Mary Barton by E. Gaskell

4.9

John Barton was a weaver and lived with his family in Manchester. He had a daughter, Mary, and a son. The boy was not strong and died in his childhood. John Barton was out of work at that time and could not buy good food for the child. John Barton’s wife did not live long after the boy’s death.

Years passed. Mary Barton worked now as a dressmaker and helped her father. John Barton was an active member of the Trade Union. One evening Mary was coming home after work with her friend Margaret.

The girls saw many people running in the street, they heard people said that Carson’s mill was on fire. The girls ran to see the fire. On their way they met John Barton and told him about the fire. Barton said that Carson would not be sorry. The mill was insured and the machines were very old.

When the girls came to the mill the building was on fire. Suddenly the people saw two men at the window of the fourth floor. They could not get down as the wooden staircase was on fire. One of the men was George Wilson, her father’s friend. In the windows of the house opposite to the mill Jim Wilson and a fireman were pushing a long ladder across the narrow street into the window of the mill.

The ladder was short and the fire was coming nearer and nearer. Then more men ran to help Jim. They were holding the ladder. When the ladder was fixed, Jim stepped on it and walked slowly to the mill.

At last he got to the window of the mill, took one man in his arms and carried him to the house opposite. Then he walked to the mill again and carried the other man out of the fire. The people in the street did not say a word till the crossing was over. Jim Wilson was a brave man and everybody said so.

John Barton was right when he said the Carsons would not be sorry that the fire had destroyed the mill. The millowners decided to buy new machines for the mill. The reconstruction would take a long time and meanwhile many workers were out of work and their families had no money to buy food. Some mills shortened the hours of work, others stopped work. Barton worked short hours. Wilson had no work.

The millowners in Manchester paid low wages to workmen. People asked the millowners to raise the wages and stopped their work. There was a strike in the factories and mills. John Barton was at the head of this strike for he had a talent for organizing people. Many Trade Unions supported the Manchester weavers with money.

The prices of food grew higher. There were families who had nothing to eat for many days. The workers thought that the government did not know of their sufferings. They decided to go to Parliament.

In 1839 a petition was written and signed by thousands of workers. They asked Parliament to hear their delegates. John Barton was one of the delegates. His friends came to his house in the evening and asked him to tell the Parliament about the children who had no clothes to go to school, about people lying down to die in the street.

The next day the Manchester delegates left for London. In London they walked in a procession carrying the Charter in a big box. The delegates were slowly walking along the streets. Their faces were thin and pale. Their clothes were ragged.

When they got into the street near the Queen’s palace the policemen pushed them back and did not let them cross the street. They struck people with sticks. The delegates could not get to the Houses of Parliament. They came back to their homes and did not hope any more to get help from the Government.

John Barton lost his work after that and as a Chartist delegate and a member of a Trade Union could not find employment.