As a Social Democratic candidate for Parliament, Mr.Burns polled 598 votes at West Nottingham in 1885.

In 1886 he was charged (with Messrs.

Hyndman, Champion, and Williams) with seditious conspiracy--after an unemployed riot in the West End--and acquitted.

In 1887 he suffered six weeks imprisonment (with Mr.R.B.
Cunninghame Graham) for contesting the right of free speech in Trafalgar Square.

In 1889 came the great London dock strike, and, with Messrs.