last, on the appeal of Messrs. Worthington, was, that there must be evidence of danger in order to bring the alleged offence under the cited section of the act; and that no evidence had been produced of danger to be guarded against. The point to be settled by the Superior Court is, whether the Act requires the fencing of horizontal shafts,—danger or no danger. Then must follow the inquiry and decision—What constitutes fencing?
We mentioned above a second case, related by Mr. Horner in his Report for October, 1854, though the event happened in December. James Ashworth, employed by Messrs. Wild and Son, of Heywood, threw away his life by an act which is forbidden in mills so expressly that there is no pretence for saying that he was killed in the course of his occupation. One of two straps which had slipped from its pulleys had become entangled with the other; and Ashworth had the foolhardiness to attempt to disentangle them with his hands. The second strap slipped off, lapped round the shaft, and drew the poor man up to the ceiling, where his brains were dashed out. The man could not but be aware of his danger and his disobedience; neither, one would think, could the Inspectors. Yet Mr. Horner omits this point of the case, not only in this instance of Ashworth, but of all the rest (and they are nearly the whole) who lose life or limb through disobedience and wanton exposure of themselves to danger. Mr. Horner invariably speaks of the sufferers as victims of their employers,—as cut off in the course of their occupation, or their "occasional employments." A whitewasher who, against orders, chooses to work while the shaft is revolving; the boy who resists all advice and all commands to replace the strap from behind, where he would be perfectly safe, and throws himself upon destruction; and the man who handles entangled strops, or climbs to help with a broken strap which ought to be
