The Express.
London, England, 1862-09-20 00:00:00

THE DISTRESS IN LANCASHIKK

(ram[ 0171 I? lAA

XANORRSTER, Sarr.l9.

You ask me, as one who has been long familiar
with the manufacturing districts, and who has had
opportunities of becoming well acquainted with the
character and habits of the working classes, to
describe to you the spirit in which the present dis-
tress has been met, and the changes which it has
introduced into our life. The teak is very difficult
and complicated, and I should gladly have trans-
ferred it to other and perhaps abler hands. To
persona at a distance the words " manufacturing
districts " may probably convey a single and homo-
geneous idea. Here we are constantly compelled
u note how the conditions of social life vary from
town to town, and from town to country. What is
true of Bolton may be untrue of Stockport ; and
the narrative of my own experience may not
took the special difficulties of my fellow-workers
few miles away. But I will spare no pains to cor-
rect airy own experience by the opinions of others
who have NW the largest opportunities of
acquiring tinowledge, and have exercised upon it
the soundest faculties of judgment. And I should
be very unwilling to give up to another
the possibility of bearing witness to the noble
qualities which bays been called out by this trouble.
Of the patience, the self-denial, the self-respect,
the mutual helpfulness of the poor, much (yet not
too much) has already been said ; presently it will
be my duty to record what I have myself seen and
heard of these things. But the genuine beneficence,
which has sought to grapple with the distress, is
hardly less striking. Shortcomings on the part of
the very wealthy there undoubtedly have been.
May be, many a liberal gift of money, wisely and
economically expended, has never found its way
into any subscription list ; and there are manufac-
turers who have accepted, and are discharging to
the full, all the obligations which the keenest sense
of duty imposes upon them. But there is no fault
to be found with the liberality, both in money and
service, of the classes which intervene between the
workpeople and the masters. Ministers of religion
and surgeons are many of them working night and
day. The shopkeepers have run the risk of serious
pecuniary embarrassment in giving credit, and are
now, in many places, the most efficient and labo-
rious members of relief committees. Supplies of
money from more prosperous districts have filtered
into Lancashire through many private channels,
and are being carefully expended by some who have
themselves little to give beyond a kind heart and a
ready band. In innumerable households all trifling
superfluities are being carefully treasured up for
the use of some poorer friend or dependent. Many
a lady has emptied the recesses of her wardrobe
of the accumulations of past years, and is now
hard at work cutting out calico and flannel
for a sewing class. The spirit of self-sacrifice
rises in proportion to the urgency of the need ; it
a great province has been stricken with drought,
the same dispensation has opened kindly fountains
of help in countless hearts.

•dF cannot help thinking that the change in the
appearance of the district has been somewhat
exaggerated. Observers from a distance come
prepared to see the nakedness of the land, and
have seen it Manchester,which is far
less a manufacturing city than a market and em-
porium for the country which surrounds it,
surges and swells with busy human life as usual.
The same is the case, in various degrees, with
the larger towns, which depend in part upon other
forms of industry than that now paralysed. There
are, uo doubt, more beggars in the streets, more
braes bands, more troops of singers—all of whom
are factory hands for the nonce, even though some
of them may not know a shuttle from a spindle.
But I must own, although my experience may be
singular, that 1 have only once or twice been
asked for alms by those whom I could at
once and unhesitatingly identify as belonging to
the respectable working class. The cottages are,
perhaps, cleaner than usual, and the gardens more
trim ; many a man tries to find in unaccustomed
household work the occupation which long habit
has made neceeaary to him. But especially in the
smaller towns and villages the resident notes
changes which would altogether escape the obser-
vant stranger. In ordinary times these unlovely
places are, except at certain hours of
the day, as sleepy as the quietest ham-
let in Warwickshire, the streets are empty,
the shopkeepers idle; and only the over-
hanging canopy of smoke, and the busy hum of
wheels which falls upon the ear as you approach the
mill, tell the tale of human industry. But then at a
few minutes before six in the dewy morning, and
again at twelve and one in the hot noon, and at six
once more as the sun begins to decline to his rest,
a deafening clatter of clogs is heard along the stones,
and strong streams of life pour down all the main
streets ; and for a moment the wonder is not, as
before, where was all the population to fill the long
rows of cottages, but where even in the cottages, so
thick a population is to find its borne. Now, when
factories open for a few days in the week at eight
and close at four, there is no such rush to and from
work ; there is time to lounge slowly down without
losing the last moment of aleep, time to saunter
slowly up without risking the last moment of day-
light. Men bang about the street-corners and other
well-known haunts, nut noisily, but quietly, almost
wearily, as if it were always Saturday afternoon.
Formerly shopkeepers did not begin work in earnest
till seven o'clock at night ; now, what little they
have todo is spreadpver theday,and the streets have
an unnatural look of business and activity. I have
heard it said by those who live in the tLick of the
smoke, that in the great strike some years ago—
k nown as the "national holiday"—their fruit ripened
naturally for the first time, and they were able to
identify the produce of their trees. This autumn,
too, apples reddest, and plums blush in their proper
hues ; the chimneys smoke too feebly and too
seldom to cover them with the accustomed
coating of soot. Those who were not fami-
liar with the excellent wardrobes of the
better class of mill girls, would still remark the
neatness of their Sunday's attire ; keencrobservers
noted that at Whitsuntide new bonnets were few
and far between, and that freshened ribbons and
turned frocks betokened many an anxious mother's
care that her children should make a creditable ap-
pearance at the great northern holiday. The loaded
shelves of the pawnbroker tell a mournful tale ;
there are warm clothes and blankets there which
will be bitterly missed before spring comes round
again, and the furniture•brokers will not buy, and
cannot sell, any longer. Still there is a look (per-
hips it may be no more than a fancy of mine,

The distress assumes very different aspects in
town and country. Manchester, for instance, is
suffering, in some respects, less than most of the
neighbouring towns ; and its suffering is quite
differently related to its ordinary condition. As I
bare said, it is not now a manufacturing town, so
much as the market and warehouse of the whole
trade. The increased price of land, the want (before
the new waterworks were established) of an ade-
quate supply of water, and the upward tendency of
wages, have long ago driven the factories to the
bill sides, which look down upon the plain
of South Lancashire from south, and east, and
north. Almost every other kind of manufacture
finds a home there ; while, compared with the vast
extent and population of the city, the cotton mills
are few. Now, in every town which depends upon
a variety of trades, the distress arising from the
cotton famine is relatively less severe than it is
where it furnishes employment to the whole popu-
lation. Up to the present date, a print works or a
machine shop has been felt as a serious allevia-
tion to the misery of a district. In a village, which I
well know, the same effect has been produced by
the fact that it contains a number of felt hatters,
where trade, always capricious, has been during
the past year unusually good. The operation of
these causes is obvious : the batter is probably the
father of two or three girls who go to the mill ' • or
he is connected with factory workers by more dis-
tant ties of relationship, perhaps only of
neighbourhood, or at least his earnings help to
the small shopkeepers from threatening insolveney.
So in Manchester, as in other large towns, the mul-
tiplicity of interests relieves the depression of one,
while the heaviest weight of this calamity fella on
places where two or three factories furnish the
whole wealth of the community—places where in
good times poor rates are very low, and distress is
almost unknown. But then, on the other hand, a
certain degree of misery seems always to attend the
congregating of men in large towns. Classes of
society are more widely separated than in the
country. It is easy for hopeless poverty to multiply
itself, and to sink deeper and deeper into degrada-
tion, without any passibility of help, save the
official benevolence of the relieving officer and the
parish doctor. In such places the board of guar-
dians is always busy, the rates never low, and pau-
perism is a constant fact which clamours to be
taken into the calculations of the social philosopher.
So now the distress is rather augmented in extent
than new in kind ; it is the slow swelling of the old
stream of pauperism, not a fresh and destructive
inundation from a quite unexpected quarter. Man-
chester finds herself upon the threshhold of winter
with rising rates, au increased list of paupers, and
uncertain prospects of trade. Little money will be
made, a good deal (as the estimate of gifts goes)
given away. Probably there may be fewer balls
than usual, and theatres and concert-rooms
will reap but a poor harvest. But
there are places round about—and no few
of them—where next winter will be a
fierce struggle for life against hunger and cold ;
where every inhabitant in his place and degree
feels equally the pressure of the times ; where pre-
sently it will be difficult to divide the population
into those who ought to pay the poor rates, and
those who have a legitimate claim to receive them.
And in most cases this distress will be augmented
by the fact that it is in inverse ratio to previous
prosperity. When savings and all other temporary
resources are exhausted, those who have enjoyed
the greatest comfort will find starvation the bitterest ;
and an agricultural labourer with a large family,
always within sight of hunger, would take a trouble
like this less hardly than the Lancashire spinner
who has never known the meaning of want.
. .

There is one more remark shier] I must make
before I conclude this preliminary letter. People
are accustomed to speak of the " manufacturing
population" as if it were a whole, and could be dealt
with throughout in the same way. By this mis-
conception they not only credit all the workpeople
with virtues which are really the attributes of no
more than a part, but in imagination greatly
diminish the difficulties with which distributors of
relief have to contend. How easy would not our
task be if we could be sure that help was never
asked for but iu extremity of need—that the scanty
resources were so husbanded as to put off, to the
longest day, the necessity of alms—that even timely
gifts did not sap tho strength of kelf-relhuire.—that

seeing the sign where I know the reality to be) of every applicant would sooner earn sixpence thau re-
quiet, almost cheerful courage, on many faces, as oeive a shilling without work. There are very many
of men resolved to keep up a good heart, and to •of whom all this is true—with whom the visitor of
the relief board still more the minister of religion,
fight the fight to its end, however hard it may be. ' that be •
or the employer, may feel
Certainly even such pressing evils as cold and But in so vast and motley a population as this,
hunger are better to bear in sight of streams and attracted by the prospect of good wages from every
trees and green hills, than where the long dull lines t part of the kingdom, and herding together in
of squalid street shut out all Nature, save the masses, some of which are as impenetrable to civi-
narrow strip of sky overhead. God help those who
influences as Spitalfields or Bethnsl-green.
suffer in the depths of our huge, There must be a huge element of moral indifference black towns : few I
—not to say worthlessness. There is a certain,
need His help so much. not small, proportion of Irish immigrants, who,
Even in places where the aspect of affairs is thus, whatever may be their other virtue', are certainly
comparatively speaking, favourable ; where the po- importunate and untruthful claimants at the door
; of every relief committee. There is adage, who, from
pulation is respectable and well housed ; which are
small enough to be within limits of benevolent ma- :rari°ll" untcnrard circumstentee, have always been
cultivated the feeling of independence, and where
too ear the verge of want to have sucoessfullf
nagement, so that all cases of extreme distress are
known and at least partially relieved, and in which self-respect soon gave way before tine ov wer-
e large part of the people are employed for two or lug calamity. There are the mesh, the dissolute,
three days a week ; it is strange to see how much
Ithebiehlearf-inudcdlasauwlfige—onlintive:dhocanainjokioodll
beuhf:,.meshnesdcarertttehrea scattered
aloatthh:iorfr
watfes with a lavish hand, like their prototype. in
wretchedness is called out of holes and corners by the
operationsof a relief committee. In most mom, a day •
isfixed on which application is to be made for help, I always have bean—mud,s and antbrifty, and
im-
andthe particularsof the claim noted down. Then, or patient of restraint. But after all these deduc-
at the time when the adjudication is made, some ' Lions there still remains the strength and dower of
school-room, or chapel, or mechanics' institution ispeople—men ""lialalla,, efetheseturdY
Im-
filled with an eager crowd of xplicante, who have I teram''' or
gb, Cheshire,;it. or ortchlinerstee, whobscrak
; born to it is as capable of o'Philumour and of pathoshose w
as
started uare
p—oue hardly knows whence—at the very
sound of bread. They are not, by any means, the' Lowland Scotch upou the lips of Burns. To those
best of their class ; except in isolated cases, these who have come among them in their prosperous
have not yet brought themselves to ask help of any days they
does not often hwir appeared unmteuuthiyrudetu rude, almost
mrsopst.
public board ; some of them, perhaps, never ' surly ; the
infrequent in their mouths ; they turn their back
I Even the common titles of honour and respect are
They were, in the earlier stages of the distress, and
to some extent are still, very difficult to deal with. I upon well-meant patronage, and will not
Every week there will be a certain per centage of . submit to even gm most benevolent dies
cases of attempted imposture ; a certain much tation ; whosoever would work with them,
untu.
smaller proportion of successful fraud. There will even for their own good, must be contentto descend
be some whom the most benevolent have little will to
only
their level, and bere on
to help, and yet cannot leave to starve, when starve-ceu sobosefortwbo ashrly one among many. But
toed w'ithn tlierm'esteeandm haan7l
tion is a not distant possibility : the thriftless, and affection, know how kind a heart is hidden beneath.
the drunken ; women with two or three illegitimate that halting courtesy, bow genuine a self-respect
children ; the idle, whom, when work is so scarce, masks itself with that rough independence ; how
cheerfully they accept the somewhat hard condition.
it is very difficult to convict of an unwillingness to
of their lot ; how completely they fill their humble
labour. There will be those who, in ordinary times,
ceive of no greater national misfortune than that,
place in the economy of the State. And I can con-
are fit objects of poor-law relief, but who now prefer
to trust the somewhat uncertain benevolence of a either by inadequate or ill-considered measures of
committee, rather than the strictly regulated action relief, a people like this should be crushed down.
of a board of guardians. There will be many, who, into that dull level of hopeless pauperism above
us, at least, tuuwenilltabbeleonerofff
thelerisiivosest
=lam:table.
whicht
l they have struggled so manfully to rise. For
though they do not themselves work in the mill,
are directly dependent upon the operatives for emLan
-
ployment—sempstresaesoratherwomen, charwomen, cashire with a working population indifferent to
nurses, whose poor wages are among the most and unworthy of political emancipation.
obvious possibilities of retrenchment to those
who once paid them. There will be the aged
and the sick who formerly received a con-
tribution to their maintenance from relatives
who now find it hard to maintain them-
selves. Add to these a proportion of shamefaced
petitioners, whom sickness, or some temporary de-
privation of work, or the constant pressure of a
family, none of whom are yet old enough to earn
wages, has brought down from the height of inde-
pendence on which they would gladly stand, and
you have the constituents of a crowd, which, once
a week at least, starts up to prove the reality of
wretchedness in places which yet show a cheerful
and almost comfortable outside.

P10011:118 or TEI DINTZIMB IN BIIRT.—The Relief
Committee, Moe their appointment oa Wednesday week,
have been busily engaged in organieing an Mildest staff far
visiting sod relieving the distressed workpsople. The tom
has been divided into districts, and a large warehouse in the
centre of the town is being fitted apse • storehouse, sad as
• sewing school for the unemployed females. The number
of applicants ia me week has emaiderably exceeded 1,000.
Subscriptions to the amount of 6,2001. have been promised.
lo the meantime the distress is increasing fast, an the mills
are reducing their hours of labour. and some large establish.
meats are dim-altogether. Relief funds have also bees
established at Heywood nod Tottington, within the Bury
Maim, and the relief so afforded has been largely supple-
mated by private charity. The guardians of the poor Led
week relieved 6,931 peaces, at a met of 4324 35., or as
average of la. 3d. per bead per week. In the corresponding
week Mt year the numbers relieved were 1,670, at a oast al
1081. 9s. 11d., an average of la 4d. per head. The number
, of indoor pampers has not increased.
THE COTTON FAMINE AND THE SHIPPING TRADE.
—Tb• Manure of the Money Dock Board, at the weekly
meeting on Thunday, stated that the surplus at am
estate for the year ending Jam 24 amounted to 0001.
The imports from the United States showed a decrease of
no lees thee 1,800,000 bales of sotto. slaw, as compared
with the previous year, and the estate had consequently
lost about 100,0001. is dues which they would have re -
solved from ships and from cotton itself, to say nothing of
the export dues on the same metes when spun into yarn sad
cloth. The surplus income had °Jingly arisen from the ours
trade.

----
DDITRZEZ tie THZ PRINTINO PI.OIIIIIBION. —At a
special delegate meeting of the Loathe Society of Oumpo.
saton, held in Yerriugdon-hall, Snow-hill, on Wednesday
evening last, called in compliance with • requisition from
members out at employment, the following proposition wen
placed before the delegates :—•• That is the t dew
pressed state of the trade, sod in the 'Respect of • tMaed
continuance of that depression, it is expedient to greet
pecuniary aasistence to the unemployed reembere,
such an amount and under such regulatiose se
this meeting shall determine." After some dimension, it
was resolved that s grant from the society's foods of 10.. •
week, to be continued for one month, should be given to
each member of the society out of work. It is maculated
that there are between two and three hundred compositors
in Loadon antrely idle at the present time, • large number
of whom have earned little or nothing for the List two or
three months. There are also many engaged in printing-
°lkea who are only partially employed.
WmoLwlem.—Furtuuatus Smith, aged 18, who
Lad been eentemed to four ran' penal servitude for •
felony committed at Woolwich in 1859, and who left the
convict prison at Portland about, a fortnight since cm •
ticket of leave, was placed at the bar before Mr. Maude, as •
charged committing a burglars at the reeideuce of Corporal
Bale, ILA., 7, lkight•terrace, Bandy.hill, and steeling there-
from • quantity of gold lam, a Moak, a pair of ,boots, sad
numerous other articles. The *Macron prov,.d that on the
day following the burglary the prisoner offered to mill •
quantity of the stale, lace et the shops of two marine-More
dealers in Woolwich, and it was now stated that the pri-
soner was suspected of being concerned in another burglary
which had taken place in the locality since his release from
prison. Mr. Maude remanded the prisoner until Thursday
mast.

DES' TRUCTION OP • PAPER. MILL BY FIZZ.
About bait-pact ten on Wednesday night the Blaidiford
Paper-mill, about a mile from Barnstaple, belonging to
Messrs. W. and J. List and Sues, was discovered to be on
fire. After the lapse of about three-quarters of an hour an
entries arrived, sad the most energetic endeavour. were
made to extinguish the flames. About 7 tons of raw
tne.erial, cousistiug of rags, rutin. alum, lc., were enveloped
in dames, toeether with all the woodwork of the interior of
the mill. The mill could nut be saved ; all that now re-
mains of it are dilapidated walls and the water-wheel. The
machinery, which 00 Tuesday was in perfect order, and in
pert. highly polished, sow look. like • lot of rusty iron.
The damage done bus been roughly estimated at between
ten to twelve hundred pounds. Adjoining the mill there
was a paper-house, containing about 1,400 reams of paper.
This was fortunately saved. The mill, stock, and maehi-
Dewy were tutored in the West of England Insurance Com-
pany and the Norwich Insurance Company._ It is not yet
known how the tire orinated.— Western Morning Nees.
&SCRS BET ON FIRE BY • RAILWAY RNOINI.—•
Os Wednesday morning last, about half-past 11 o'clock, •
Sr., which at one time threatened the wick of the stacks
and buildings with destruction, broke out oe the first pre-
mises of Mr. Mountain, at Bautborpe. near Stamford. Im-
mediately on the intelligence of the fire being received by
the Stamford fire bngsde, the engines were despatched, and
arrived at the farm a little after 2 o'clock, but before they
could succeed in subduing the flames, seven stacks of corn,
bay, and straw were totally consumed. The buildings were,
however, fortunately saved. It is supposed the tire was
caused by a spark from an engine passing on tho Great
Northern Railway, which rues within 20 or 30 yards of the
farm.—Manford Mercury.
ORAWOZ RIOTS IN BRLYAST.—THR RIOT ACT
READ.—On Thursday evening the streets when formerly
the retie between catholic and protestant* took place were
spin crowded by people bearing the most bitter antagonism
to each other ; but, *beaks to the extreme vigilance of the
magistrates lied the police auth mities, the object of the par-
ties was frustrated, mid, excepting some stone-throwing Rod
persoual assaults, so other disturbenoo took place. The Riot
Act was read three Woes. Several police officer* have bees
unseal) injured with stones thrown by the mob—the police
tig, as it were, the targets fur the factions. The windows
the Rev. Hugh Hauna's meeting-house were leeks.
Crowds were still moving about at so early hour pestaday
moritiog.—Preenian's Arena/.
A Come LOAD OF PISIOTIMION CAYS.—A *sits!
from New Turk bee the following anecdote :—"
the prisoners is Feet M'Henry there was, up to 6=
of June last, a Norfolk lady of fashion, Miss Same Archer
Tally, who had bees arrested in consequence of a disco-
very nude that a cam, which she endeavoured to get
passed through the Federal lines to Richmand, alleging it
to contain the corpse of her brother, was in reality full of
percussion cape. The fair smuggler wea forthwith pee
under lock and key, and was rigorously oonfissd to her
WI, with pemtirioe, however, to take the altos a balcoey
pertaining %o ber window, and also as best's exercise round
the ramparts, aonempeoied by the °Meer on duty. She
was is all respects well treated, and took her captivity
pretty philosophieally. Oh her relem sl o foto:reed tq
hR WWII, soar IS orkili."