The Express.
London, England, 1862-11-19 00:00:00

THE DISTRESS IN LANCASHIRE.

(noN OUR SPRUILL CORRV3PORDIST.)
ROCHDALE, Nov. 17.

Rochdale, which lies to the north and east of
Manchester, just where the line of hills which cul-
minate in Blackstone Edge gradually decline into
the Lancashire plains, is an old borough of some
40,000inhabitanta. It is the centre of a thickly-
populated district, where the cotton and flannel
manufactures struggle for the mastery. But if in
this respect the country round Rochdale appears to
be somewhat unfaithful to Lancashire peculiarities,
and to assimilate itself to those of the great
neighbouring county in the character of ita
people and in the uncouth raciness of their speech,
it completely fulfils the promise of its posi-
tion. Here was the home of that classical
writer known to every student of the Lancashire
dialect as Tim Bobbin ; and these are the hillsides
which witnessed the artless loves of " Tummus and
Meary." I suppose that it would be impossible to
refer a stranger who desired to make himself ac •
quainted with the character and speech of Lancs.-
shire men in their least adulterated form to any
better locality than to some one of the villages
which lie, almost in a continuous line, between
Oldham and Rochdale ; and the history of co-
operation in the latter town goes far to show that
the sturdy virtues of thrift and self-dependence,
and all the other qualities which conduce to the
success of united action, have found in the he►rts
of the native operatives no uncongenial soil.

The district over which the Rochdale relief com-
mittee extends its operations is wider than the par-
liamentary borough, including no fewer than 60,000
inhabitants. Of 14,000 cotton operatives employed
within these limits in 93 mills, 10,000 (to speak in
round numbers) are now wholly out of work. The
estimate of the workers in woollen in the same tract
' of country, made by an eminent manufacturer, is
about 4,000. The area of population covered by
the poor law union, of which Rochdale is the centre,
is still larger, as in six townships it comprises
above 90,000 inhabitants. Accurate statistics seem
not easily procurable here ; and my readers
must be content with the statements (the best I
could get for them) that 12,000 to 13,000 persons are
being weekly relieved, at a cost of more than 1,0001.
The scale of relief is intended to bring up the ave-
rage income of families to 2s. per head, the amount
actually paid being la. Old. The labour test is only
partially maintained, and attendance in an adult
school is accepted as a qualification for relief.
Children are sent to school, and relief boards have
been established in different parte of the union in
order to facilitate the extension of aid to those who
live in the more distant townships. The health of
the town is as yet good ; Rochdale having taken a
high place in the sanitary comparison of the diffe-
rent unions in the distressed district. But even
here are rumours of fever and small-pox, while the
cry for fuel, bedding, and clothing, as a necessary
addition to rations of food, is as loud as elsewhere.
The system of relief adopted in Rochdale is very
simple. One general committee, in which minis-
ters of every denomination find • place, manages,
with the help of a smaller executive, the whole.
Up to the present time there have been four secre-
taries, each of whom, with the assistance of a paid
visitor, undertakes the supervision of a district.
Cams are visited from time to time, and the usual
precautions taken against imposture. All relief is
given in bread, meal, and soup, which are distri-
buted from a central depot. To these articles, how-
ever, the committee have it in contemplation to
add tea, coffee, and perhaps bacon in small quanti-
ties. A family of two persons, without any in-
come, would receive one quart of soup, 41bs. of
meal, and 6lbs. of bread : of four, two
quarts of soup, °lbs. of meal, and 101bs. of
bread, and so on in proportion. This allowance is
supposed to be sufficient for a family of adults,
and • deduction is made in the case of young
children. If there is any weekly income, one oper-
son is deducted from the number of the family for
every 2a, and a discretion is left to the distributors
when they have to deal with sickness or other ex-
ceptional circumstances. During last week nearly
14,000 persons, whose average income was esti-
mated to be thus raised to la. sd. per head, were
relieved at a cost of more than WV. A separate
pecuniary relief was also given to a number of over-
lookers, who in return lend their services at the
soup-kitchen and in the distribution of coal.
In estimating the value of this relief we must re-
member, as at Blackburn, that it is given in the
most economical form, not only to the relief
fund, but to the recipient. And it is fair to
record the intention of the committee to adopt,
before long, a more liberal scale. Still, unless we
suppose that working people in Rochdale are less
hungry than they are in other localities, it is very
difficult to see how they sustain anything like
physical vigour on so meagre an allowance. Per-
haps, when it is too late, and the fever and small-
pox, which are already reported to exist, are reap-
ing a full and deadly harvest, it niay be discovered
that there is a point at which economy becomes a
fatally short-sighted policy.
' There are, I believe, in Rochdale, adult schools,
attended by several hundred pupils ; and, as
elsewhere, little children are educated at the expense
of the relief committee. Eight hundred girls
receive 3s. 4d. a week for five days' work in the
sewing schools—a rate of remuneration which
somewhat strangely contrasts with the low
scale of relief in food. To this number 600 are to
be at once added ; while a capitation grant of
Is. 6d. a head is offered to any further number,
not exceeding 800, who may be otherwise provided
for by the different congregations of the town. One
such school, in connexion with St. James's Church
—though not confined to members of the church of
England—is already in operation. It numbers 200 i
girls, who are allowed to earn no more than 2s. Bd.
in any one week. A novel feature (and one worthy
of wide imitation) in this school is its kitchen.
➢Zany of the girls, coming from great distances,
have no means of providing themselves with any-
thing
like • comfortable meal in the middle
of the day. To meet this want, a couple
of cottages near the school have been
cheaply but conveniently fitted ip as a
kitchen and dining room ; and a competent ;
cook, assisted by some of the girls themselves, pre- I
pares every day an excellent dinner, for which 2d.
is the regular pries. As Rochdale people are begin- '
ning (so at least I was told) to be tired of soup,
this article is excluded from the bill of fare, which,
the day that I visited the school, consisted of that
peculiarly Lancashire dainty, potato-pies. With
a light but substantial crust, a heavy layer of well-
baked potatoes, and &sufficient substratum of meat
to provide vary and flavour for the whole, the

dinner is one, credo expert*, from which no hungry
man will turn away; and the cost, even for hungry
men, need not be above 3d. per head.
The existence in Rochdale of the woollen trade,
to the extent which has already been noticed, has
not been without its effect in shielding the town
from the worst forms of distress. From long ex-
perience I am convinced that the most effectual
help ever given to the poor is that which they ex-
tend one to another : so that in times like these, it
is almost possible to take account of all the pro-
perty in the possession of the working class, as of a
common stock, applicable to the necessities of all.
But there are few places where so great a provision
against a time of need has been made as in Roch-
dale. It is not only the headquarters of a great
co-operative organization, but.the place where the
system has found most favour, and received the
largest extension.
From the men I turn to the masters. Such men,
at least, as have had the wit to devise, the self-
denial to build up, and the good feeling to carry
on, without one important difference of opinion, so
great a system as this, for so many years, are worth
taking care of ; and make a moral claim upon the
kindness of the employers as great as, under the
circumstances, is possible. These qualities have
been held up as a reason why they could be safely
and advantageously invested with political privi-
leges ; surely they furnish as cogent an argument
why their employers should strain every nerve to
prevent them from being overwhelmed by the flood
of pauperism. Looked at in the light of self-interest
alone, the case is plain ; what better could a manu-
facturer wish than to have his mill full of intelli-
gent, orderly, self-dependent work-people L Let
us see how the matter stands. Out of 12,3701.,
Rochdale has received 3,0001. from the Lord
Mayor, 4,8001. from the Manchester Central Com-
mittee; leaving 4,6704 to be placed to the credit
of the town. I have already said that statistics are
, scarce in Rochdale ; and I cannot inform your
' readers, though I have taken some pains to ascertain
the fact, how much of this latter sum has been con-
tributed by the cotton, and bow much by the woollen
manufacturers. But in another way, it may be
possible to get at a fact, which for the present will
answer my purpose quite as well. The subscription
was begun, on a small scale, in February last, no
man giving more than 201. When a second effort
was made in July, the highest donation offered by
any firm or individual was 1001. Under the most
favourable circumstances, therefore, the most libe-
ral gift which any cotton manufacturing firm in
Rochdale can be supposed to have made to mitigate
the distress of a town where 10,000 factory hands
are wholly out of work, is 1201.
But no doubt, it will be said, much is being done
in private. If so, the doers of it must be very ac-
complished in the art of " doing good by stealth ;"
and were I to reveal their benevolence to the world,
would surely "blush to find it fame." Of the
exertions of the present chief magistrate of the
borough, both in the public administration of relief,
and in attending to the wants of his own people,
too much cannot be said. But ho stands almost,
if nut quite alone. Others may possibly be doing
something ; there is a kind of relief given on a
certain scale which it is difficult to trace. At the
same time, any effectual and orderly system, how-
ever privately organized and applied, leaves behind
its plain marks. It is impossible in any town to
distribute 101. worth of soup a week so
secretly as to conceal the kindness from all but
the recipients; and I confess that I am become
a disbeliever in the benevolence that meets neither
eye nor ear. lam afraid that we must acknow-
ledge that the great manufacturing firms of Roch-
dale consider this paltry sum of 1201., or some other
sum not greatly in excess of it, the measure of their
obligations to their workpeople in this crisis. They
pay rates, it is true, and rates fall heavily upon
property which, like mills and machinery, is not
only unproductive, but deteriorating in value every
day. But other millowsers, who do not feel that
they are doing more than their duty, pay rates too :
is there one rule of right for Rochdale, and
another for the rest of the county 1 Or perhaps
they are waiting till the stream of public
bounty ceases to inundate the town, and are
willing to pay for their own poor, when the
kind heart of England is grown cold to the mute
appeal of their half-starving operatives, and they
are left to their own resources. Surely there are
those among them who cannot be blind to the
unhappiness of their present position, and will soon
use their power of leading and organizing public
opinion, to wipe off the shame which will soon rest
indelibly upon their town.

So far I have written more in sorrow than in
anger. But worse remains behind. On Wednes-
day last, Samuel Holden, of Castleton, was sum-
moned by the overseers for 6s. poor's rate and 9d.
county rate. He pleaded inability to pay. "They
were eight of a family," receiving from the town 3a,
a week, from the relief fund 6 lbs. of meal
and 4 lbs. of bread. He paid la. 40.
a week for his house, in which he had
lived for ten years. During the whole of this time,
his landlord, a wealthy millowner, had paid the
rates ; but on the 23rd of September last gave
notice to his tenants that he should do so no longer.
Of 91 tenants above 60 met the demand thus sud-
denly made upon them ; the rest did not pay, simply
because they could not. The overseers waited
upon the landlord, with no result ; hence the pro-
ceedings before the court. The magistrates had no
option ; the overseers pressed the case ; the land-
lord was obdurate, the law inexorable ; and a war-
rent was granted against Samuel Holden and
some twenty of his neighbours. I leave the case
to the judgment of your readers. The owner of the
property is • member of a firm whose wealth is
undoubted, whose establishments in Oldham and
Rochdale are of the first magnitude, and whose
speculations in cotton have, if report speaks
truly, been exceedingly lucrative. I suppose there
are men to whom the thought of the bankers' ba-
lance produced by the said alavulationa, would far
more than soothe any little disquietude produced
by the fact of a poor tenant, of ten years' standing,
being sold up for 6s. 9d. poor's rates. And if there
are, why waste words on them I

Cella TO TEL BAI.-41tili TOM" Nov. 11w .
The undermentioned geatiansen were this day celled to the
liar by the Hoooarabe Society of the Lew Temple
David Knox *air, req., M.A., Thome James Richard
Hilton, Esq., 8.A., Ateraoder Oliver, Esq., 8.A., Jam
Pierre Georges Auld', Esq., Moline Watson, Ent., Robert
Wanes Oary Bowes, Esq., LLB., Philip Albert Mybargh,
Keg., RA., Hubert Seymour lames, Esq., the How
Edward Nessat Leeson, RA., Henri Davidson, Ewi.,
M.A., John Edward Meek, B A., Charles Edward
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Jabliap, Req., Robert French Sheriff, Req., Richard Lam-
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(Seaford Grove, Eq.
OvincosTs.—lientlemen who do not mind m-
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Hamilton and Kimploa's, 10S, Strand, opposite Haste, HAL
[Advertisssmat.)