#threatening letters

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"In early 1868, the social order at Little Glace Bay was challenged by a miners’ strike. Though the strike was apparently broken by the spring, conflict persisted into the summer. In May, the miners sent to James R. Lithgow of the Glace Bay Mining Company a list of grievances that had “led to a total Stoppage of All work in the mine.” Henry Mitchell, the mine manager, was the focus. In January, the miners claimed, Mitchell had promised to pay four dollars per running yard, but at the end of the month he paid the miners by the tub so as to deprive them of one-third of their wages. Later he sent them to work in “narrow places three in each place at a [still] more reduced price”; the colliers asserted, “we could not earn enough to support ourselves or our families.” After stopping work at the end of February, Mitchell resumed production on 18 March at reduced wages, promising a return to regular levels of pay at the beginning of the shipping season, which he also failed to do. Finally, in the winter and spring, Mitchell had promised the miners at Little Glace Bay that he would not employ new hands. Despite this promise, “he took on about thirty pairs of coal cutters.”

In May, Mitchell discharged all the new miners. The miners’ petition to Lithgow explains,

we occasionally met among ourselves to pass the time to talk about our circumstances and other social talk, and it seems that all other oppression on us by Mitchell was not sufficient to satisfy him or enough to make us Slaves altogether for on the seventh of May he discharged all the new hands, as we think to punish them and us for meeting and talking together at all. When we asked for the reason why he discharged the Men whom he was taking on a few days, and also had some men employed for work in a few days afterwards[,] he ordered us to bring up our picks, and stopped the work.

Mitchell viewed the mingling of the new hands with the Little Glace Bay colliers as a threat to his authority and sought to stave off any further meetings between the two. The colliers appealed to E. P. Archbold, general manager of the Glace Bay Mining Company:

We have a Union raised amongst us, which the Bos[s] has much Statements against, but we can assure you that it is for no bad design, but help another where sickness might occur or injured at his labour, and it is our intention to raise funds to aid one another. We lay our suffrages before you hoping that you will consider our present position that we now stand in. We solicit you as a gentlemen the rights of our labour.

These petitions would have little impact. The recent end of the Reciprocity Treaty had greatly reduced access to important American coal markets. With the end of boom times, the miners’ bargaining position was significantly diminished. Indeed, it was Archbold who had thus advised Mitchell: “Coals are getting duller and cheaper in the U States. If they strike all we will have to do is to stop work." The deferential language of petition was a ritualized 19th-century form common in North American political culture. But the miners also spoke a far less deferential language. Anonymous notices threatening violence were posted in Little Glace Bay at the time of the strike. A number of these have been preserved in Henry Mitchell’s papers and reveal seething underground opposition. One notice, featuring a drawing of a coffin framed by two pistols at the top, declares:

“All you Strange Miners ar to com under the union flag a Saturday kinght [night] if not you will have to le[a]ve the Pit[.] Remember What I Say[.] if you don’t By god you Will le[a]ve this world” (Figure 2)

Another notice was addressed to someone named Morton, with a similar drawing of a coffin and pistol:

“be wear your time is com[.] a fue Days to chang your ways is given.”

Mitchell also received a threatening letter. Much of its contents have been cut out, but one can deduce its essence from the surviving bottom portion of the document:

i will blow heart out of you like a Squirel and Mitchel you Son of a Bitch I have got your Days nombered in my Brest and that is very few and i think it no more Sin to Sute [shoot] the like of you than a i would a dog for you are a son of hells fire and that will be your Distination [destination].

This type of evidence presents to the historian “a sense of double vision”: deference and consensus on the surface, violent abuse and threats delivered in anonymity. As E. P. Thompson wrote of such apparent contradictions of expression, “both could flow from the same mind, as circumstance and calculation of advantage allowed.” The threatening letter was a “characteristic form of social protest” in a society “in which forms of collective organized defence are weak” and in which defiant individuals are vulnerable to “immediate victimization.” The anonymity of the threats directed at Mitchell and others was evidence of the vulnerability of the miners to the retribution of the coal operators and their allies. These allies included religious authorities at Little Glace Bay. In early June, local Catholic priest John Shaw and Presbyterian minister Alexander Farquharson Jr. prepared pledges for miners who promised never to attend union meetings again. Mitchell collected these, and they remain glued inside a tattered notebook – nine from Shaw and five from Farquharson. These clergymen had arrived in Little Glace Bay with the broader migration of Highland Scots from the Cape Breton countryside and were deeply embedded figures of religious authority in the community. The pledges they collected sought to absolve individual miners from prior associations with the union. An example of one, Farquharson wrote to Mitchell:

“The bearer hereof Angus McPherson has I understand been a member of those Union Meetings but declares that hereafter he shall take no part whatever in them. I know Angus well and I feel that I can rely upon what he says.”

Mitchell had apparently been sending miners to Farquharson and Shaw to make these pledges, but those sent likely complied only grudgingly. In one instance, Shaw complained to Mitchell, “send me none except those who are sincere and had made up their minds already.” “I care little for the stubborn Catholics who will never yield but because they cannot better themselves,” Shaw rumbled. Religious authority, in highly personal and direct forms, was drawn upon to reconcile the community to the prevailing social order at the mines.

In September, a local man wrote to Mitchell from Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia, where apparently some of the miners had removed themselves. “I have Sean [seen] some of you[r] old hands hear[.] the[y] Spok very hard againce [against] you.” The miners were defeated, and some were evidently banished from Little Glace Bay. Nonetheless, the stubbornness Shaw encountered as well as the “reveries” of the anonymous threats, in which Mitchell was “a son of hells fire,” indicate that the restoration of consensus and deference were not inwardly accepted." - Don Nerbas, “‘Lawless Coal Miners’ and the Lingan Strike of 1882–1883: Remaking Political Order on Cape Breton’s Sydney Coalfield,” Labour/Le Travail 92 (Fall 2023), p. 89-93.

[emlovessid]

@jegulus-microfic may 2, delight, 472 words for @pupmotif <3 may our love story live on forever

When he looks back on it in years to come, it’s hard to believe that this all began in an online server with just a simple message, a message that would change the trajectory of both of their lives forever.

But what starts as just one message, becomes another, and then another until Regulus finds himself pavloved into smiling whenever he hears the telltale ding of a notification. James’ messages become such an integral part of his day to day, an endless stream of I just spilled my coffee, this is the worst day ever and nevermind, I just saw a squirrel to why are you online, shouldn’t you be asleep and pot calling the kettle black, we’re in the same timezone, idiot.

When James tells him that he’s going to be in town for a concert, the very same concert that Regulus himself is going to be at, Regulus is perhaps a little too eager in agreeing to meet up.

“Hi,” Regulus says, eyeing up the James standing in front of him compared to the James he’s only ever seen through his phone screen.

“Hi.”

“You’re taller than I thought you’d be,” he blurts out, which makes James laugh, and it’s all over for Regulus then.

If he thought his obsession with James was bad before, it’s nothing compared to this. Now that he knows what his laugh sounds like face to face, what his body feels like pressed against his as they hug, what he smells like where Regulus has his nose tucked into his chest, he’s not sure that words on a screen will ever be enough for him again.

“Is it crazy that I miss you, when we’ve literally only met for five minutes?” James says one night on a voice call.

The delight he feels at James’ words hits Regulus square in the chest where he’s lying on his side in bed, his phone on loud speaker on his pillow beside him.

“If it’s crazy, then I’m crazy too,” Regulus whispers.

What’s perhaps more crazy, is flying across the country to go to a concert with someone you’ve met literally once for barely more than a conversation. But here Regulus is, after months and months of messages and phone calls and the phantom touch of a hug Regulus wishes he could live in forever, standing at a train station in James’ home city.

The world seems to slow down when he sees James through the crowd. Regulus is about to make a joke that he can’t believe they actually went through with the matching t-shirts, but James doesn’t break his stride for even a second as he steps right into Regulus’ space, hands coming up to cradle his face between his hands as he pulls him into a bruising kiss.

Maybe it’s not so crazy after all.

[crowseers]

Stas

[tavina-writes]

I have been recently thinking about NHS and JGY's relationship, especially as it pertains to how much they understand each other, and I'm pretty sure the conclusion I'm coming to is that JGY doesn't actually understand NHS at all except like, in vague superficiality?

This is not an argument about whether or not JGY cared about NHS (though he seems to have some pretty big blind spots on what is actually good for NHS or what he actually desires, which, again come back to not really understanding what makes NHS tick) because I don't think you can spend well over a decade cleaning up someone else's problems without caring for the person in question. But more like, the events of the Temple and the Discussion Conference prior to the Temple and indeed anything leading up to the Temple at all would not have occurred if JGY actually understood? NHS? at all?

Like, obviously NHS was concealing the truth and acting while he proceeded with his revenge scheme, JGY (who presumably had some amount of time to think about who could possibly want him dead/disgraced/fleeing off to Dongyin) doesn't even begin to suspect that the person who wrote the letter and arranged all of this might be NHS until LXC's already stabbed him.

That's a pretty big fucking blind spot considering the whole thing is being unearthed because of NMJ's murder corpse put together shenanigans. Like he knows to hide Chifeng-zun's head but not to suspect Chifeng-zun's brother???

Like I think this might go beyond "doesn't understand anything about this other person besides on a very superficial level" to "might genuinely have some pretty big MISconceptions about who this person is or what they're like."

[flufallo]

Me at the begining of Jenny and Maxine's date: they make such a cute couple 😇

Me at the end: okay nvm

[orv-random-quotes]

day one!! let's start off strong with this classic.

Lee Jihye: Wait! How did you give birth to a child?

Kim Dokja: Ask Yoo Jonghyuk.

[meddlingmesmer]

i'd like to imagine virtuosos can just yoink their floating knife thingies down and use them as practical weapons

[royaltea000]

Dead man walking

[blorboindulgence]

Love Letter - Pickpocket

Mr. "please don't treat me like fragile glass about to snap" preparing to snap. Set right after hug (x)

Based off Chapters 19-20 of Love Letter by @lunarleonardo

[guiltycorp]

oh the immediate panicked switch to first-name basis lmao

and Artemy refusing to return the favor of course...

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Mal lui en prit de jouer au "gangster"," La Presse. July 11, 1933. Page 3. ---- Un bambin de 13 ans a voulu faire son petit "gangster" mais a raté son coup de belle façon. Il avait adressé une lettre à une dame A. Beauchamp, 1246, deBullion, la menaçant de dénonciation si elle n'allait pas porter sans faute au "restaurant noir et blanc", angle des rues Sanguinet et Saint-Denis la somme de $75.00. Les policiers informés avisèrent Madame Beauchamp de bourrer une enveloppe de papier et d'aller au restaurant. Le garçonnet l'y attendait et s'empara vite de l'enveloppe mais il n'avait pas si tôt fait demi-tour, qu'il était lui-même saisi par le sergent Rafter et le sergent-détective Valois qui le conduisirent aux cellules de la Cour des jeunes délinquants.

[vestaldestroyer]

guest professor likes hungarian poet enemies to lovers yaoi??? why do you, as a man, like a male poet's hate letter to his colleague because "they became friends afterwards"? ok?? keep that to yourself

[seleneprince]

When the Vanserra-Archeron twins find out that Nyx is courting their beloved friend, Zinnia (Tamlin's daughter), they're not amused at all. Specially Sylvie.

She doesn't care about her cousin, has a borderline hostile dynamic with him, but for the most part he's just "that guy from Night Court she happens to share blood with". Neth is on better terms with him and she doesn't mind spending time with him, but they're not close enough to see him as family. She considers him more a long-distance friend.

Meanwhile, they adore Zinnia. They grew up with her. She's their godfather's daughter, their beloved Uncle Tamlin. They spent their childhoods jumping from Spring to Autumn frecuently just to see each other. They love like her a sister. Their families are on the same circle. In their eyes, Zinnia has always been this sweet girl they must protect and who only deserves the best.

Which it's not Nyx Archeron. Or any other brute from the Night Court. They're sure of it.

It's not just them. Literally, no one in their circle approves of this possible union, except Elain (because she knows things). Both Eris and Nesta are amused by the whole mess but he doesn't think they fit together and she doesn't want her to be at the Night Court . Lucien doesn't like it at all and neither do his and Elain's kids. And let's not get started on poor Tamlin, having to see his exes' spawn court his precious daughter so insistently.

Back at the Night Court, it's more or less the same situation. Rhysand is the only person that openly supports his son on this and even gives him advice on how to woo the girl (which is awful advice because he only tells him to do the same things he did with feyre, ignoring that not everyone enjoys those as much as she did). Feyre doesn't understand why he's so enthusiastic about becoming family with Tamlin. The rest of the IC know where Rhysand is coming from and don't dare tell Feyre the truth...

[screechingsandwichhologram]

hmmmm. i think my amrev ocs could use some friends. does anyone have any redcoats or bluecoat ocs that might want to be friends / acquaintances / somewhat rivals but not really with william or jean?

[dathen]

“Well,” said Lestrade, “I've seen you handle a good many cases, Mr. Holmes, but I don't know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than that. We're not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow there's not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad to shake you by the hand.”

“Thank you!” said Holmes. “Thank you!” and as he turned away it seemed to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human emotions than I had ever seen him.

Ever since I watched the Jeremy Brett adaption which had Holmes actually tear up at this part, I’ve been musing on what in particular about this compliment had him affected so deeply. He gets praise all the time! He’s always dazzling or confounding those around him!

But I think there’s just something about someone telling him they’re proud of him hit a nerve. I feel it’s very likely that this is the first time he’s ever heard it. What vague hints we get about his family is anything but warm. He sought out a father figure with Victor Trevor’s father, but only frightened him. Mycroft is smarter and more respectable and anything but emotionally effusive.

Watson is full of praise bordering on worship, but I think Holmes was starved for someone being proud of him in a way he’s not even conscious of himself. Oh he loves to dazzle, to be sure, and doesn’t hesitate to fish for it. He’ll blush at applause but cry at ‘I’m proud of you.’