The Express.
London, England, 1853-11-07 00:00:00

SMITHFIELD MARKET-THIS DAY.

There are nearly Ramsay beasts as on Monday last. The
trade is brisk for choice qualities, and prices are fully as
gond for them. Inferior descriptions still meet with a dull
sale, and do not make more money. The supply of sheep is
larger ; however, we are not over-done with best qualities,
and consequently they maintain late rates, but several lots
of middling ones remain unsold. The mild weather is very
much against the trade for all kinds of stock. Calves are
selling about the same as on Friday. Our foreign supply
con.ists of 1,756 beasts, 6,180 sheep, and 229 calves. From
Scotland there are 20 beasts, and 2,300 from the Northern
and Midland Counties.
Per vtaa• of ins. 1. 1 Per stone 04 811 a. a. d. g. d
Wag Beat, Herafor4 4 4 4 6 , 1106 tic.. a
Bast Bbort-borna
Second quality /)east.. 2 I 3 8 , De. do. et na
Calves ........ ........ 3 6 4 6, Zwei awl oecosl.l vitvklit) 3 10 4 4
Mal
lkyt Pr.. a IHalf-heals 4 8 6 2 Lamb.
..
HOW. at market. 5,277; .beep a,d lamb,, 27,240; calm, 263:
pigs, 310.

BOROUGH HOP MARKET.—THIS DAY.
Messrs. Pattenden and Smith report that the market is
very firm for fine hops, but low and infcrior are not so ready
a sale. Duty, 150,0001.

COAL MARKET.—THIS DAY.
Holywell, 225. 64.; West Hartley, 20s. 61. ; Walls End
Haswell, 245. 6d.; Walls End Hetton, 245. 6d. ; Wells End
Latnbton,_24s. 3d.; \Valle End Tim, Us. 6d.—Ships at

zit, erpregio.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
ise mai Witless et Espreee," eniasising the ..e evening's
..G publisbed sleety Theelap sad reale? steel, IA UMW
M poet

Intended fee "The Zeprese." Lawton Evemng parer.
meet be et tee MIL*, le. Deeteetbsoitreet, b; Teo e't.teeb se lb*
day of Dittekat

HIGH WATRIL AT LONDON MUDGE
Tan Darr—ll .. Aft trans. N. rie •
learamaow 711. to Mierasens, M. Sm.

LONDON, MONDAY. NOVEMBER 7.

The best bread is 10d. a loaf. That is a great item
in the news of the day. Then is little meat to be had
under ed. a lb.; and, on the whole, we may say that
we are paying 3d. and 4d. a lb. more for meat than
we were two years ago. These are the prices of
provisions sow, when our prospects of food-producing
arc seirerly better than they were in the last rainy
autumn—when our supplies of corn from the Dom-
Dian provinces and from Odessa are in jeopardy,
and when. as a people, we have sus-
tained grtat loss from two causes—from the
uncertainty about war, and from the strike
of 0,000 labourers in Lancashire. Under such cir.
eutustances we must do the best we can with our land,
—amble and pasture,—drain it. and dry and warm it,
and get all possible sowing achieved before the frosts
come. We must cherish our trade with food-produc-
ing countries ; we must make our Ministers speak
out about the war,--about what they hate done and
mean to do,—that we may be independent of conti-
nental rulers and deceptive telegraph messages in
deciding whether we are likely to have war or not,
There is no hope of repairing the losses that have
been occasioned by the Strikes. Enough wealth has
been sunk there to compensate to those concerned
for the high prices of food many times over; but it is
gone, as irrecoverably as if it had been thrown into
the sea. All we can do is to see whether there is no
way of putting an end to this deadly mischief before
starvation overtakes some of the multitude who
are fancying that their wages ought to be
raised because provisions are dear. There is
one thing more that may be done—done in course of
time, and begun now. We may learn a better eco-
nomy of food. We have shown ourselves so very
unteachable for so very long that it may need such a
period of high prices as we are now threatened with
to fix our attention duly upon a subject which h
mush better understood by our neighbours than by
us. It seems strange that we who, as a nation,
have great powers of endurance of the evils of scar-
city, should have so little (scatty of resource in pre-
paration for hard times, though we have warning of
the coming mischief before our eyes, and plenty of
example of a better practice all round about us. The
French, to the south of us, and the Scotch, to the
north, show us what may be done in making a good
subsistence out of a little ; but we do not seem to be
learning the lesson. Many poor people doom them-
selves, in famine times, to potato bread, which cusp
clammy to the roof of the mouth, or dine on cockle%
when meat is too dear : many boil nettles, and est
them uncomplainingly, in an extremity; but when
good times come again, they do not set to work to learn
anything of the conditions of nourishment from food,
and bow to fulfil them most easily and economically.
The same ignorance and absence of desire to know are
found among all classes in our country; while on the
continent, in times of hardship, there was a Count
Rummer, teaching successfully the principles and
methods of alimentation, we find in England a Pro-
!Moor BUCKLAND pointing out that the poor might
be fed with starch, because starch was chemically fit
for nutrition, and • Duke of NORFOLK publicly re-
commending pinches of curry-powder in water, to
warm the poor map's stomach. Yet Count RUIFORD
tried to teach us, as he taught the Bavarians and
French; but somehow we did not learn, and have
not learned yet. The Arabs in Egypt are ready
enough to catch the art of the French
Gooks who are to be found at Alexandria and
Cairo; and an Arab cook is presently as good as
a French one for making the greatest variety and
the pleasantest diet out of the three articles of food
on the Nile—the flour, fhe sheep, and the fowls;
and the boatmen improve in their cheap lentil stews,
and the art spreads; so thit the Egyptian labourers
have at present more advantage from the French
skill in cookery than we who live close by them.
We did not learn froln them even when the Stilton
and Dartmoor prisoners of war were among no
making savoury messes from a few farthings' worth
of bread and a red herring or bit of bacon, with the
wonderful addition of water and fire. The neigh-
bours of those prisoners looked on, munching their
bread dry, with perhaps an onion, and insisting that,
as tong as the bread was eaten, it could not possibly
signify whether it was stewed or dry. We do
not seem to have improved at all since the
war. We truly believe that such wastefulness
of the prime mosesasy or life is found in no other
country in fSe world—unless it be among the Red
Indiana dewing a surfeit of buffalo meat. It strikes
us that we are, somewhat like the Red Indians in

this matter—differing more in the degree than the
kind of civilisation. The Indian wastes his meat
when he has plenty, and ties up his stomach tight
with a leather thong when he is in pain from hun-

ger, and thus endures it patiently till the time comes
for another feed. Our people, when in good wages,
broil ham costing ls. a lb., and bake prime joints
of beef and mutton, and throw away the bones; or
boil them (but not often), and throw away the
water; and when bad times come, they buy bread,
and eat it dry as long as they can get it; and then
they somehow do without • till prosperity comes
round spin, when they follow the same course. All
this is very barbarous. A moderate amount of
civilised teaching and care would spread a nutri-
tious, various, agreeable diet over the whole period,
at the same cost, or probably at a much smaller one.
But nobody seems to know of the nutritious quality
imparted to human food by the process of cooking in
water, though we expatiate mightily upon it when
the question is of stall-feeding our cattle. We stew
their turnips and chopped straw and meal, and we
steam their hay ; and we weigh the beasts, or mea.
sure their milk, and boast of the discovery in their
case (which, by the way, Count ReMPORD pointed
out above half a century ago); and, all the while,
thousands of people in this country are baking their
meat on Sundays, eating it cold while it lasts, and
then doing without till Sunday comes again ; and
the 'Khoury, are eating breed and potatoes, with a
relish of bacon now and then—knowing nothing of
the comfort of a stew of vegetables, thickened
with meal, and flavoured with that same bacon,
or something else that is as cheap or cheaper.
Can nothing be done about this? Or rather
(for we feel somewhat ashamed of the ques-
tion in that form), how may we best set about
enabling the bulk of our people—perhaps we might
say the whole of our people—to be better nourished,
to have more nutritious and palatable food at equal
or Wrong ? We shall not be supposed to be lapsing
into the old error of desiring that the people should
be fed so low u that they can have nothing to fall
back upon in famine seasons. What we wish, on the
contrary, is, that they should be more generously fed ;
that what now falls unproductive under a system of
ignorance and waste should be gathered up, and en-
riched. and made savoury and agreeable by skill and
- •
Ire, each as every woman in a
Waal"'

ought to be able to exercise. What tarn Bavaria*
moldier, and the Nile boatman, and the Scotch emi-
grant are able to do with baridy, and lentils, aid
oatmeal, and cabbage, and milk, every Englishwoman
ought to be able to do with the far more expensive
materials that commonly (and happily) constitute the
diet of the labouring classes in England.
When we look at the comfortless home of many
poor

men in England—that home where, if he is to
have a good dinner, he knows it is at the cost of a
large part of his week's labour, and where he too
often sits down to a cold or meagre meal—we might
almost wish that the high prices would last long
enough to make us, as a people, take our bad economy
to ;-

every girl in the very easy art
(easier titan most things she learns), and the simple
knowledge (much simpler than grammar and arith-
metic), of making the most of the common elements
of food. Our farm-labourers can learn this on behalf

of their cattle; they may reasonably expect their
wives and daughters to learn It on behalf of the
family. This is only one of many means of econo-
mising food, such u the present prices of provisions
should seriously impress upon us ; but it is one whose
importance can scarcely be exaggerated—one which
should be kept in view in the administration of all

popular schoola (for boys u well as girls)—one
which the town missionary should set his heart upon
--and the fanner, and the mill-owner, and every ono
who cares for his neighbour.

THE STRIKES.

FROX OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

PRESTON. SATURDAY.
A conquering army would scarcely.levy upon Preston
a heavier rate than 75 per cent. upon all the wages
of labour, and 100 per cent..—that is to say the whole
proceeds—upon all the profits of capital. And yet
Ilea is the actual situation of Preston at this minute.
Outrages committed upon women make up one of
the awful features of successful sieges ; but it is a
matter of serious doubt whether such miseries in-
flicted upon the inhabitants of a town in the moment-
ary flush of victory are worse than those which
must result from the desolation and degradation
brought upon it by the prostitution of the large
majority of its young female population. This has
happened once in 1836, and there is every reason to
believe, that if the strike extends beyond Christmas,
it will happen again. When a young female popu-
lation of many thousands is brought to beggary,
there can be little doubt as to the ultimate conse-
quence. The traveller who walks round the suburbs
or outskirts of Preston, meets at every turn girls
walking or more frequently standing in groups of
from three to thirty or forty. He is generally ac-
costed by one or two members of these, and asked for
charity. Ask them the reasons, and they will tell
you, "Oh, we're just on stroike, loike, and we can't
keep coarsen on eight'npence a week." Another party
will despatch one of its members to you, with a
request that you will purchase a song, containing
such verses as the following :

Our masters say they're very sure
That to strike we can't endure.
They all assert we're very poor,
The Cotton Lords of Preston.
But we're determined every one
By them we will not be done,
For we'll not be content
Until we get the ten per cent.
The Cotton Lords are sure to fall,
Both ugly, handsome, short, or tall,
For we intend to conquer all
The Cotton Lords of Preston.
Everybody's crying shame
On these gentlemen by name.
Don't you think they're much to blame,
The Cotton Lords of Preston ?

So mcn and womea all of you
Come and buy a song or two,
And assist us to subdue
The Cotton Lords of Preston.
We'll conquer them, and no mistake,
Whatever laws they seem to make,
And when we get the ten per cent.
Then we'll live happy and content.
Oh ! then we'll dance and sing with glee,
And thank you all right heartily
Whsa we gain the victory,
And best the Lords of Preston.
Everybody's crying shame, .Ic.

A fearful move en the road to a woman's ruin is
made when she is brought down to the point of get-
ting her living in the streets. The other steps are
comparatively easy.
I have spoken, as yet, only of the state of Preston
as far as the two great parties to the contest are
concerned, bat the effect of thestrike is no lees marked
upon the great body
.of shopkeepers. On all of
them it inflicts some injury, but on the class amongst
whom the wages of the operatives are chiefly spent,
this injury is great and irreparable. They are cer-
tain to lose the whole amount of the debts which are
owing to them by the parties on strike. Even sup-
posing their debtors had resources wherewith to
settle their obligations, any attempt to make use of
the powers of the law to compel payment would be
followed by such an exhibition of popular feeling as
it would be dangerous to provoke. This might not
at bit display itself in acts of violence, but its effect
would be no leas certain. Any tradesman prow:cut-
let a defaulting creditor would be certain, as the
had part of him • meat, to lose all his customers.
This is even inflicted for an offence
at a grievous nature. Those tradesmen who
do not subscribe weekly payments for the
support of the operatives on strike are marked
Man. The operatives, to a man, refuse to make
purchases at their shops. George Cowell, in his
spank to the operatives last Monday morning, gave
a =rime instance of the severity with which this
power in ems:aimed. He had received a letter from
a hatcher, who complained to him that, on account
et a hiss rtenioar spread abroad to the effect that he
((the butcher) had made no weekly payment to the
had, his shop had been deserted, and the conse-
quences threatened to be ruinous. The greater part
of the shopkeepers are either willingly or unwil-
lingly under the operation of this "screw." Either
from sympathy or fear they almost all subscribe.
Here, then, is another and important class crippled
is its energies and debilitated in its resources by the
Meets of the strike.
It is far from an exaggeration to my, then, that
Preston, before the conclusion of the strike, if it con-
tinues a length of time, will have suffered as much
from death, spoliation, impoverishment, and immo-
rality as many a belearwed city. And it will
have endured these physical and moral evils, not
from a foreign enemy, but from the very parties most
interested in its prosperity. The conflict will be in
its effects similar to those suicidal contests in the
towns of Italy in the middle ages, when one party
was
party in opposition to it by a which drained
it of half its own strength, air lecfrathe city itself an
easy prey to a foreign enemy. In those days, the
struggle was generally between an aristocratical and
a democratical party. In our time the contest is
between capitalists and labourers. The nature of
the dispute, however, is virtually the same. The
operatives represent the democratic party, and stig-
matise the other party as the " cotton lords."

' Is there to be no relief from this gigantic evil
beyond the miserable one of mere victory on either
side ? Does the capitalist fancy that a solution
will be found when the men, with their
numbers diminished and their individual strength
weakened by poverty and pestilence, shall return un-
willingly to work in his mills. Does the operative
:I:PNthat a solution will be obtained if he is able
:oat the capitalist and get his increased wages
by the means of a pressure which has driven a large
quantity of capital out of the field? Is there any
Iraison to suppose that concessions yielded on either
aide to mere strength will be respected any longer
than is necessary? Certainly not. The future his-
tore of Preston and other manufacturing towns will
be iliornations of industry and idleness, plenty and
famine. At ei:h strike the capitalists will strengthen
their confederation, and the workmen will improve
their organisation. They will each fight with better
more embittered against
weapons, and with feeliegs
each other. Such a comfit: 1n of thing° can only re-
:11
salt in the utter destruction ofe branch of industry,
the preservation of which is the interest of both
capitalist and labourer.
Is there no middle point between the reduction
of the capitalist to dependence on the caPnce
of his workmen, or the degradation of the labourer •