On November 9 1830, a hundred farm labourers descended on a farm in Kent in the south of England and destroyed a threshing machine with saws, hatchets and axes. At Burnham Overy in Norfolk, workers destroyed another machine as they shouted: “It keeps an honest man from getting work.” The country was in the throes of the Swing riots, where farm labourers smashed threshing machines, burnt barns, sent threatening letters to farmers and demanded higher wages. By the last 10 days of November, write historians Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé, “virtually all of Southern England seemed in flames”.
1830年11月9日，100名农场工人蜂拥至英格兰南部肯特郡(Kent)的一个农场，用锯子、短斧和长斧损毁了一台打谷机。在诺福克郡(Norfolk)的伯纳姆•奥弗里(Burnham Overy)教区，工人们在损毁另一台机器的时候喊着：“它让一个勤劳的男人找不到工作。”当时，斯温暴动(Swing Riots)在英国正如火如荼，农场工人砸毁打谷机，烧毁谷仓，向农场主发送恐吓信，并要求提高工资。历史学家埃里克•霍布斯鲍姆(Eric Hobsbawm)和乔治•鲁德(George Rudé)写道，到11月的最后10天，“几乎整个英格兰南部都陷入了火海”。