The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-11-18 00:00:00

RELIEF OF DISTRESS IN LANCASHIRE.

Until recently the hearts of thousands of Our
cotton manufacturers have been buoyed up with
the hope that by souse turn of affaiie, the dearth
of cotton would be brought to an 'end, ind that
whether the civil `war us Anteriett were termi-
nated or riot, the magnetic power of high ptioes
vrouM draw forth the requisite supply. High
prices have, indeed, done much towards Setting
people thinking and 'speculating in vaticlui direc-
tions ; and many thousindS of hales of rev/
material of our great manufacturing staple have
been brought to Liverpool, which, under any
other circumstance, would not have come there.
But the market price of cotton is still far beyond
the reach of manufacturing capital, for employ-
ing labour profitably. Under this state of
things, if the skilled labourer of Lancashire is
to be saved from extinction, he meet be carried
bodily over the ford of farnine, and this must
be done either by voluntary effort or by Govern-
ment interposition. It is quite clear that the
well-meant but inadequate expedients resorted
to at the dose of the last session have totally
failed, and that the itniount hitherto raised by
the benevolent; to mitigate the preliminary
stages of distress, has notoriously failed to arrest
perceptibly the deepening course of misery in
the once busy, but now idle region. Things are
only now coming to the worst • for every day
reveals fresh instances of manly independence
breaking down, and of struggles to tide orer the
calamity without abandonment of trust in volun-
tary help. As the cold becomes more intense,
and the biting frost searches more keenly the
scanty garments and congealed blood Of the suf-
fering peopleyof Lancashire, the netiessity for
food and warmth becomes More urgent. They
are a tender race from the nature of their em•
ployment, accustomed to work in mills where
the temperature is high • and their scanty allow-
ance of food renders them most sensitive to
cold. They want both food and clothing. The
piercing miseries which they are enduring, for
want of warmth by day, and especially by night,
now that bleak and dreary winter has set in, are
fully known only to themselves. The statement
of the Rev. ,Alfred V. Abbott, of Heywoed,
near Manchester, of. a few cats% which came
under his own observation in his pastoral visits,
may, perhaps, be a sample of thousands of cases
throughout the cotton manufacturing district.
Mr. Abbott says t—" I am truly thankful to
those kind friends who week after week respond
to my appeals, so frequently repeated. I am,
however, very sorry to add that the distress is
increasing in this town every week. Such, in-
deed, is the magnitude of the evil, that the
assistance of all classes will be required to pre-
serve our people from sinking onder its crushing
weight; and, should Voluntary aid fail, thousands
in this neighbourhood will most assuredly fall a
sacrifice to starvation and death.
•My pastoral
visits from day to day bring me into anitact
with cases of the most painful and harrowing
distress. The town missionary and relieving
officers of the Relief Fund have just called to
infante me of several distressing cases. The
flret house I called at I found three persons, all
without work; from Saturday until Tuesday
they had not a morsel of fire, end for SeVen days
they had to subsist on elk pounds weight of oat-
meal. At the wait house I found ten persons,
all without work, the wife just confined, and the
amount they had to live upon for the last week
was 3s. 2d. At the next I found eight persons,
all without work, the wife recently eootineti of
twins; one of them I allw lying dead on the
bed, and, as far as I &Mid learn, there was not a
morsel of food in the house, and without one
farthing to bury their dead child with. At the
next house I found nine persons, all without
work, without coals, and the poor little boys, I
was told, had been seen eetliag the peelings of
potatoes. At other houses I found numbers had
been complied to pelt with not only their better
clothes, but even blankets and bedding. For
the sake f these suffering thousands of our
fellow-creatures, I do earnestly hope that lii
every Christian cirole some kind energetic will
originate some plan for receiting weekly con-
tributions; and, in reference to clothing, I wish
most emphatically to say that very large supplies
are still required. The articles most needed are
overcoats, shawls, winter dresses, blankets, linsey
petticoats, flannel, shoes and stockings. Boxes
and parcels are now brought carriage free by
most of the railways in the kingdom." Paral-
lelled cases might be cited ad infinite/A, bnt
surely these are sufficient to move even the
most callous to give of their abundance
as God has prospered them. But if we would
do anything we must begin at once. The
people are dying from want. The distress
is worse this week than it was last, and it
will be worse next week than it is this,
unless greater efforts are made than have here-
tofore been put forth. We therefore hail with
the greatest degree of satisfaction the invitation
of the Mayor of Dorchester to the inhabitants,
to meet him at the Guildhall on Thursday
morning to devise some scheme whereby the
inhabitants may have a channel opened to them
of doing their duty—of subscribing their quota
to alleviate the sufferings of their fellow-crea-
tures at this important crisis. Let all attend
who can, and let the speakers avoid being
drawn into the too prevalent controversy regard-
ing the contributive share of relief borne by the
employers of labour in the distressed localities.
We have, indeed, small means of judging fairly,
as between class and class, of what has been
done. The time will come when the true story
will be told ; and it will be an evil day for the
great capitalists of Lancashire if it should then
appear that having made fortunes out of the
toil and skill and industrious community around
them, they walked by on the other side with
Pharasaic indifference in their hour of distress,
and left them to perish if not relieved by strange
and unexpected bandit The imperative duty
of the present time is to try out fairly the
noble experiment now being made, in the
endeavour to provide, without compulsory
methods or resort to the Treasury, for the sore
need that is pressing. In other towns great
efforts are being made to carry out this purpose,
and as the wealth of the country is said to be '
inexhaustible, so, ins certain sense, we are ready
to believe, is' the generosity of its people. A
greater scandal anka more ineffaceable reproach

could not be ehronieled in the itiatory d any
country than that which England would have
to bear, if, in the midst of profolind peace, and
of otherwiae unexampred proanerity, a quarter a
a million of her Moat useful, Intelligent, and
orderly citliena, through no fault of their own,
were reduced to pauperism and left to parish.
The affair, then, is a national one, and in the
sound spirit of the nation it must be taken up
with earnestness, and continued till ettraneolis
aid will no longer be requited.