The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-15 00:00:00

PROVINCIAL.

Ormerso THE Poare.—A meeting of the working men
of Manchester took place on Tuesday evening in the Town
Hall, " to memorialise Lord J. Russell to open the porta."
Mr. A. Heywood was called to the chair, and said, at the
latter end of last year, a meeting of the working classes was
called to memorialise Sir R. Peel upon a question simiiar.to
the present ; and it was thought desirable that another
meeting of a similar character should now be called, in order
that the working classes should take the lead in a movement
so important to themselves. The time for opening the ports
had now evidently arrived, and the on.y question was,
" How soon can they be opened ?" (Hear.) Thepressure
which must arise might and would be dangerous to the
peace of the country, if the people thought the
country had not a sufficiency of food. To prevent out-
breaks, it was a duty to suggest the propriety of me-
morialising Lord John Russell, to induce him to open
the ports at once for all kinds of grain. (Applause.) He
hoped this example would be followed elsewhere with such
spirit as to induce Lord John Russell at once to consider the
importance of the memorials and the state of the country,
and accede at once to the request of the people. He
believed the government only wanted an expression of
opinion on the part of the people, who had only to speak in
one universal echo, and the thing was consummatzd.
(Applause.)—Dr. J. Watts, in moving the first resolution,
said that if Sir Robert Peel had a reason last year to repeal
the corn-laws, Lord John Roseell had double reason now to
open tho ports. Manchester and its vicinity contain about
300,000 people, and if each consumed a 41b. loaf per week,
the difference in price would amount to 3,12.51. per week,
which would put 101 tradesmen's shops in the receipt of
301. each per week ; or would employ 3,125 men at 2As. per
week. If two-fifths of the men were thrown out of work,
there would soon be 1,250 families, or 6,250 individuals,
extra dependants upon parochial relief. Riot and murder
had already commenced in Ireland; famine was in Caithness,
where they were not only without potatoes, but the herring
fishery had failed ; end in London there were 7,000 to 8,000
journeymen tailors out of employment. This was the first
trade that felt the effects of distress; for people must
have food, but could do awhile without new clothing. The
duty last week was Bs. per quarter on wheat; and it was im-
portant not to have a penny of difficulty in the way of
raising supplies of food and preventing tumult. There were
two good things to be got by opening the ports,--commer-
cial relations would be drawn much closer, and conse-
quently friendly feelings between nations. Then, the import
duty was a sort of gambling table, and people were always
ready to leek up food when the people were starving, in order
to reap a richer harvest of profit from it. There was now
immense corn-jobbing. Open the ports, and this gambling
would be at once knocked on the head, and food would be
obtained for all. Suppose we imported only half a million
of quarters. knocking off the Ba. duty, the result would be •
saving of only 200,0001.: which, if turned over only once in
two months for a year, would find employmeunt for 23,077
men, at 20s. per week, paid in wages; and if these men
were heads of families, it would relieve our parishes from
75,000 individuals, who, without such return, must become
chargeable to them. Perhaps ministers thought the people
apathetic; but the apparent apathy had arisen from the fact
that the people hesitated before they would throw any.im-
pediment to Lord J. Russell's carrying out his own po-icy,
as they had great confidence in the man. Ho concluded by
moving the first resolution, for opening the ports.—Mr. J.
Teer seconded the resolution.—Mr. C. l'ountney said, already
Dundee had sent up a memorial ; and he hoped Manchester
would be, at all events, second in calling the attention of
government to this matter. They were now constitutionally
assembled in the Town-hall of 'Manchester, a circumstance
which would give weight to their memorial.—The resolution
was passed unanimously. Mr. R. J. Richardson, in moving
the memorial to Lord J. Russell, read tables of the rise of
prices of provisions in Ireland, and said that all over the
continent of Europe there was great scarcity of grain. The
memorial did not say that there was a famine,but that wheat
was high-priced. The Bs. or 10s. duty stood in the way of
bringing foreign wheat into the English market. He read
the following memorial :
From the present extraordinary price of bread, and of food
gewrilly, your memorialists apprehend great distress, the ad.
&tom of a single penny to the price of the .11b. loaf requiring
an increased outlay of 1,0001. per week for bread alone in the
town of Manchester. The rise In the price of bread within a few
weeks has been nearly three-R(os of the whole cost, or nearly 5,0001.
per week for this town alone ; which nun Is, of course, abstracted
fr nthe receives of the gees 'l tradsc•an, and it HMI oe—stitte te
the destruction of the home market for manutactures. Your memo.
rialists fear tint a continuance of such prices, with the prospect of
further increase, will, in the present state of trade, by putting bread
oat of the reach of many of our countrymen, endanger the public
peace your memorialists conceive it, therefore, a matter of para-
mount importance that every passible facility should be immediately
given to increase the amount of provisions in the United Kingdom.
Your memorialists, therefore, restart-10.111 y, but earnestly entreat you
to call an immediate council, with a view to opening the ports of the
United Kingdom, and admitting all kinds of provisions ditty free.—
And your memorialists, Sec.
It might be said that government could not do this; but a
minister had stated that Indian corn had been admitted into
Ireland duty free, by order of ministers, and surely they
might do this again, and in England. Sir R. Peel had given
us total repeal, but not immediate. Lord J. Russell had
now the opportunity of giving the rest, by making the repeal
immediate. After some further remarks the memorial was
unanimously adopted, and, the chairman having been re-
quested to forward it, the proceedings terminated.
A 'MEDICATED ATMOSPHERE FOR THE CONSUMPTIVE.—
In the course of the experiments of Mr. B. Woodcraft, of
Manchester, on the deoxidising of indigo for calico printing,
he had cens•ructed for 'i m a wrought-ii on air-tight chamber,
of consider ihle dimensions, for the purpose of obtaining an
atmosphere devoid of oxygen, in which to carry on the pro-
his
cess of printing cloth with indigo in the soluble state. T
chamber, which was so constructed, with double (leers, as to
be air-tight, was 36 feet in length, by 12 feet wide, and 10
feet high. In the roof of this chamber a tap was inserted,
communicating with a reservoir of coal gas, and a pipe
inserted into the floor conveyed the atmospheric air
from the chamber. It was remarked, that when the
tap supplying the carburetted hydrogen was opened,
there was no smell perceived at the outer end of the
pipe in the floor, through which the air was ex-
pelled, until the whole chamber was completely filled
with the gas, and then it issued, in a pure state, from the
pipe below. Mr. Woodcroft was accustomed to be shut up
in this chamber, full of gas, together with a young man,
• workman, both wearing firemen's hermetically-closed
helmets, with flexible tubes, through which the atmo-
spheric air was supplied for inspiration, and the carbonic
acid gas respired was carried away. The air forced into
their helmets, and breathed by them, was thus somewhat
denser than the atmospheric air outside, the pressure
being also uniform. Under these circumstances, both
Mr. Woodcroft and the young man assisting him expe-
rienced an unusual degree of buoyancy and exhilaration,
almost equal to that caused by the inhalation of nitrot a
oxide. This suggested to Mr. Woodcroft the idea of a
sanatorial chamber, in which, as in this case, a uniform
pressure of air should be secured, which is easily attainable
under such circumstances, for it can be regulated omen-y
by a mercury lute. In this senatorial chamber, filled, nut
with any deleterious gas, but with atmospheric air, at one
carefully-regulated and uniform temperature and pressure,
it is suggested to place persons suffering from incipient con-
sumption, asthma, and other diseases of the chest or lungs ;
being persuaded that the relief it would afford to the respira-
tory organs, under such circumstences, would be a most im-
portant aid to the curative means applied, and to the restora-
tive and reparatory efforts of nature Ls replace the impaired
structures. The suggestion of each a chamber, for such
experiments at least, was made by Mr. Wocdcroft at the
time to some members of the faculty; hut the suggestion
was not regarded at the moment ; and, subsequently, when
some parties wished to try experiments of this kind, it was
too late, for the iron chamber, having served its purpose, had
been broken up; and thus a favourable opportunity was lost
for trying any interesting experiment, in connexion with a
large and often fatal class of diseases, to which inhabitants of
this humid climate are peculiarly liable.
YORKSHIRE.
INCENDIARY EXPLOSION AT SHRFFIELD.— Another of
those diabolical attempts at the destruction of property by
explosive substances, for which the town of Sheffield has ob-
tained a somewhat unenviable notoriety, was made on Satur.