Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/192

 170 one to one year and six months. In each case the conviction was for extortion. Upon appeal to the Governor of the State, the sentence in each case was reduced to one hundred days imprisonment. The names in all these cases are undoubtedly German. About the same time, in another case, forty-seven tailors were indicted for a similar odence, but the union at once declared that no more boycotts should be carried on if the courts declared them illegal. Sandwich-men and bill distributors had been engaged in this boycott.

A notable boycott was that declared by a Bakers' Union against a Mrs. Gray, who had refused to concede higher wages and shorter hours to her employés. She employed non-unionists, and refused to make terms with the union. A boycott was therefore declared against her, and the pickets and circulars appeared before her premises in the usual way. Her customers were appealed to to withdraw their custom, but, as the affair became known to the general public, feeling was aroused in her favour, and instead of her trade being stopped it was increased immensely. Prominent citizens forwarded cheques, and hundreds of persons sent letters of sympathy and orders for bread, to be sent to charitable institutions. The police interfered, and the perambulating sandwich-men were fined for disorderly conduct, but the boycott did not cease until indictments were found against some of the men by a grand jury.

A Mrs. Landgraff, who employed Bohemian and German bakers, was not so fortunate as Mrs. Gray, although her case also excited a large amount of public sympathy. Eighteen persons were indicted in connection with this boycott for conspiracy and intimidation. Judge Barrett tried the cases.

It appeared that the Bohemian bakers only, of this firm, maintained the strike, while the German union permitted its members to remain at work, and feeling ran very high between the rival nationalities. Threats to kill had been used by some of the Bohemians, and for this the sentence was thirty days in the Penitentiary. The circular distributors escaped with ten days in the city prison. In passing sentence, the judge explained his clemency by saying that the men had ' ignorantly distributed offensive circulars in a manner calculated to intimidate. This was undoubtedly illegal, but as this is the first case of the kind the court will deal leniently with you. . . . I trust that in future we shall hear no more of this kind of boycotting.'

The report for 1887 declares that, largely in consequence of these decisions, the boycott has not been in such frequent use as