The Express.
London, England, 1862-11-24 00:00:00

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ra; M. 1M wit be at the aloe, 10. Bouvertsetzeet, by Two
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COVENT GARDEN.
T sae 'Eva/sm. LOVES TRIUMPH. MIAs Louisa Fyne
Madame Laura Basler; Means. G. Perren, W. H.
W. aea, AL Corti, Ayneley Cook and W. HarrOon.—Cunductor,
21) r. L Mellon.—Commenoe at 8.

IHATKAILICET.
TEle !MEMEL A DAMIETTA TO DARBY. Miss L Romer.
.01111,111110 AN OOUSIN. liesers. Boehm. Backstops ; him
h L HUNTING. lira Wilidna.—And JACK'S
I LEMAN TATE CANTON. Leclermse.

riINCIMES.
TIM /Evian:NG, TER TRIMS ALLIANCE M. G. Tilling
sadithore . Slimes Aylmer sad X. Ottver.—ONE GOOD TURN
XRISERV as ANOTHER. Ilesses. G. Thaws and Stephens ; Miss
Asser dedgwiek.—And SLAGS STRUCK. Hr. Delmore.

BRITANNIA.
Tate EVISILMO, CAST ON TEX mnecir OF THE WORLD.
—Singing by Mho H. Covina, Mr. W. Randall.
Trete soy.Lae
Daley and Little Bob.—Daneing by aldlle. C. Stephan.
p—Msd THE SEVEN STaPS TO RUIN. Mai Lacey.

MGR WAS= AT WIDOW BRIM".
TIM DAY —llandag. 312. 4ina.
To-mossow—liesstia 4L lOys.....Afteraeas. 412. 35m.

LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24.

ARE we to have a North and a South in Eng-
land as well as in America, each with its local
conceits and prejudices, each with its distrust and
misunderstanding of the other, ready to break out
at any moment into open animosity 1 Is the work
of alleviating a national misfortune to be poet-
polled or hindered till every State in a revived
Heptarchy has counted up the number of its poor,
and boasted of the pressure dins rates—till Sussex
has measured itself with East Anglia, and Wessex
and Northumbria have squared accounts? We
have somewhere seen it suggested that the growling
chorus kept up in the columns of some of our con-
temporaries by writers whose ignorance of the mat-
ter in hand is plain in every line, and especially by
Clergymen, who seem to have forgotten that Goa is
said to love " a cheerful giver "—means no more
than the half earnest, half sportive " chaff " with
which a man relieves a sturdy beggar of whose
claims to help he is not quite satisfied. If the
penny be but thrown into the hat, what matter
whether it be accompanied by a smile or a scowl :
in either case it will buy a pennyworth of bread,
neither more nor less. We wish that we could
think so. We do not accuse the thoughtless
writers of some of these letters of any desire to
check the flow of benevolence towards the North,
or to foster provincial prejudices, or to serve the
purposes of a party. They have simply burned
to inform the public of the great burdens they have
borne ; and their lucubration., which six months ago
would have been summarily consigned to the waste-
paper basket, have been found convenient by some
who can see farther than they can. They have
been made the tools of unworthy party ani-
mosities ; and in their temporary notoriety will
doubtless find their reward. But with those who
have thus used them—with the men who are able
to rise to the conception of national interests, and
who cannot deny to themselves, however they may
conceal the fact from the public, that Lancashire is
passing through the fire for England's sake, and in
England's stead—a heavier reckoning must be held.
Theirs must be the shame of having chosen a
time of unparalleled distress, and of benevolence
equally unparalleled, to sow the seeds of mean
local jealousy between the givers and the re-
ceivers of the gift. And theirs will be
the credit of having poured with one hand a drop
of bitterness into the cup, which with the other
they hold to the lips of suffering ; of clogging
liberality with a grudge, and conferring obligation
with insult.
What is the truth about this matter of Rates
It is quite true that in ordinary times rates are
far higher in agricultural than in manufacturing
districts—quite true, also, that the very reverse is
the case with wages ; so that what Lancashire and
Cheshire save in one direction they spend—far
more honourably and advantageously to the work-
ing class—in the other. Still, without taking this
into the account,we must at once admit the legal lia-
bility of everycounty to support its own poor, even
in exceptional circumstances like the present. And
the allegation is that now, after nearly a year of com-
parative privation, and six months of actual distress,
rates in the manufacturing districts have not risen
to the normal height of some agricultural parishes.
Can anyone tell us what the rates amount to in
any considerable Lancashire town at the present
moment? Everywhere the condition of things
changes from week to week, new rates are being
laid and collected, in many instances, with fright-
ful rapidity, while the area on which they can be
levied diminishes in an equal ratio, and the ex-
penditure of the last three ,months of 1862 will
much more than exceed that of the first nine.
Let it be remembered that, except in a few places,
every effort was made, at least up to August
last, to keep a certain large proportion
of the working population from apply-
ing to the parish. To accomplish this object
all the resources of private benevolence were ap-
plied ; so that it might well happen that distress
was greatest where there was least parochial relief ;
and pauperism increased or diminished, not accord-
ing to the people's actual want, but to the activity
and efficiency of charitable organizations. But
throughout the autumn every week has seen a
steady increase in the number of paupers, and a
consequent increase in Poor-law expenditure, till
et the present moment even the ablest Boards of
Guardians "tend aghast at the magnitude of the
work, and the tan which it imposes on their re-
sources. In a case like this, statistics a month
old are valueless. The poor-rates paid in any