The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-11 00:00:00

TI P. 4 SUN. LONDON, FRIDAY' EVENING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1863.

The Cotton Famine and the Health of the

Operatives.
.

In the autumn of last year apprehensions were
entertained lest the distress in the manufacturing
districts should lead to the outbreak of some epide-
nee disease, In the month of October the attention
of the Medical Depertmcnt of the Privy Council
was aroused, and Dr. Buchanan, one of the physi-
cians to the Landon Fever Hospital, was commis-
sioned to inquire into the sanitary condition of the
cotton districts. His investigations occupied about
two months, and at the end of December he made a
report which has been published as an appendix to
that of Mr. Simon, the Medical officer of the Privy
Council. That report is not confined to a mere
statement of the nature and extent of the disease
met with, but also contains much valuable informa
tion as to the sufficiency of relief afforded, and the
eff,:ct which prolonged distress has had upon the
habits of the operatives.
In spite of the vast efforts which were made to
assist the unemployed one of the most lamentable
consequences of extreme destitution appeared last
winter. Lancashire had been wholly exempt from
typhus fever, of what is called by Dr. Buchanan
the " true Irish type," since 1847-8 ; but last year
it again appeared, and in Preston and Manchester
assumed an epidemic form. At Preston 227 cases
were ascertained to have occurred between midsum-
mer and the end of November, and those attacked
died at the rate of about 23 per cent. At Manchester
there were probably at least 100 attacks, and 20
deaths in the same period. The existence of typhus
fever was itself sufficient to suggest doubts as to the
success of the measures adopted for the relief of the
distress, and inquiry detected the existence of other
morbid conditions confirming thoie apprehensions.
Some of these conditions consisted of a simple de-
cline from the normal standard of health and
strength, while others constituted positive disease.
The towns visited were Ashton, Blackburn, Bol-
ton, Bury, Chorley, Darwen, Manchester, Oldham,
Preston, Salford, Stockport, and Wigan. In all of
these, with the exception of Bolton and Bury, it
was found that the cotton workers, as a body, had
sustained a loss of strength, colour, and flesh. Uni-
versal emaciation and pallor did not indeed at first
sight strike the visitor, but those who penetrated
to the homes of the poor observed a wan and hag-
gard look about the people which is not habitual.
The parents had lost their health, and more gene-
rally than the children, and the paleness and ex-
haustion of the mothers, who almost starved them-
selves, were particularly noticeable. At Ashton
women hid become weaker in childbirth, and
fainted readily from any excess of haemorrhage at
that time. Many mothers unduly prolonged the
suckling of their children, pleading in excuse that
they could not Afford to purchase the food
appropriate to an infant which was being or
Children had suffered less
had just been weaned.
in their strength and apparent robustness. Indeed
the substitution of maternal care for the inattention
and injudicious treatment of hired nursery keepers
had operated favourably upon their health; and
apart from special epidemics the ordinary maladies
of childhood were very slightly felt. In Preston,
through the summer and autumn diarrhcea was
much more prevalent than in ordinary years, and
the disease was peculiarly untractable. In no other
town was there such an excess, and in Ashton,
Blackburn, Bolton, Bury, and Stockport there
was less autumnal diarrhcea than usual. Cases
of dysentery, in no great number, but still
of exceptional frequency, occurred at Chorley,
Oldham, Salford, and Wigan. At Ashton
and Chorley diarrhoea had been a constant con-
comitant • of measles, but except in those towns no
prevalent disease had been complicated by it. A
tendency to haemorrhage was witnessed in several
towns, and actual scurvy occurred among cotton
workerava.,Fttcokport, Preston, Blackburn, and Sal-
ford. In almoit:ell,ettyes the sufferers were women.
A disposition to uleereitl*--eveelough, apparently in
consequence of altered habits and diet, was exhibited
in one cr two cases in Blackburn ; and one district
surgeon in Manchester found that all bruises and
slight wounds were singularly difficult to heal.
Rheumatism was said to be particularly common
among other places at Ashton arid Wigan. An un.
paralleled quantity of itch was observed in Black.
burn, Manchester, Stockport, and 'Salford. Epi-
demic diseases, fostered as they are by bad diet, bad
air, and want of cleanliness, furnish a good index
to an exceptional prevalence of these agencies. Put-
ting aside sporadic cases the following complaints
were met with in an epidemic form :—chickenpox
in a part of Manchester; measles in Ashton, Black-
burn, Bury, Chorley, Manchester, and to a less extent
in Salford, Preston, and Wigan; whooping-cough in
Chorley, Manchester, Salford, and Stockport; scar-
latina in Ashton, Darwen, Manchester, Oldham,
and about October and November in Stockport ;
typhoid rather frequent in Bolton, Bury, Chorley,
Darwen, and Stockport ; true typhus cases were
seen in Preston, Manchester, and Chorley. At
Chorley measles had frequently been complicated
with ophthalmia. ;Scarlatina, whever it occurred,
was distinguished by the extreme degree to which it
affected the mucous membranes. Very bad throats,
with nasal discharges, and glands in the neck greatly
swollen, had been commonly observed, and in some
places, as at Oldham, had given a highly fatal cha-
racter to the epidemic. In that town, the popula-
tion of which i 5,72,233, there were 169 deaths from
scarlatina between midsummer and the let of
'December. Drunkenness with the diseases and
accidents produced by it were unequivocally less
prevalent than usual. Only in Manchester, Salford,
and. Wigan, where a large portion of the inha-
bitants are not engaged in the cotton trade, had in-
temperance prevailed to its ordinary extent.
The inquiry of Dr. Buchanan was, as we have
hinted, not confined to the diseases which had been
produced or aggravated by distress, but extended to
the more general suleject of the income, expendi-
ture, and the state and habits of the operatives.
As the result of the investigations into the financial
branch of the subject it was found that low health
and actual disease had resulted and would result
from the income of the unemployed being below the
"andard that would procure them adequate food.l
Actual observation showed that health cannot be
supported on an amount of food less than is repre-
lsd by ils
• tid. per head per week wholesale, or
. retail value. In the month of December
last the k
all
baurezerage income of the cotton workers from
as oot of L,,3 nearly 2s. per head per week, but
about la, _that payments for rent, amounting to
and sometioaes k) ;veek per family, for candles, and
tits of food 13roare soap, had to be made, the quan-
such as could bearable was on the average only
but which obtainedr at contract prices for
eFrom atthe commeoceranteali shops would cost Is. 71d.
tof the distress until No-
vember scarcely more than
lilaree quarters of that
amount of food was prom.ab. There is one small
outgoing which ought not to be
overlooked, as it
indicates the clinging to habits Of
Pservtest distress.
Many on the
part of those who are suffering the
many of the operatives have their chil • dren in burial
clubs, and religiously discharge the erdinary
weekly payments of a penny per head. The
best pilneatsieedkettso rtehceeiveeuraziect.o.7:::,
are, it is said,
either in money or
which is not confined to a particular shop,but"their
choice in this respect
is hardly a wise one. p ton,
prices charged at a
comparison between the
re-
tail shops and those paid for articles supplied
by contract it appears that 10d. given in kind
is equal to a shilling given in money. Nor is the
advantage of the system of relief in
lied from
kind confined
to the question of value. The articles suPP
the stores of guardians and relief committees are, as
a rule, better and more pure than those obtainable
at the shops ; and under such a system the poor
escape the temptation to unprofitable expenditure
to which when relief is given in money they are too

often disposed to yield.
The nature of the diet of the operatives and its
preparation have, of course, a bearing upon their
nutrition scarcely less important than its amount.
In these respects the poor of Lancashire suffer not
little in consequence of their previous habits and
~heir want of knowledge as to how to make the
most of the food which is now procurable. They have
Tx en used to live upon a generous diet, and suffer
more from the lack of animal food than if they had
not been accustomed to its liberal use. In prosper-

ous times they pay litte attention to careful domes-
tic economy, and now that it is needed they have no
knowledge how to turn their scanty inc sto the
best advantage. If the money which they spend in
food was laid out to the best account, a they were
able to cook the materials so procu-,•ci in the most
useful manner and without waste, their moneys
would go much further than they now do. An ex-
treme instance of ignorance in these respects was
exhibited by a poor girl at Preston who paid half
her earnings in rent and tried to keep herself alive
upon the remaining 15d. a week. This would have
been difficult with the best management, "but her
notions of economy were comprised in bread and
tea, and death by scurvy was the result of them."
The ordinary diet of the unemployed, as witnessed
by Dr. Buchanan, was almost exclusively vegetable;
occasionally only they afforded a bit of bacon,
cheese, or butter, c herring, or, more rarely still, a
morsel of cheap meat.
" Bread constitutes the greatest part of their daily food.

Oatmeal or meal of Indian corn less commonly is the next
most usual food, made into porridge or into various sorts of
bread. To these a little butter or treacle is added generally
for the children when they can afford it. Potatoes stand
next, being happily good, cheap, and generally popular.
Partly from want of utensils, partly from inexpertness, their
cooking gives no variety to these materials. Tea with
sugar, but usually ..ithont milk, is now the common drink.
Ih very few families can a proper amount of milk, even if
any at all, be bought for the nhildren ; they are put on the
same food as the adults at much tw early an age."
After such a picture as this, it is satisfactory to
learn that, although animal food was so scantily
consumed in a solid form, the poorest usually buy.
i g none
whereye t , a
" in almostquartof
all,
good m
townseat thereeeu p i
are gesiovue soup
kitchens,a
for a penny ;" that " in some f,l ew,,tomwanys potatod-hash"
(locally called " bob sconce
h aen chheeesnt erl a
taenl
yd
Salford public dining kipenny a pint," and that
tc
h
e
"n
is
n
established, where not only soup, but meals of meat
and potatoes can be had for en extremely small pay-
ment." The advantage of such establishments is
strikingly illustrated by the fact that—"ln these
ways a dinner containing about two ounces of ani-
mal food can be got for the same money that in the
homes of the poor would only procure a dish of po-
tatoes or a basin of porridge."
As far as the better class of cotton workers were
concerned, there was at the time of this report but
little alteration as regarded the houses which they
occupied. They were, as a rule, inhabiting the
same cottages of three or four rooms that they occu-
pied in more prosperous times. There was among
them but little disposition to crowd together,
though often a married son or daughter came
back to live with their parents, in order to save
rent. Among the poorer classes, however, things
were worse. Many who formerly rented a two or
three-roomed cottage were obliged to content them-
selves with a single room, while others took a
stranger to lodge with the family. In the very
poorest class two families frequently occupied a
single room, one bed sufficing for the whole of each
family. The amount paid for rent varied consider-
ably in different towns, and even in the same town
according to the means and disposition of landlords.
The owners of single cottages, often poor persons, to
whose support the rent was a material contribution,
were obliged to bear rather hardly upon the tenants,
but larger owners could afford to wait for their
rents, and as a rule they showed considerable libe-
rality. Distraint was rare, and not many cottages
were to be seen empty. The average of rent paid
was probably much less than half the usual amount.
Only in one town, Oldham, did the Relief Com-
mittees make a separate provision for the rent of
the people whom they were assistingi but as a rule
the committees regarded a portion of their grant as
applicable to this purpose, and arranged their allow-
ance with reference to that circumstance. Over-
crowding was distinctly on the increase, and had in
December reached a pitch fatal to cleanliness and
purity of air, and equally so to sexual delicacy.
In the very poorest cottages there, was a further
reason for overcrowding, besides the desire to save
rent.

"In the bitter frosts of November the most destitute,
began to huddle together as closely as possible for
and, being sadly jeficient-tir liedding, their day clothes
often serying-fhilleir only covering by night, they care-
_ _

fully excluded from their crowded bedrooms every breath

of air. If they rented two bedrooms, they brought the beds
together into one. Six or eight people would come at night
into a room 12 feet square, with the window and door closed
and padded, and the fire place (as is almost universal with
them) thoroughly papered up, and lie as closely as they
could for the heat of each others' bodies. They got their
warmth indeed, but in a fashion that was monstrously
hurtful to their health."

Even when Dr. Buchanan visited the manufac-
turing districts a check had been given to the over-
crowding which resulted from mere cold by the
distribution of bedding, and it is to be hoped that
in the ensuing winter the poor will never be driven
to such unwholesome shifts to keep up the animal
heat.

In the article of dress the cotton operatives had
suffered as_ much as in ,those of food or lodging.
First their Sunday elothes, then their changes of
linen, were sold or pawned, and'their single suit,
if not diminished in the same Way, was 'worn to
shreds. The poorest people were constantly with-
out underclothing, and a single petticoat, and
bodice often formed the entire wardrobe of a
woman or child. In such a state, and with deficient
bedding they were found by the early frosts of No-
vember. Had we had a very wet or cold winter, the
rate of mortality would have been frightful. As it
wag, bronehitis was exceedingly prevalent, even
among the women and children, and the men who
were employed at out-door labour seem to have
suffered with especial severity from diseases pro-
duced by the cold. They would have suffered more
had not the Guardians in the worst Weather dis-
pensed with the test of out-door labour. Dr..Bue
chanan found nothing to observe upon in the exter-
nal condition of the houses and streets as affected by
the distress, but as to the inside of the houses in-
habited by the poorer classes he states that there
was a general want of cleanliness, in part connected
with their having more inhabitants, and in part due
to the cost of cleaning materials. Landlords,whose
weekly visit for rent was made in vain, appeared to
have become careless about the wholesomeness of
their houses, and few of the local authorities had
acted on their powers of compelling attention to
these matters. Domestic cleanliness had been often
preserved under many incentives to its neglect,
result which was probably greatly promoted by the
gratuitous distribution of soap by many of the relief
committees. If the old standard of personal tidi-
ness had not been maintained, there had been less
slovenliness and dirt than might have been ex-
pected. In the Preston Union, when a dirty person
applied for relief, the Guardians, before considering
his case, sent him off with a ticket to the nearest
bath.
One of the most interesting and effectual means
which benevolence created to contend with distress
last winter was the sewing schools, and it is satis-
factory to learn from Dr. Buchanan that "from a
medical point of view it would hardly be possible to
give too much praise" to them. " Thousands of
persons," he says," but especially of young women,
are provided in them with shelter and warmth
throughout the day, are set to useful work, fur-
nished with clothes and money and kept from the
mental harm of idleness." Excellent as these insti-
tutions are, at the time of the doctor's visit one
serious fault pervaded them; they exhibited a la-
mentable deficiency of ventilation. Held, as they
of children, generally were, in the large, low room of an empty
factory, or in
a schoolroom intended for a less num-
ber
the original construction of neither
place providedn
for a sufficient change of air," venti-
lation without
eir draught being scarcely possible."
The girls used to r
hot mills, insisted on shut-
ting all the windows,
aied to learn that the lady
that the atmosphere was
sotfaricu
ten iintolerablyo t
close,u and under such circum-
superintendents often left off Work thewith intense
headaches,, faces°tthe themselvesmor
than
were seen unhealthily flushed, and that l that the
one of them had fainted over her RP •
-
The only schools which were specially examined
established by the
were those guardians at Preston,
It had lately seemed that the young women in those
schools had been getting out of health, and at the
request of the managers Dr Buchanan undertook an
investigation into the nature, extent, and causes of
their sufferings. Of 35 girls examined eight had ail-

ments that had either existed before the ee,sation of
their factory work or appeared to be independent of
their altered circumstances ; four had experienced
some loss of health, but not during their attendance
at the echool, one or two having indeed enjoyed
better health since they attended the classes—five
said that they were in better health than when they
were at mill work-12 stated that they were as
well as when so employed—and in the case of the
six others more or less deterioration of health had
occurred. Minute inquiries into the amount of in-
come received by these girls, and the mode of its
appropriation, led to the conclusion that health was
being maintained on so much food as could he
bought with 2s. 1-id. per week, but that where, from
any cause, the amount of income available for food
fell materially below that point loss of health was
very generally occurring. The character of the food
appeared to be of less moment than sufficiency of
quantity, but still it seemed probable that depriva-
tion of fresh meat was assisting in the observed loss
of health. To meet this last evil it recommended
that the sewing girls should get their dinner at the
schools twice a week, by which means a meal, such
as potato-hash, containing fresh vegetables and
about two ounces of meat, might be supplied at the
same cost to the girls themselves as their innutri•
tious and monotonous dinner of bread and tea. The
ventilation of the room naturally attracted a good
deal of attention as exercising an important influence
upon the health of the scholars. The average at•
ttmdance of girls in the schools examined at Preston
and ventilation
we of
were
suchwas snub that in those buildings each scholar had at
least l2O ilbit feet
ai
andthat the
the
air could
me means ofheating
be
maintained sufficiently pure and warm. At times,
however, an unusual influx of scholars reduced the
breathing space to 70 or 80 cubic feet, or more fre-
quently the love of the girls for hot rooms led them
to close the windows and ventilators, and then the
atmosphere became oppressive and unwholesome.
So great an aversion have the girls accustomed to
the warm close rooms of the factories to anything
like a draught or a free current of air that even
where the breathing space available for each girl
does not exceed 60 cubic feet they take every oppor-
tunity of closing the windows or other apertures
intended for the admission of external air. Under
such circumstances it is not surprising that the at-
mosphere of many of these rooms is to a visitor
intolerably hot and close, and that, if the girls
themselves do not suffer, the injurious effects of a
protracted attendance are frequently experienced
by the superintendents. Dr. Buchanan closes his
report with a recommendation that " 120 cubic feet
at least should be secured to each girl in the sew-
ing school, when necessary by a limitation of the
number of scholars in a room. In all cases due ven-
tilation of the rooms should be resolutely insisted
on, and with such ventilation the temperature that
would be the best to adopt for a mean is probably
65 deg. Fahrenheit.

AMERICAN TRAVELLING.

(From a Correspondent of the Times.)
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 13.

I left New York for Washington a few days ago. The
thermometer was at 96 deg. in the shade. I chose the even-
ing mail in the vain hope of shunning the killing heat of
the day. From my hotel to the ferry, and from this again
to the Jersey shore, I and my baggage were, of course, at
the mercy of hackney coachmen, carmen, and porters. Like
everything else, extortion is free in America ; it is sullen,
insolent, overbearing besides ; it bows to no tariff, stoops to
no fixed charges ; it takes its own time, chooses its own way,
deaf to your remonstrances, unmoved by your hurry ; bully
or blackguard it does not, for it has a quiet consciousness
of its power, and does not condescend to higglo or argue.
It bumps your "plunder" on the ground, shatters your
trunks wilfully, as if visiting on each luckless box that so-
cial sin that made some men owners, and some others mere
carriers of trunk.

The ticket-seller, the luggage master, all the railway offi-
cials, harbour towards you the same feelings as your cabman
or porter. They all aye you sorely, answer you curtly and
tartly. Nay, before they answer they stare at you leisurely
as if revolving in their mind what right you have to put a_
a question, or what business it is of theirs to attend to it.
They have not the sharp, snappish, pedantic, dictatorial
tore, of your French Jack-in-office, but neither have they
the rough-and-ready but good. humoured obliging English
way of going to work. The fare is not (loin on your ticket;
you pay as you are bidden ; your luggage is not weighed ;
the charge is made at discretion. It may be all right, no
doubt. I was bidden to pay twice as much lot my trunks
from Washington to Baltimore as I had paid between New
York and Washington—twice as much for the same weight
over hardly one third of the distance. I asked for explana-
tion, and was answered by a vacant supercilious look. Very
clearly inside the station the horse has the whip-hand of
his master. Your choice lies between travelling on such
conditions or travelling not at all.
Enter : you have been kept en queue at the ticket-
office; you have been penned up at the waiting-room as in
France, or at Smithfield ; but the bell rings, and this is the
way to the " cars." The cars, or railway carriages, are
long vans on railway wheels, constructed to carry any
number of passengers from 60 to 100, disposed iu seats, two
by two, with a gangway running the whole length between.
These cars are all for one and the same class. Americans
travel on the footing of perfect equality. The crowd was
immense, as it always is at every hour, on every road, by
every conveyance in this marvellously stirring community.
I read in the pages of a recent good-natured English
traveller that "this promiscuous coming together of persons
of every description gave rise to no inconvenience ; for the
same thing happened hero as on board the penny boats ou
thEeThames, where the shabby passengers, altogether en-
titled to
,equal rights, instinctively shrink from contract
with the better dressed, and huddle together as if knowing
their places." I did not find my fellow-travellers so
modestly accommodating the other evening., nor have I
since found many instances of this amiable disposition
among these people. Them was a rush and a scrambling
and jolting; the cars were taken by, scorn', the places were
'secured, and with stranger " car-fellows " poverty could
scarcity have made me acquainted'. It is true some of the
'cars were not equally thrown open to the multitude. Before
them stood soldiers, grizzly guardian; with muskets, bar-
ring the doors. These were reserved we know not for whole;
perhaps for the mi‘itary. Ono or two were set 'apart for
"ladies,"" for in Anierica the sex is your true nlieltArac3r.
Like the Emperor Nicholas, it confers distinction on thole
its countenance chines upon, and so long only as it does too
shine upon: The sex enjoys peivilefges which it dadeiiify ex-
tend to any man or set of men in its company. It is, however,
a distinction without a difference, for the " gents' " car (the
word gentleman ie never written at full in these places) the•
gents' cars are only open to the world. The " ladies "
cars are accessible to " the world and his wife." A very
fishwoman is as freely admitted into the pri'vile-ged 'Com-
partment as a duchess ; and she can bring with her a whole
squad of fishmongers, as much entitled to rank among the
" ladies' men" as she among the ladies, Luckily or unluckily
I was owned by no lady, and had to put up with the gents'
limbo. I got in. The whole of Broadway was squeezed in
that close narrow space. There they all were, the loafer,
the rowdy, the coatless, the hatless, the washed and the
unwashed, the sharp-featured sour-visaged Yankee, the
wild shaggy. headed Irishman, the heavy-lipped beery Ger-
man; all the heads of the people, with the exception of the
negro head. All Broadway is on its travels, incessantly on
its travels. You would say that broadcloth shuns the high-
way, or that gentility drops its trappings, and affects the
look, the costume, and the manners of rascality to propi-
tiate it on the highway. The air of the place choked me,
the sight sickened me. lam an old stager, be it borne in
mind, broken into all manners of hardships, roughing it
with the hardiest of men. But I draw a line between the
washed and the unwashed when I can ; and I do not con-
ceive why, so long as one class lives apart from another in
houses, so long as Americans shun contact with each other
as they do by pews in churches and boxes in the theatres,
why, I say, they should not allow money equally to pur-
chase separation in public conveyances, why men of all
ranks should be "made" to "pig together" on omnibuses,
boats, and railways. Talk of the tyranny that chains toge-
ther the patriot and the felon in the galleys I Why, here
is republican equality dooming the clean to spend a whole
night, or any number of nights, side by side with the nn
clean in the cars.

I walked up and down tho gangway twice and three times,
like a luckless dog fidgeting lound and round for a proper spot
to lay himself down. Alas I no spot was left. I took my seat
near one of the sovereign citizens, edging away from him,
without looking at him. Smoking is not allowed, I believe,
even in the gents'rcars, but the Yankee needs no cigar to
make a beast of himself with. The quid was in every two
mouths out of three. An incessant fire was kept up from tho
double row on the right-hand seats to the double row on the
loft. 'rho missiles flew out of the narrow open windows, re-
gardless of the wind which flung them back in minute
spray, mixed with the dust of the road and black ashes from
the engine. But why should I dwell on the loathsome
scene ? It was pandemonium ;
and a night spent in an
American car, even if it brings a man down to a proper sense
of his own unworthiness as one of the race, is not certainly
calculated to awaken his kindest sympathies in behalf of
the race itself.
I am an old stager, as I said, and if compelled to travel
five or six nights in succession I can make myself at home
in a carriage seat as in the most luxurious of beds. I
smothered down my indignation, overcame my disgust,
crouched down in my narrow and by no means soft bench,
and soon dozed. Dozing, indeed I Behind me was the door
oPaning every two minutes, fiercely jarring as it opened,
cruelly banging as it is closed. The gangway was a tho-
rougblero for vendors of orange pop, eatables and drink-

abler, books, Yankee notiorns. The voice was not sufficient
to solicit custom; the basket was thrust in your ribs for
your patronage. The hawkers of New York papers bawled
the titles of their ware in our ears till midnight. Presently
came the turn for the Philadelphia, then for the Baltimore
early press. The evening trash was followed by the morn-
ing rubbish, with first, second, and third editions, and the
sensation" headings dinned at full length into our ears.
Anon there was the sharp twanging voice of the Yankee
guard squalling for tickets. He came past like a turnkey
making the round of his gaol birds. He dug his sharp-
nailed thumb between the shoulders and chest of the unlucky
sleepers. He spoke to us, handled us as no London police-
man would deal with a thief. Eight or ten times at least in
the night was that odious call for tickets renewed. The ne-
cessities of the service may, for aught 1 know, render the
nuisance unavoidable; but nothing will convince me that,
the surly official dog does not take a wanton pleasure in ag-
gravating the hardness of his functions ; that he does not
wish to impress you with the fact that all men are equal
before him, and that till he sees your ticket ho has a right
to look upon you as a swindler, and has the right to treat
you as such both before and after seeing the ticket.
Mauled, pounded, and with all my poor blood boiling
with the sense of long-endured indignities, I at last reached
Washington, where, as a matter of course, I had to go
through the ordeal of porters, carmen, and hackt, ey coach-
men, and to bear the vacant, insolent stare of the office-
keeper, and the laziness and untidiness of the waiters at the
hotel. I have since been moving about, without ceasing,
by day no less than by night, by steamboats no less than on
railways. I found nowhere a change for the better. Every-
where the same crowds and mobs, the same filth, the same
utter disregard for other people's comfort, the same reek-
less irresponsible extortion, the same cool quiet insolence,
the same want of all order, punctuality, civility. I spoke to
well• to .do Americans, who agreed with me that travelling
in their country exposes them to all the harsh unmannerly
treatment I complained of, who confirmed my opinion that
matters on that score have become infinitely worse than
they used to be in my old experience of Yankeeland a quar-
ter of a century since, when they were in all conscience
already as bad as they ought to be. My friends shrug their
shoulders, and think the evil admits of no cure. • Secession
you may have in America, and martial law, and the sus-
pension of the habeas corpus; but democracy must needs
hold its tyrannical sway on the high road ; and a division
of railway carriages into classes, a separation of first and
second cabin passengers in steamboats, are no more to be
thought of than the removal of the nasty quid from the
jaws of an independent citizen, or the abolition of the pri-
vilege every man has of turning the carpet even of a lady's
drawing-room into a pig-sty. How should, then, a poor
wight travel in this country ? The answer of my estimable
friends is simply " don't," and they illustrate precept by
practice by limiting their excursions in the States to jour-
neys of dire necessity, and hastening to Europe whenever
they can afford leisure and money for genial locomotion.
Travelling in America is like politics—a dirty work, from
which clean-minded men shrink, leaving it to those who
have no better way to get on in the world, and who know
how to turn it to the best account.

SPIRIT OF TEE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TlMES.—Marriage is an important as well as a
holy thing. Nothing can be sounder than the doc •
trine that a nation is in a bad way when the mar-
riages among its population decline in number. The
fact is proof either of public distress or social dete-
rioration. Still, there must be fluctuations in such
statistics, but it is very desirable that their real
meaning should not be mistaken. Just now, the
returns on this head are rather remarkable, but we
doubt whether we have been correctly apprehended.
It is beyond question that the marriages in the
whole kingdom were below the average for the whole
year 1861—the last annual reckoning published by
the Registrar-General. It is also certain that the
decline was distinctly marked in the manufacturing
districts, but we are by no means sure that the' in-
fluence of the Cotton Famine in the matter has not
been materially overrated. When we read in the
report that in a certain quarter of the year 1861 the
marriages in Manchester, as compared with those of
a similar period in the year preceding, declined from
1,285 to 1,150; in Ashton, from 342 to 271 ; in
Blackburn, from 412 to 288; in Preston, from 355
to 254 ; and in Stockport, from 332 to 218, it is
impossible to deny that the incipient paralysis of
the cotton industry might really have been then
affecting the returns of the year. Yet this influence
could not have been so powerful as was supposed.
The Quarter which we have quoted was the fourth
Quarter, and, indeed, we could hardly have looked
for much effect of the blockade before that time.
But the report shows that the whole year was more
or-less unfavourable to marriages,
and especially
the first quarter of it, when the cotton
.supply had
experienced no interruption, and the Civil War in
America had not broken out. In point of fact, it
netocouthide
was the weather which at this period was the ob-
structive agent. Most readers will retain a lively
recollection of the Christmas of 1860, its intense
a and
eethe contributed
whole
frosts and its snow. The extreme severity of the
season and the dearness of provisions rendered the
period "eminently anpropitious,''
much to that decline which is visible .
year. The second and third quarters, again, sugcrceeast-
asivveerlaygfea,ibleadt
stillto bring rt ihneg tprospectivehe
for the same phe-
nomenonnot have been especially in fault,
divisions of the kingdom. It is evident, in short,
lliarriacgoteto
of these statistics, that
span an attentive inspection . e rate
famine
mu
ip
was observable in the majority
. 3.f the
marriages which the decline in the number ofdistin-
guishes 1861 was due to the operation of
the year.
ar causes rather than to the in-
fluencegeneral and ordinary
extraordinaryY agency. We can
of any
further.one
We can show that this
also go one stet)
as exhibited
decline, such as it then no alarming
'
proportions. Nobody examining the
or uncommon .
for the last 20 ea
tables of these statisti
cs
for 1801 to suspect t would
be induced by the figures that
misfortune had befallen any unprecedented
ear•
There is a very distinct fall.the
country in that y ,
no doubt, since the
ing off in the
from 170,156 to 163,706 total
numbers dropped for all
together, whereas, Recording
to and Wales
have risen a little
to rule, they should h
tit as the P°l3n-
lation increased. But su.c . tctuatons are not
ears ago, for instance ,—that unusual. Ten y , that is to
say, in the year 1853,—the marriages, though
population, e
among a smaller.
amounted to 164,520,
in excess of the returns being actually for 1861.
that is t
Bat two years later— . 0 say, in 1855—they
152, 113. Again in
had fallen to „ 00.- ) 1858 the figure
the
dropped from e
" ' '71.840 number for 1857, to
156,070. The years and 1842 also fell off
from the returns of their
1347 edecessors, though not
materially ; but in the. marriages, which had
is of 145,000
been upwards There is
in 1846, declined at a
sween to 135,845• is nothing, therefore, in
the figures now before us to create any astonish-
ment.l6
-No doubt, ~t 3. 1 was rather a bad year for
marriages, but the falling off in the numbers was
not 'so large as we have seen on former occasions,
and it was clot due in any great degree to the Cot-
ton Famine. ' But the last quarterly return of the
Registrar-Gencral, just issued, annaunces an unex-
pected revival. The reader is probably aware that
in these Reports the marriage retui n is always three
months ineerrear of thenthers, sollrat, whereas we
get the births and derebeup to june 30, We pistil,:
I marriages only uP to March fll; Yet in that guar-
ter—the first of the Current year.—they were de-
cidedly increasing in Frame of the chief districts
affected by the Cotton 'amine. In Manchester the
figures rose from 951 in 1861, aud 830 in 1862, to
1,006 heat spring. In Chortton, also, there was a
considerable increase, and in Salford too. In other
districts the tide was still setting the other way, and
possibly, as the Registrar-General observes, there
have been- movements of population effecting these
results. Nevertheless, in spite of the destruction of
our greatest industry and the impoverishment of
our richest communities, the national marriage
rate for the first quarter of the present year is re-
ported above the average. So broad, in fact, is the
area of these surveys, and so numerous are the ele-
ments at work upon the results, that we may per-
haps find lighter traces of the Cotton Famine than
we expect even in the complete reports of 1862 and
1863. The cotton districts, after all, are but a frac-
tion of England, and if any causes should combine
to stimulate trade and encourage industry in other
great centres of population as they seem to have
done in the metropolis, the decline to be anticipated
in the marriages of Lancashire may be compensated
by inereaee elsewhere. We have already learnt that
such cotton is not su_, a
King as was supposed, and that
the destinies of England are not under his rule.
The cotton trade has been struck out from the in-
dustries of the country for a whole year with less
effect upon the, business of the nation than anybody
could have imagined. Some analogous result we
may possibly discover in the Registrar-General's
tuture returns, We tr e see, in fact, in the tables now
before us that the progress of the nation is but im-
perceptibly affected by any of the vicissitudes which
are successively chronicled. The great body moves
on like one of those migratory glaciers described
by geologists, with a slow but irresistible course,
grinding out for itself an onward passage through
every obstacle in its way. The Registrar-General
tells us that
, we may take the last quarter of a cen-
tury, anu consider that the growth of our population
throughout the whole
period proceeded as uninter-
ruptedly and
--- as uniformly as the growth of a
gigantic pine. "Each quinquennial period added
a million ora little more
to the account. In 1836-40
the population was rising through its sixteenth
million ; in 1841-45 through its seventeenth; in
1846-50 through its eighteenth; in 1851-55 through
its nineteenth; and in 1856-60 through its twentieth
million." In the middle of 1861 our numbers are
computed to have been 20,119,496 for England and
\Vales only, and this in spite of wars, mutinies,
commercial
_ Panics, deacient harvests, and inclement
seasons. ualamities which startle us at the moment,
and which may produce deep local distress, fail to

leave much mark in the great national account.
That account goes on with the steadiness and uni-
formity of mechanism, and happy it is for us that
its purport is prosperity. Ou another point, too,
connected with this euhjeet the same conditions of
the question may be remarked. It has been asserted
that among the middle class of the population, or at
any rate among a particular section of that class,
marriages have become of late less frequent than
they were and, than they ought to be. But this de-
cline, if it has anywhere occurred, is lost in the
gross totals of the reckoning. Whatever may be
done by war or famine, we may be pretty certain
that n mere predilection for bachelorship has never
yet affected the marriage rate struck by the Regis-
trar-General, We sincerely trust it never may
do so, for the symptom would be a bad one for the
country, but at present the whole assertion must
remain without proof. We cannot test it. We can
only say that if it is founded on fact the result
is inappreciable in the statistics of the population,
and that it requires causes far more powerful than
social selfishness to influence the marriage rate of a
great nation.

DAILY NEW:L—The establishment of People's
Parks in our large manufacturing and commercial
towns is a felicity quite peculiar to our own day, a
striotly modern fact, and it is at the same time one
of the most gratifying signs of our social and poli-
tical progress as a nation. Until quite a recent
period, excepting in the single instance of the Me-
tropolis, Parks belonged only to the privileged
classes, being wholly identified with the royal or
noble owners for whose use and pleasure they were
in the main sacredly reserved. Close to many of
the large towns were magnificent parks and plea-
sure grounds, within whose dividing pale, from
year's end to year's end, only a single household or
a select circle ever entered, while the pent-up dwel-
lers in those towns had no means whatever of open-
air recreation except at too great a distance for any
but vagabonds habitually to enjoy. The rapid de-
velopment of our manufacturing, mining, and com-
mercial industry has no doubt tended, as Lord Rus-
sell points out, to increase these evils. The rapid
multiplication of mills and workshops will soon,
even in the retest rural districts, absorb the village
green, turn the way-side stream into inky slush,
and cover the adjacent fields with a mass of densely-
populated, squalid tenements. In a few years al-
most the only available recreation for a working
man in such a district after his day's toil is a pipe
on the door-step, a wrangle with his wife, or a pot
with his companions at the beershop at the corner.
But this serious incidental evil of our prosperous
industry is being rapidly corrected. In our day the
vanished village green is restored on a scale answer-
ing to the enlarged requirements of a manufacturing
town over those of a country town or a rural ham-
let, Within the last few years many of our large
towns, such as Salford and Halifax, have been sup-
plied with magnificent People's Parks, and the
boon has in most cases been the result of local muni-
ficence, the parks having been given in whole or
part by merchants and manufacturers. Those whose
capital has most largely profited by the modern
concentration of labour have thus been amongst the
first to recognise the claims of the industrial classes,
by making permanent provision on a general scale
for their comfort and recreation, and enjoyment.
Through the munificence of Sir D. Baxter, Dundee
is now added to the number of towns thus favoured.
The beautiful park which this public-spirited mer-
chant has presented to his fellow-townsmen was
opened on Tuesday, Lord Russell gracing the occasion
with his presence, and appropriately summing up the
feeling which such an act naturally inspires :
" Happy is he who can give to those in populous
city pent' a rest from exhausting toil amid scenes
which invigorate the body, and turn the mind to
the contemplation of the wonderful works of God."
rho political allusions of Lord Russell's address, if
deficient in the charm of novelty, were nevertheless
pecnliarly fitted to such an occasion. We have no
doubt herd before of the noble lord's share in the
repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, as well as
in the great Municipal and Parliamentary Reform.
But for this very reason, because a reference to
these measures is so familiar and commonplace, we
are too much disposed to overlook the great social
and political revolution they represent, and while
enjoying the beneficent results of this revolution it
is well that we should be reminded now and then
of the struggles through which it was achieved,
and learn to connect our superior advantages with
their true cause. There is a far closer connec-
tion between the Parliamentary Reform of thirty
years since and the People's Parks of to-day than
careless observers might be disposed perhaps to
imagine. It was substantially the battle of popular
rights and political justice against the combined
forces of class, privilege, and accumulated wrongs ;
and its success gained for the people the position
out of which People's Parks, popular education, end
numberless other schemes of industrial elevation and
social reform arose. That great instalment of public
justice, with the measures in favour of political and
religious liberty it produced, did much tdremove
the bitter alienation that had grown up between
the governing classes and the people, established
an understanding between them, and lain for the
first time a solid basis of future fiction for the com-
mon good. It is enough to glance at the history of
this country during the years which preceded the
Passing of the Reform Bill to be convinced of this.
We can hardly now even conceive of the terrible
social and political condition of England during the
fifteen years that intervened between the peace and
he era of successful reform. The Government of
the day was not only destitute of popular sympathy
and supporte but waged an active and determined
warfare against the people. It was the era of the
Hampden Clubs, the march of the Blanketeers, the
so-called Derby insurrection, and the political trials
for alleged' blasphemy and sedition. At the time

when LCrd Russell first entered public life the govern-
ment of the day demanded and obtained from a
subservient Parliament a suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Aet, on the plea that the existence of clubs
and societies in favour of Parliamentary Reform
was a public danger, demanding this extreme mea-
sure. Then, as now, Lord Russell was the cham-
pion of public justice and popular rights, against
the encroachment of arbitrary power and thenelfisb
violence of a privileged class. One of his first
speeches, it will be remembered, was against this
unconstitutional measure, and referring to the
much more serious dangers of the country when the
Act was psssed, he said, "We talk much—l think
a great deal too much—of the wisdom of our an-
cestors. I wish' we would imitate the courage of
our ancestors. They were not ready to lay down
their liberties at the foot of the Crown upon every
vain or imaginary alarm." In the same speech he
earnestly warned the House against losing the re-
spect of the people by refusing to listen to their
grievances. " Let not the Reformers say—When
we ask for redress you refuse all innovation ; when
the Crown asks for protection you sanction a new
code. For us you are not willing to go an inch—
for Ministers you go a mile. When we ask
fingeraskforouort
rights, you ought not to touch the little
the Constitution—but when those in authority de-
.mand more. power, you plunge your knife into its
heart." When Lord Russell used this bold and
patriotic language, all the world of fashion, in
and power were against him, but he steadily
fought the battle of popular rights, giving the best
years of his life to the struggle, and eventually he
triumphed. And amidst such welcome and striking
illustrations of the beneficent effects of the victory,
a'reference to the cause is not only pardonable, but
in a high degree encouraging and instructive.

Another political murder has just been committed
at Warsaw on a man named Richter, the head of the pass-
port-office, who had recently been engaged in organizing a
new police. He was stabbed to the heart in the street close
to his own door.

SHOCKING GIIN ACCIDENT AT WARRINGTON.—
An accident, attended with fatal consequences, m-
carred on Monday. Two young men, named Peter Ken-
wright and Wm. Durkin, went to the house of Jahn Mee,
in Haydock-street, and borrowed a gun. Mee was not at
home, but his wife, on being asked by Kenwright if the
gun was loaded, said she did not know. The young men
then went together to the shop of Thomas Lowe, butcher,
Winwick-street. Kenwright went into Lowe ''a house for
the purpose of procuring a powder flask and shot bag, leav-
ing Durkin. who held the gun, at the shop door. Durkin
stood with the gun resting on his foot, but, by some means,
he let it fall, and, the hammer coming in contact with the
ground, an explosion was the result. The greater part of
the contents were lodged in the head of a boy of Lowe's,
four years of age, who was playing about in the shop.
The boy was killed instantly. Durkin, in a state of great
alarm, went to the pollee and gave himself into custody.
The chief constable, however, finding there was no blame
attached to him, did not detain him.

[ADVERTISEIVIENT.]—OOIISUIIIptiOII, all nervous, bilious
liver, and stomach complaints, in every stage, are only ag-
gravated and accelerated by drugs of every description, but
perfectly curable by Du Barry's health restoring Revalenta
Arabica Food, as proved by thousands of cases which had
been considered hopeless. We quote a few.—Cure No. 62,914.
Miss Lange, 18 years of age, cured after the medical men had
abandoned all hopes of her recovery from the last stage of
pulmonary consumption, with fearful cough, expectoration,
exhaustion, spitting of blood, perspirations, hollow cheeks,
emaciated to a skeleton. She is now, thank God, a perfectly
healthy, blooming, fleshy girl,--N. Lange, Commissaye de
Police. Cure, No. 48,270. Mr. James Roberts, of Frimley
Surrey, of thirty years' diseased lungs, spitting of blood, liver
derangement, and partial deafness.—Cure, No. 47,121. Miss
Elizabeth Jacobs, of extreme nervousness, indigestion.,
gatherings, low spirits, and nervous fancies.—Cure, No.
54,816. Ihe Rev. James P. Campbell, Fakenham, Norfolk,
of Indigestion and torpidity of the liver, which had resisted
all medical treatment. In tins, lib, 28 9d ; 21b, 48 6d ; 616,
lls ; 1216, 225; 241 b, 40s. Barry du Barry and Co., No. 77,
Regent-street, London ; also Fortnum and Mason ; and all
grocers and chemists in every town of the United litogOth.

UPS AND DOWNS OF AN ACTOR'S LIFE

On Monday, a case most painfully illustrative of
the vicissitudes of an actor's life came before the
bench at Hull. A middle-aged man, named Tames
Clifford, of wretched and half-starved appearance,
and whose only covering consisted of shirt, trousers,
and boots, was placed at the bar charged with
having attempted to commit suicide by jumping
into the Humber Dock on Saturday evening. A
young man, named Thomas Beautyman, a licensed
porter, stated that on that evening he was going
along the Humber Dock side, when he observed the
prisoner jump from the quay into the water. The
witness at once raised an alarm, and also got into
a boat with a view of saving the life of the unfor-
tunate man. After considerable difficulty and the
lapse of about five minutes he was successful in his
endeavours. The would-be suicide was hauled on
to the quay and handed over to the custody of the
police. The prisoner on being asked by the magi-
strate what he had to say for himself made the fol-
lowing statement : He said that for about 40 years
he had been a travelling performer with portable
theatres, and had performed at Winn's Theatre, at
Drypool Feast. He had once been in very com-
fortable circumstances, and had plenty of friends,
but latterly he had become very much reduced. He
had been compelled to part with all his clothes ex-
cept those few rags which now covered his body.
He soon found that when his clothes were gone his
friends had also flown, and those who had once ap-
peared to be the firmest of friends had now become
almost his greatest enemies. When he was left in
an almost naked state, he found it absolutely im-
possible to obtain an engagement, and having
nothing wherewith to procure food his existence
became miserable in the extreme. During the latter
part of last week he had wandered about houseless,
homeless, and friendless, and on Friday and Satur-
day had nothing to eat. On the evening of the
last named day the rain was falling very fast, and
on meeting a policeman he asked if he would be
allowed to go into the lock-up for the night. He
was informed by the officer that unless he had com-
mitted some crime he could not be locked up. Being
wet, cold, and hungry—in fact, just on the verge of
starvation—he sought refuge under the dock sheds,
and whilst he was so sheltering he began to con-
sider which would be the best way to pursue in his
then lone and desolate circumstances. He con-
sidered that he had neither clothes, food, shelter, or
friends, and was at a loss how to proceed. If he
had had his clothes he would have known how to
proceed, but in his then state before any respecta-
ble manager he would have been naturally told that
he was "worse than a shoeblack." Therefore at the
time he thought there was only one way for him,
and he determined to take it. He therefore got up
from the place where he was sheltering, walked to
the edge of the quay, and jumped into tie water.
This was all that he (prisoner) had to say. Such a
thing had never before passed in the drama of his
life, and he hoped that it would be a caution for the
future, for if he lived he would long remember it.
During the time the prisoner was making the above
statement the most breathless silence prevailed in
the eourt. Mr. Winn, the proprietor of the portable
theatre which has been exhibiting near the Drypool
Church since the Drypool Feast, was in the court.
He came forward and said that he had known the
prisoner for upwards of twenty years, during which
period the prisoner had been under his management
in several portable theatres. In the whole of this
time he had never known him commit an offence
similar to the one with which he was now charged.
He had always been a steady and inoffensive man.
The witness also further stated that about a fort-
night ago the prisoner and his wife quarreled. In
consequence of this he took to drinking. His
wife left him and took away with her his wardrobe,
thus depriving him of the means of going on the
stage. The witness had several times sent for the
prisoner to return to his theatre, directing the
messengers to tell him that he was quite agreeable
to take him on. The witness supposed that
through shame the prisoner declined an offer.
Whatever might be the cause, however, he did not
accept Mr. Winn's offer, and he (witness) was very
much astonished when on the previous night he
heard' that the prisoner had attempted to commit
suicide. He could come to no other conclusion than
that he had been induced to commit the rash act
through want of food and through intoxicating
drink. Even at that moment he (witness) was
quite willing to take the prisoner hack into his em-
ployment. His worship pointed out to the pri-
soner the folly of the course of conduct which he
had pursued. As the witnesa, however, had so
kindly come forward to speak for him, and had even
promised to take him into his service, he should
discharge him. A subscription was got up amongst
the attorneys and several gentlemen in court, his
worship also contributing, and upwards of 15s. were
placed in the hands of the prisoner, and he left the
courts happier and no doubt a wiser man. His
worship also presented ss. to Beautyman, for the
promptitude and presence of mind which he had
shown in rescuing the prisoner from a shocking and
untimely end.