The National Register.
London, England, 1817-04-28 00:00:00

Our thug, Vfildtlution anb liatod.

MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1817.

least, these evils would fiat have existed to the extent
we now find them. It Was surely their indispensable
duty to have been frugal and industrious at a time when
they had an opportunity of acquiring au independence.
Their not having done this. should, at least, teach
them lessons of humility is this the day of their suffer-
ing. his well-known, that in the times to which we
have above alluded, nothing was more common than
an absence from work during nearly half the week.
The usual triode of proceeding with the " labouring
poor" in the neighbourhood of Manchester, Bolton, '
Stockport, Macclesfield, &c. was to leave their work
soon after mid-day on a Saturday, the afternoon of that
day being devoted to pleasure of one kind or other ;
the evenings generally to smoking and drinking ; Sun-
day was an idle day as a matter of course. They short-
ened the Sabbath by cutting a little off both ends; they
rose late, and went to bed early. " Saint Monday"
followed; and who but slaves and aristocrats would work
on "Saint Monday ?" Football and cricket, race-run-
ning and fighting, , and drinking were the
offerings they presented at the shrine of this imaginary
saint. Tuesday brought aching beads, tired limbs, ex-
hausted pockets, and bitter railings against government
and the hardness of the times even then they com-
plained of hard times—Tuesday, therefore, saw but a
very scanty portion of the week's work accomplished.
On Wednesday, however, they set to in right earnest—
they did indeed work like slaves. They had no time
for grumbling. They whistled and sang, and sweat and
toiled, and appeared full of life had animation. The
whole house was in a bustle. The wife could scarcely
turn the wheel rapidly enough to supply her husband's
flying shuttle with " pins" (bobbins). The children ran
backwards and forwards between the shop and the
house, with almost breathless alacrity and glee, to see
their father striving to finish his work in time for Fri-
day's " taking-in."
Thus usually past the week. In this routine of idle-
ness and dissipation, of excessive labour and extravagant
expenditure, did many who are now complaining for
want of bread, exhaust the best period of their lives ;
and now that misery and wretchedness are come upon
them ; now that poverty has overtaken theta "as an
armed man," they arc filled with indignation and sur-
prise.

We may be alaml and villifted for these represen-
tations but they are true nevertheless ; and though we
sincerely pity the condition to which so many of our
fellow countrymen are reduced, we cannot entertain
the same sentiments of sorrow and commisseration for
persons whose distresses arc the consequences of their
own imprudence and want of foresight as for those
whose sufferings are the unavoidable results of a pecu-
liar state of public affairs.
We would put it seriously to the consciences of the
thousands of the " blanketeers" of Manchester, whether
the representations which we have here made are not,
upon the whole, strictly correct ? Let them individual-
ly a 4: themselves, whether, it' they bad pursued an
even and steady line of coal:et whilst wages were high
and work plenty, they would now have been reduced
to the misery they are taught to lay to the charge of
ministers and a faulty government ? Whether they
mill admit it or not, we inetv it to be a fact. We know
that much, very much, of all this misery :lid poverty
might have been prevented,.bad hut common prudence,
and ordinary frugality been excercised.
A vast majority of those Who arc now masters, were
once journeymen, like thianselves ; but they did not,
them, let slip an opportunity of securing an inde-
pendence, or at least a competency.• If they had neg-
lected that opportunity, probably, they also would now
have been finind in the nulls of the itinerant reformers:
they also would have been found wandering from their
hones to " untleenivetlitkninee lb:gent," and to Set.