The Express.
London, England, 1862-10-17 00:00:00

(Stamped, ld. Additional]

officials do not move quite quickly enough in the
desired direction ; officials, on the other hand,
cherishing a bigoted attachment for methods
which they have themselves devised, and which
have worked well for many years, are, besides, in
wholesome fear of overstepping the letter of theism.
Then, difficult as it may be to alter methods
suddenly, it is still more difficult to change nm.
Poor-law officers of every grade are accustomed to
deal with habitual paupers, who are unscrupulous,
untruthful, and incorrigibly idle : whit wonder if
they learn in such a tithed to be sharp, suspicions,
arbitrary, incredulous of all that they do not ac-
tually see, distrustful of the very existence of un.
merited misfortune and deserving poverty Y Both
men and methods are fitted to deal with a clan
separated from the criminal by a very shadowy
line, and cannot quickly be moulded to meet the
necessities of those whose indigence is no fault of
their own, and who bring with them to the pariah
some remnant of pride and self-respect. And in a
great city like Manchester, where the pauper
class is always large, and tests in ordinary
times all the resources of the system, it is
hard, r hot absolniely impossible, to draw the dis-
tinction between the respectable and the disre-
putable operative, which is made with comparative
ease in less crowded centres of population.

This single circumstance is sufficient to explain
why the Manchester board of guardians, with an
admirable organisation and the most benevolent
intentions, fails to recommend itself to the 185,000
souls which the law has committed to its charge.
From personal inspection I can speak in the highest
terms of the completeness and efficiency of its
arrangements for the relief of the poor, the rata of
payment being Is. sd. a head, and the rates already
amounting to 3s. 3d. in the pound. Nor is the
board indisposed to adapt its methods to the altered
circumstances of the times. I have already
mentioned its co-operation with the sewing
and adult school system, and its establishment of

both these agencies on • large scale for persons
wholly dependent upon the rates. In another
good work which they have undertaken I felt a par-
ticular interest—the collection, namely, of 300
little children of persons receiving outdoor relief
into two or three schools, where they receive a good
elementary education, and three plain but sufficient
meals a day. Although the rations of each child
only cost the incredibly small sum of 10d. a week,
the little ones whom 'saw were ruddy and well ;
the hunk of bread and the warm milk which they
were to get for dinner were all that could be wished,
and the ragged garments and bare feet with which
they trooped out of the street were at least much
more picturesque than any tame uniformity of i
workhouse dress. But then all the good works of
the Manchester board are, in the eyes of a certain
clam*, neutralised by the fact that they jealously
maktain the labour test. In addition to the usual
oakum shop, and, I believe, stoneyard, they have a
farm of some fifty acres, in connexion with the new
workhouse at Crumpsall, upon which able-bodied
paupers are set to work. The experiment succeeds
as pauper labour and indeed all labour in which
the labourer has not a direct interest in the quan-
tity and quality of his work always succeed& The
unhappy bailiff who presides over this untoward
gang of workmen leads a weary life amid their
idleness, their freakishness; their regular recurrent
mutiny. Almost every week a deputation is sent
down to the board to ask for some diminu-
tion of their hours of labour, or some
change in its circumstances which will
tend to reduce the already small measure of
result to one still smaller. And within the last
few days a public meeting of 2,000 unemployed
operatives has been held, at which, not without
some intemperance of language, a deputation was
appointed to wait upon the board, and demand the
abolition of the labour test, and the payment of
the whole of the relief in money. It is almost
needless to add that the request, which was accom-
panied by a not obscure threat, was at once and de-
cisively refused.
It would only weary your readers, without
answering any generally useful purpose, were I to
investigate the special difference of opinion which
has thus arisen between the Manchester Board of
Guardians and the persons in receipt of its out.
door relief. The board might be admitted to plead
that they had already reduced the hours of labour
on the farm to six per diem ; that they had
added the boon of a daily dinner to all the
labourers ; and that all relief given to men
above GO, and to women of every age, was already
given in cash. Our present interest is with the
general principles involved in the dispute. Work-
house labour is rightly denominated a test. It is
not expected to be commercially reproductive. It is
not managed in accordance with any commer-
cial principle. The hours of work are less than the
customary hours ; the wages paid do not represent
the market price of labour. Even the work itself
has often a certain character of aimlessness about
it, and is not done because necessary or expe-
dient but for the sake of itself. It thus partakes
of the nature of the treadmill, or the crank, the
most irritating of all work, inasmuch as it is contrary
to the instinct of humanity to put fortis strength
of mind or body without some definite pros-
pect of result. The pauper accepts such work
as a disagreeable necessity ; he does as
little of it as be well can ; and as for the idea of
degradation, he has in all probability long got over
that. But to the decent working man—even to
one who, not being among the best of his chola, has
still some shred of self-respect left—this labour is
inexpressibly distasteful. Why should he be exposed
to a test, when he has shown, by working all his
life, that he was willing and anxious to work I As
to that there can be no pretence or deception : be
has been no idler about the streets, looking out for
any passing job ; the mill where he has worked for
years is known ; and so is the fact of its having
stopped or slackened work. What fresh item of
information can be drawn out of him by the appli- I
cation of any test 1
I believe that objections to labour, as labour,
come from the habitual pauper, but not from the
respectable working-man. The latter may feel
that the kind of work proposed to him is above his
strength, or prejudicial to his health, or likely to
incapacitate him for his own work, when the time
oomes for returning to it ; though even in regard 1
to any of these difficulties be will not be disposed to
make mole-hills into mountains. But while wit- !
ling enough to work, there are many things in the `
system of workhouse labour to which he feels a :
strong and not unnatural repugnance. He does
not like to work a whole week for 2s. dd. merely
because he is a single man, while the next man to
him gets NIL for the same amount of labour, on
the ground that he has a family. He objects to

[TWOPENCE

being paid for his work on any but
fair commercial principles ; he wishes to do
a good day's work, and thinks that he ought to
receive for it a fair day's wages. He is scandalised
at the contented idleness of his pauper ix "ghbour ;
and yet he hardly feels stimulated to put forth an
industry which will meet with no return. Why,
Le asks, can he not be set to piece-work, and paid
for what he actually does ? He is discontented at
being kept at work when there is nothing for him to
do, as if he were a dangerous animal which it was
necessary to keep out of the streets for as large a
part of the week sa possible—or tertainly an idle,
dissolute fellow, who could not betrusted to employ
his time to the best advantage of himself and his
family. These are real feelings, which I have heard
from the lips of working-men to whom parish relief
was a most painful necessity ; and I must warn
Poor-law guardians that they will make a great
mistake if they confound them with those grum-
blings of idle and discontented paupers to which they
have been long accustomed to close their ears.
I do not pretend to tffer an opinion on this diffi-
cult question to administrators of the Poor-law,
who are necessarily much better acquainted than
I am with the possibilities of their position ;it is
enough for me to have put before them an
aspect of the matter with which they may got be
familiar. But the necessity of providing labour for
unemployed men is now presenting itself to other;'
than Poor-law guardians, and will every day be- t
come more importunate. Considered not merely
as a matter of economy, but as a means of preserv-
ing the self-respect of the people, it is becoming of
the highest consequence that as large a proportion
of relief as may be, should be given in the shape
of wages. Roads may be made or improved ;
sewers cut ; drainage effected ; waste land
levelled, moorland reclaimed, according to the seve-
ral opportunities of each district. The practical'
difficulties involved are, I know, very great. Many
private interests will have to be consulted, and the
balance of public and private advantage will be
very hard to equalise. But lam satisfied that'
such a system can be successfully carried out only
by adopting the principle of a fair day's wages
for a fair day's work. Ido not mean that a mill'
band, unused to out-door labour, should receive
the same sum per diem as would be paid to a sturdy
Yorkshire navigator, but that a remuneration pro-
portioned to his ability should be offered, and that,
in return, the same measure of industry and in-
telligence should be exacted of him as would
be required in the mill. The appor-.
tionment of the relief to the number of a
man's family would be easily managed, by
increasing or diminishing the quantity of work.
A single man would be allowed to work one day, or
oneend-a-half day a week, while the father of a
host of little children might be continuously em-
ployed. It must not• be forgotten that labour is
moral or immoral in its effect according to the con-
ditions under which it is performed, and that the
very means taken to keep the people above
pauperism may be the surest way to pauperise
them. To set an industrious man to work among
idle ones ; not only to give no encouragement to his
industry, but to show hint that idleness answers,
every practical purpose quite as well ; to make his
' wages independent of the quality and quantity of
his work, and to put 1,000 to do what every man of
them knows would not find real work for 50, is, it
seems to me, diligently to inculcate every lesson
which an industrial population ought not to learn,
and to unfit them, as far as possible, for the pro-
ductive energy which, it is to be hoped, they wil
soon be called upon to exercise once more.

THE EVANGELICAL ALLlANCL—Yesterday, at the
liminess meeting, Sir Culling Eardley presiding, the com-
mittee appointed on Wednesday evening submitted the
following resolutions with reference to the war in Americas
which they had agreed to unanimously :—" That the fee.
ternal communication received from the. Paris bench be
affectionately acknowledged ; that the beet auk, of the
conference be °mimed to our French brethren, for their
expressions of warm interest in the operations and success
of our branch el the Alliance, with the. assuratimi
that we participate in their deep sympathy with
our common brethren in America in the fearful calsr.
unities which Lave sprung from the civil war
now raging. That this conference desire to express theig
deep sorrow for the continuance of the civil war in America,
and the fearful amount of bloodshed and suffering to which
it has led. Believing that in is the cause if God's sore
judgments, and that the evils oonucted with the main-
themes of slavery in she South, and complicity with those
evils in the North, are cue peat cause of this solemn
visitation, they renew their expresion of the earnest
prayer that peace may be restored, that these evils, and
all others which have led to these calamities, may be
removed, and the immense meserees and energies of the
American churches be set free I. promote the cause of
the Gospel of peace mid love. They desire further to
record their conviction, as British Christine, that the
duty of our country is to read in this war not a warrant
for self-righteous pride, but a loud call to humilia-
tion and prayer and repeutance, lest our own many national
eine shoulddrawdown upon us, inters, the judgments°, God.
That considering further the distress thus occasioned to
large dames in our country, they recommend that Sunday,
Nov. 9, be made an occasion far public and private confes-
sion of ado, and special prayer on thole grave subjects, so
far as praeicable, in all the churches of Christ and Christian
families throughout the land." The Rev. H. Schmettau, the
foreign secretary, read a paper by N. Alexandre Lombard,
of Geneva, oe the " liteps taken to promote, the better ob-
servauce of the Lord's-day in Switzerland since the Geneva
Conference of 1861." A discussion took place ou the sub-
ject of the paper. and a resolution in favour of a bettor ob-
servance of the Sabbath was adopted. With reference to
Syria, a'reeolution was passed expressive of satisfaction that
the calamities which had taken place in Monet Lebanon
were not unlikely to be overruled fur the religious good et
Syria and the Holy Land. A resolution was adopted ex-
pressing regret at the death of the late Archbishop of Can-
terbury, and condolence with the family of the lath prelate.
Amongst other things, the resolution mentioned Lis kind-
ness awl courtesy in all intercourse with Noncouformiste.
In the evening there was a public meeting : Lord Calthorps
PeOsided, aid the epithets were the Rev. T. It. Birks, 0.
Winslow, D.D., and W. Umiak, D.D., the Hoe. and Rev.
B. W. Noel, the Rev. S. Minton, and Dr. Ralopothakes,
of A thesis. _ _ _ _

iiIDNI3 HT MEETING Itioratmor.—The committee
of this iostitutiou, after holding twentynix meeting@ since
the commencement of their efforts, arreaged to hold eight
meetinp in various parte of London &trio( eight sneweeelve
weeks. The first of these gatherings took place at the
Lecture-ha, Bagnigge Welle.rusd, King's-cress, which was
attended by 120 poor fallen women. After tea they were
addressed by several friends. The order and attention wen
most pinning. Several were rescued.
RETIREMENT OT • &VIVI! JUDGE.—Regret will
be deep and general throughoutSootlaad (says the Co sewn)
en learning that Lord Ivory has come to the decision not to
resume his mat as a judge in the Court of Session. The
cause, however, we are glad to lawn is not present ale
health, but rather approbeetion that hi; health would fail if
he were again to attempt VW arduous work of the dot
division.

LARGE A/RIYALS OF COTTON FRON BOMBAY.
The large arrivals of cotton continue at Liverpool front
Bombay, and yesterday so fewer tine nine large stnps
entered the Meney from Bombay all lades with cotton. The
SWIM of them ships, and the amount of cotton they bring,
are as follows : —Albion, 54041 bales ; Visommt Canning.
3,247 bales • EMMA; 4148 bales ; Them* 3,0 Z bales •
Crescent, 5,911 hales ; Dalkeith, -3,010 bales •; Sir John
Mandeville, 6,300 helse ; (losers of Teak, 4,247 Wen ; and
the William Cheadle; 3,601 halo, *alas a total of
40,388 bake of cotton.
ARRIVAL OF THII Parsaacese. —A despatch re-
eeived in Liverpool yesterday easeasees the arrival at
Qmemstows of the warm/ steamer Peterhof from Xmas,
with about 1,500 bake of settee on board. The Peterhof' is
one of Mr. Z. 0. Peareoe's " blockade betakes ;" sad la
addition to her cargo of she has ea heard the family
of the late Bishop of Nona

35Alt8ION-1101f811 COMMITTEE for the
.. 'snot, of the COTTON OPZItAtTIVIOI.—The Lord Mayor
boessittes beg to announce that, by tbe kindness of the
gievernors of Brldewell, a portion of that building has been
placed at their disposal for the reception of clothing for the u
of the suffering population in the distressed dlatiicts ; they
therefore invite contributions of clothing of all kind,. and of
blankets, and request that they may be sent to ft.:. above-men-
timed Own Brkillwas andewilteott, Bleaktriars, KC., for
the Cookulttes. 1.1 • • •

QEOOND-HAND PIANOFORTES.
BILL; and WOOD had a Mtge aomoreesent
doomd-Imed Plueemess, bq the mad dimmed made% et
gristly Medd pior. —lel. temedetreet.

GM. WITH AND c 0.%
pußa EXTRAOT of CALVES' FEET,
for Ineslldssisd i7IIw
Sold Is !d, is sasi mcksts. by sllobasifses. mews. Ie-
MAN lITACTOILT. 112, LITT/1 pORMANDAT.. Dspst4l... W.

ghe Orprefso.

TO OORRILIPONDINIII.
deertlawnenta Intended for " The ltsamms" London Evening
Paper, must be at the °Mee, 10, Boavartastreat, by Two
o clock on the day of pubheatlon.

COVENT 0.1.1D1N.
Tfll9 Ix/Now—last time—TlLE LILY OP KILLARNEY.
Mimes Loni..x Pyne. Thlrlwall, and earn Pyre; Means.
saatley, Oeurge Parma. Patey, Der* Lyall.atal W. Harrison.
—Conductor, Mr. A. Mellon.—Coamasoe at 8.

HATII/iILET.

TEN Immo, A DA1761111. TOMABEY. MN Z. Romer.
—out AMERICAN tanlntrl. Merck &dawn. Bankston*. Mre
Z. ?Bawl!Baas —DUCK HUNTING. Mrs. Wilkins.—And THE
GALICIAN PETE. Seem del Carroll* and Fanny Wright.