Historic%20Yorkshire
Historic%20Yorkshire
Historic%20Yorkshire
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
CHAPTER xxv.<br />
THE LUDDITE RIOTS.<br />
T was during the time the lengthy and expensive<br />
contest with the seemingly invincible<br />
Napoleon was being carried on. Trade was<br />
at a standstill, and great distress prevailed<br />
throughout the country, for the humbler class<br />
of people, taxed to the utmost,and starved by the<br />
** dearth of food and want of work, complained<br />
of their unhappy condition in a lamentable manner.<br />
Certainly at intervals there would come the news of<br />
another and yet another victory by Wellington in Spain,<br />
and at these times hope would rise and morepatiencebe<br />
shewn in the bearing of the privation which was almost<br />
universal, but the sway of discontent again and again<br />
influenced the popular mind, and frequently ebullitions of<br />
feelin**- would lead to serious riots. About this period the<br />
price of wheat in the Leeds market was £9<br />
a quarter.<br />
The mob, headed by a woman called by them LadyLud,<br />
attacked the dealers, seizing the corn and scattering it<br />
broadcast in the streets. The feeling against the war<br />
was sostrong thatthe MilitiaStoreRoom wasbrokeninto,<br />
and 800 guns and bayonets destroyed, but the greatest<br />
popularindignation was directed against the manufacture<br />
and use of machinery, which, it was believed, though<br />
most ignorantly and unreasonably,was detrimentalto the<br />
welfare of the labouringclasses. Thefeeling was not long