Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 399

Misgivings were not unfrequently expressed that the zeal and expenditure incurred by the Messrs. Ashworth might one day be turned against them, to their annoyance and pecuniary loss. The prediction was realized in only a single instance. A young man of considerable talent, who when a child had been removed to the factory from a neighbouring workhouse, made very rapid progress at school, especially in arithmetic; and when a strike of the workpeople occurred in 1830, one of the great strike years, he became very officious as a leader. The strike was defeated by the employment of new hands, and it was attributed to the influence of this young man that the employed were brutally assailed by an infuriated mob, and that the windows of the schoolroom were smashed, and other works of destruction committed.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 399 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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