Our advices from Paris ſay, that a journeyman joiner, an Engliſhman, who had worked ſometime in that city, had been forming a ſcheme to raiſe the wages of all the journeymen joiners there. For this end he had occaſioned a general meeting, at which he repreſented to them, that their wages being too ſmall, it was neceſſary for them to demand an augmentation, and if that ſhould be denied, that they ſhould all refuſe to work.
At the ſame time a collection was made of three livres apiece, to be applied to the ſupport of thoſe who could not ſupport themſelves without employment; and he further propoſed, that all ſuch as ſhould refuſe to come into theſe meaſures, ſhould be ill treated by the reſt, which was generally agreed to, and one then preſent refuſing was ſeverely drubbed.
But the lieutenant-general of Police having been preſently informed of this combination, he took proper meaſures to defeat it, by ſending the projector, and ſeveral of his accomplices, to priſon, and threatning every journeyman joiner with the ſame fate, who refuſed to work at his uſual wages.
The London Magazine, Or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer – Dec. 1749
–Jeff Burks