extensive fire attended with serious loss of life occurred at the cotton factory of Messrs. Gartside and Mayall, Union mill, Side of moor, in the calamitous year 1834. On Saturday morning, the 28th of June, at an early hour, long before the time of commencing work for the day, a fire broke out in the fifth storey - the flames extended rapidly, a number of individuals ventured into the lower rooms for the purpose of removing as much property as possible; whilst engaged in this laudable duty, a high partition wall suddenly fell, and overwhelmed several persons in its ruins. Fifteen individuals were deprived of life by this awful event, namely: Joseph Greenhalgh, William Knott, Isaiah Schofield, Nicholas Needham, William Dunkerley, James Turner, Seville Nicholls, Thomas Mills, James Avison, Thomas Schofield, Ralph Kershaw, Philip Nield, Robert Lees, Richard Bentley, and a female, name unknown. Seven persons were accidentally injured, but subsequently recovered. The aggregate loss resulting from the destruction of the property, was estimated at 15,000. A public subscription was immediately originated for the relief of the widows and children of the unfortunate victims of the calamity. The total of the fund contributed for this purpose amounted to £686 16s. 5d. ; of this sum the committee placed £55O in the hands of the Saddleworth Banking Company, upon interest at 35 per cent., which, with other means, was appropriated to an allowance of 2s. per week to each fatherless child, until it arrived at the age of ten years.

Another of these lamentable disputes which have so frequently occurred in this district, betwixt the employers and the employed, on the subject of wages, broke out in the latter part of 1836, and the commencement of 1837, principally owing to a depressed state of trade. On the 28th of November, the proprietors of about twenty manufacturing establishments in Oldham, refused to allow their hands to continue at work

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