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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

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