The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1871-03-28 00:00:00

GREAT DISTRESS IN PORTLAND-STARVA-

TION BEGUN.

For a oonsiderable time past, the miserable state of
the stone trade in Portland has been oecasionally alluded
to in our columna, and the public* have been told from
time to time of the destitution slowly but too eerily
approaching. Now and then, an order has been
received by some or other of the stone merchants, and
things have for s moment justified hope that better
days are coming, and that all would turn right
in the end. But order after order has been
swallowed up, and the work they brought has
only suffioed to stave off abeolate pauperism—that
total abandonment of striving which happens when the
British workmen in desperation throws himself upon
the parish. Yet boo surely, the state of Portland
quarrymen, taken as • elms has got worse and worse,
, and with occasional breaks in the sky, the amount of
money lost to them is so great that even the savings
from hard work, and carefulness daring prosperous
times show signs of mining to the bitter end. When
men have to work only half-time on half wages, when,
oven that time being lessened by bad weather and other
muses, and the earnings lessened also, it is not a
question of momony being strict enough to make both
ends meet, but rather how long the body can endure
" elemoning," I. e., partial starvation on the redacted
allowance of food. This, too, in such a keen place as
Portland, open to all the fresh winds of her von, and at
so laborious an mumpaticis as the work on massive stone.
Some of the bakers can tell painful tales of those who
suffer unease, and wbo mama their misery in hope of
better times, clinging to home. Others have wisely
gathered together their saviage before they had
melted away, and have fled the island, emigrating to
wider lands. But others have no money to go, and if
they could get their passage, have no capital to support
them for the first weeks after landing. So Portland
quarrymen, as • elms, are got now into that fix, which
they cannot get out of, and Namely know how to
endure. It is a comfort to find that the groat firm of
Thornton and Co. have a good business even now,
and we shall be glad to hear any encouraging
news with respect to other firms. All that
we have heard, however, with regard to the
men, confirms the gloomy view that the employinent
' of convicts in supplying stone for Government works
has taken away many of the sources of the best orders,
and that soon we shall find the free man's occupation
gone. However good wages a few may be earning, the
'I great mass are unable to antisipate with relief the
more cntreme oases of poverty which seldom come to
public light; but are in better times watched over and
mitigated by that neighbourly feeling which is the
glory of tke English poor. Webs,. heard of • case
where • poor woman sold the last of her own and her
hushand`s underclothin,
g to pay a rate, and that done
they had no ohange--alltheir clothing being that on
their backs. This was alder hill. In Wakeham a
builder went into • house the other day, and found the
husband, wife, and family at dinner, limy had
nothing but • muse of surly greens, there being not a
scrap of meat, nor a bit of bread, nor a potato on the
table. Another cam was noticed in Weston, where •
quarrymen, working only three days • week, had
nothing but dry bread for every meal, and his drink
consisted solely of cold water, or occasionally, when
the weather was severs, he warmed the water and
colouredlt with toasted bread. The soup kiteliens
dii not always reach such oases, fir it often happened
that rent and clothes, with the necesmay bread,
absorbed every farthing of money, and the poor poople
Lod uot even the penny to purchase • qeart of
soup- Some people have beam turned away from
the soup kitchen absolutely because they had not the
=to buy with, except that in some eases, the
attending the distribution have given the
evidently-stervtng the necessary coppers out of their
own pockets. 'TM too late now to ask the committee
to modify their rules, hr the soup supply (below hill)
him been stopped this (orthight. Two old women lir-
ing together in Cove Cottages, Maldeuwell, were of
those who were unable to find the weekly pennies for
soup. The younger of them was a Mrs: Fall, who had
married • seaman, lest her husband, then married a
navvy, who had also died. On account of her second
husband being in some way related to a family of posi-
tion, the old woman had cherished the illusion•that
hundreds of pounds wem her due, and dwelling on this
had rendered her rattle eccentric. Her husband died
seven years ago, and the supported herself by wash-
ing until she hurt her side, and was unable to work
any mere. When she applied to,the Union. having no
home or subsistence, dse was offered "Th. House."
The strange old woman, doubtless feeding her mind on
her "expectations," aid wishing to preserve her fade-
wawa. refused to leave Portland, and went to look
after a woman more helpless than herself—Mrs. White,
let Cows well. Km White had the
allowance of 4 per week trona the parish, and the