London, September 30

After the Garibaldi meeting in Newcastle which I described in a
previous letter,” similar meetings were held in Sunderland,
Dundee, Birmingham, London, and other places. The tone of the
meetings was the same everywhere and their last word was always:
“Removal of the French from Rome’. At this moment, it is
intended to choose delegates in every London district and send
them en masse to Lord John Russell to compel him to take steps
against the continuing occupation of Rome by French troops.
“Pressure from without”? is the ultima ratio‘ of the Englishman
against his government.

In the meanwhile, the Tuileries cabinet‘? neither feels easy about
nor is indifferent to the demonstrations of the British people, as
the following excerpt from the Newcastle Journal will show:

“The Emperor of the French has called the attention of the English
government to the language prevailing at the last Garibaldi meeting in Newcastle.
It was emphasised that two speakers, including the chairman, Town Councillor
Newton, alluded to plots to assassinate the Emperor and, in the most unmistakable
way, threatened him with death because of his Italian policy. The government
therefore felt itself obliged to take steps in this matter and to declare that the laws
of England are to be applied rigorously to prevent and punish any such
conspiracies, like those of Orsini, Dr. Bernard, and others, particularly since a
repetition of Orsini’s attempt at assassination was announced so openly at the

meeting. This warning by the government is based on the fact that in Mazzini
circles speeches have recently been made, threats uttered and dark hints dropped

b Marx uses the English phrase and gives the German translation in
brackets.— Ed.

© Last resort.— Ed.

similar to those that foreshadowed the Orsini conspiracy. Finally, we are able to
inform the public that the first legal steps arising out of the Newcastle meeting
have already been taken.”

This is what the Newcastle Journal had to say about it. Anyone
who has the slightest knowledge of English conditions and the
attitude prevailing here knows, in addition, that any interference
on the part of the present cabinet with the popular demonstra-
tions can only end in the fall of the government, as at the time of
the Orsini attempt.” |

As winter approaches, the conditions in the factory districts
grow more menacing every day. The Morning Star warns today
that, if the present method of “official charity” is continued, next
winter will see the violent scenes of 1842-43*°' far exceeded. The
immediate occasion for its Cassandra cry is a declaration,
which appeared in all the English papers, of a Manchester worker
previously employed at a machine (cotton) weaving mill and now
out of a job. In order to understand this declaration, which I will
summarise briefly further on, it is necessary to know what the
‘labour test” * is. The English poor law of 1834, which aimed at
eliminating pauperism by punishing it as a disgraceful crime,
requires the applicant for help to prove his “willingness to work”,
before his application is granted, by breaking stones or “picking
oakum”,’ useless operations with which criminals condemned to
“hard labour” are punished in English prisons. After this “labour
test”, the applicant receives a shilling a week for each member of
his family, that is, half a shilling in cash and half a shilling in
bread per capita.

Now to the “declaration” of the English weaver. His family
consists of six persons. Previously he earned good wages. For 18
weeks, however, he had been cut down to half-time and
quarter-time. During this period the weekly income of the family
hardly came to 8 shillings. Last week the factory he worked at was
closed down completely. His rent is 2 sh. 3d. a week. He had
pawned everything that was not nailed or riveted down; he had
nothing more to sell, not a penny in his pocket; hunger was
staring him and his family in the face. He was therefore forced to

' Marx uses the English term and gives the German translation in brackets.—
Ed.

b An Act for the amendment and better administration of the laws relating to the poor
in England and Wales [1834].— Ed.

© Marx uses the English expression and gives the German translation in
brackets.— Ed.

Garibaldi Meetings 247

look for help from the poor board. Early last Monday* he went to
the ‘“‘guardians”.”

After “pointed questioning”, they gave him a note to the relief
officer of his district. It took an‘hour for the official to allow him
into his august presence. Then he underwent questioning again—
and was denied relief on the grounds that he had earned 3
shillings in the preceding week, although “the patient” had given
a detailed accounting of the way in which this “fortune” had been
spent. He and his family had to go hungry until the following
Wednesday. He went back to the office of the “guardians”. There
he learned that he had to go through the “labour test” before
help could be given him. And so he marched to the workhouse (a
Bastille for the poor) and there, on an empty stomach, he had to
pick oakum until half past five, packed in together with 300 other
workers in a narrow room about 30 yards [long]. There, squeezed :
tightly together on benches, in the stifling summer heat, choking
with smoke and dust, the “patients of the labour test’, skilled
workers, pillars of England’s national wealth, had to perform the
meanest operations that can be imposed on a human being. One
could just as well require a watchmaker to hammer horseshoes, or
an organist to blow his own bellows. At the end of this operation,
he received exactly 5 shillings, half in bread, half in money. After
paying the rent, there was hardly 2 pence (about 2 Prussian
silbergroschen) for the daily consumption of 6 persons. And the
following Wednesday he would have to go through the “ordeal”
again, since it is repeated every week. The “weaver” now declares
publicly that he would rather starve to death with his family than
have that ignominy repeated.