The Times Editorial on the Tolpuddle Martyrs (21st March 1834) makes interesting reading. It said (in part):
The offence of swearing agricultural labourers, and binding them to the observance of an illegal oath, by ceremonial partaking of mingled folly, superstition and ferocity was brought home to the accused and the conviction was followed by a sentence of transportation for seven years against the whole of them, six in number. This sentence as regards the poor deluded men who are the objects of it seems to us too severe, but it may be useful if spreads alarm among those more powerful and acute disturbers of the town populations throughout England who combine in spite of high wages and whose combinations are as destructive to honest workmen as they are to all but the richest masters.
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