The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LoNoox., TUESDAY 147.VP,41NG, JANUARY 13, 1863

French interests have been especially subserved.
An acknowledgment made, it should be said, how-
ever, in no way at all invidiously. Wisely and
grandly enhanced those French interests have been,
without question, in the vast majority of in-
stances. Who shall deny this, for example, when
the reigning Emperor of FRANCE can say, and can
say truthfully, to Messieurs les Senateurs and to
Messieurs les Deputes, to the members of the
Senate and of the Corps Legislatif—" Commercial
treaties have been, or are on the eve of being, con-
cluded with England, Belgium, Prussia, Italy, and
Switzerland." A glorious catalogue of achieve-
ments these—beyond any array that could be
named of bloodstained victories t
Possibly, er rather probably, to the hearts of all
Patriot Frenchmen, the grandest sentence of all in
the Imperial harangue, the one that
the
e doubtless6oo,
oo o
by this time stirred the hearts of all
soldiers of France--cavalry, infantry,
is
thanat in which
"—as with the sound of a trumpet,
his Imperial MAJESTY says, simply and finally,
if Expeditions to China, Cochin-China, and Mexico
prove that there are not any countries, no matter
how far distant, where any attempt against the
honour of France remains unpunished." Altogether
it is a speech eminently French, pre-eminently im-
perial throughout. But for Europe generally it is
satisfactory also—for it is pacific.

tion ; the Stockport Union an addition of 4,607
to the number working full time. Oldham in
its monthly report gives 2,448 more hands in
full work, 229 less on short time, and 2,149 fewer
wholly out of work. There are other reports
also, which we need not quote. It can hardly
be doubted, therefore, that the first ripples of
the ebb are to be seen, in what we have already
mentioned ; and the decrease of pauperism, ap-
proaching 30,000 persons, can only be due to one
chief cause.

We deprecate, however, the assumption too
hastily made in a few quarters, that because the
tide has turned there may be any relaxation yet
in our charitable exertions. We have reaped the
benefit of giving quickly and thus giving double ;
but we must not injure our past charity by with-
holding our hand too soon. The time will yet be
long before sufficient employment will become gene-
ral. Manufactured goods are yet slow to rise in
price, and when they have done so the consequent
cheek on consumption will, we fear, be great. Half
work at low wages will be the best that can be
hoped for as the summer approaches, and even that
will not, we fear, be obtained by the majority. We
shall have saved our cotton workers from starva-
tion in winter's cold; the bleak English spring will
probably be even more trying to them than Christ-
mas and the New Year. Early in November a cut-
ting frost aroused us all to reclothe the population
which, during the warmer weather, had almost de-
nuded itself to obtain food. We shall have more
such weather yet, and it will not be in Englishmen
to allow the needy to encounter it as they did the
cruel blasts of November. The weather has since
been merciful ; but it will be the wish of all, having
insured Lancashire thus far, not to refuse, in insur-
ance language, the last Premium which shall make
the Policy available.

We are all aware that there is a large cotton ma-
nufacture in France, though it cannot pretend to
vie in magnitude with that which smokes and
whirrs over the coalbeds of Lancashire. We know
therefore that there must be great difficulty and
distress there as well as in our own cotton districts ;
yet all this distress, if suffered, was suffered silently.
We heard nothing, or next to nothing, of it on this
side the Channel ; we inferred its existence almost
as theoretically and analogically as we do
the occupation of the other planets of our
system by intelligent beings. We believe it
was a correspondent of our weekly contem-
porary, the Spectator, a week ago, who first
brought before the English public something like
definite information on what it could not be doubted
was the truth ; and his statements since then have
baen fully confirmed. The inquiry is natural, how
such distress could have existed, and England have
heard nothing of it through the French papers ?
Every week, since Lancashire began to suffer, the
English press has given increasing attention to the
subject, and made itself one of the most efficient
helpers in the work of relief; yet from the French
papers we should hardly have inferred that there
was suffering at all ! Was it culpable indifference
on the part of the French Editors, or was it fear of
the authorities ? We should hardly think it was
the latter. Anxious as the French Government has
been to intervene in the American war, it would
seem to need all the public evidence which could
well be furnished, that it was not wishing to inter-
meddle for frivolous reasons. Neither could the Go-
vernment be very unwilling to be called on to act
the part of a public almsgiver ; it is a Napoleonic
idea, and even M. FOULD would have hardly ob-
jected to such an interference with his budget cal-
culations. There are, moreover, no poor laws in
France, so that all legal aid must be direct from
headquarters. We fear, therefore, the chief blame
must rest with our French contemporaries.
The want of employment began about eleven
months ago, and has of course increased, like our
own, rapidly. The following are the facts, as de-
tailed by the correspondent of the Spectator in
regard to the principal seat of the distress
"There are in the Seine _lnferieure 2,200,000 spindles,
14,000 looms, 32 chintz manufactures, and 64,000 hand-
looms. Well, in ordinary times, the manufactures employ
50,000 working-men. Now, a-days they employ scarcely
20,000. Consequently, 30,000 are out of work. Each
band-loom must occupy a man, and a woman or a child,
in all, 128,000 hands. Since the crisis, five weavers out of
six stand still for want of work; in other words, there are
about 102,000 weavers in a state of starvation. Nor do
those fare much better whose work is, either directly or
indirectly, connected with the manufactures ; so that the
number of persons in utter destitution round Rouen is
reckoned at 260,000. As the night comes on, all the by-
streets begin to swarm with famished spectres. In the
surrounding country, little boys wander up and down in
quest of a few potatoes. Sometimes they are obliged to go
so far in order to get them that they cannot come back
home before the day after. In many a commune,' withered
leaves are burnt in lieu of wood or coals. No bed, no
linen, are to be found there. The children sleep on a bit
of rotten straw, the parents on a plank."
It seems the Norman manufacturers, like our
own, were backward to let the public know what
they were actually doing for their distresses work-
men. They concealed the sacrifices they made,
and thus contributed to increase the doubts felt at
first in regard to the reality and extent of the
distress. It seems also that the manufacturers of
Alsace, by obtaining timely supplies of the raw
material, when they saw the likelihood of its fail-
ing, have managed to keep their mills agoing,
and Normandy was unwilling openly to confess
itself beaten by Alsace. However, the distress
has become too great for longer concealment,
and the subscriptions are now becoming general.
The total sum subscribed, 600,000 francs
(X 24,000), seems to be small indeed. The
POPE, who, however, receives in the shape of
"Peter's
gives"—is pence" from France " infinitely more than
h
prominent among the contributors,
and the Count DE CHAMBORD follows his example
with £400; and now that the lists have been
opened, we may expect that all classes will soon
begin to vie with each other in relieving the suffer-
ing caused by the Cotton Famine in France.
Turning to our own people there does seem every
reason to believe that the worst is past. At first it
was said that the decrease of paupers was owing to
the Relief Committees having superseded parish re-
lief, but further inquiry does not confirm this appre-
hension, and it seems to be ascertained now that
the diminution of pauperism is real. The return
in this aspect of it is most gratifying, since it shows
a real ebb of the tide. It stands thus. The differ-
ence in the number of paupers was in the—
Third week of November.... 12,090 increase.
Fourth
First week of December .... 3,690 ~
Second do.
4,320 decrease.
.. • .
Third do ................. 2,580 e
4,050 „
Fourth do. ........
7,310
n
First
tweeerkeaolfdJiffaneurean wee the third week
bet January
difference Thus h
of November and the first week of January is not
inotroea h
tdeacnr e a Is2e,
less than nearly 20,000 per week, an increase of
m
00of
more
7,0
00.
One of the been converted
most satisfactory collateral proofs
that these figures represent a real cessation, to
certain extent, of the cause of the distress, is the
reports of resumption of work, •
whole or in
part, by many mills in numerous din .
at Preston two mills are stated to diave stricts.Thus
recom-
menced work, and several other mills
tohe' changed from short time to full time. Even at
Blackburn a slight improvement is noticed. Stock-
port, which has so deeply felt the distress, reports
1,653 persons who were out of work as now em-
ployed, and 1,341 more persons working full
time. Ashton has 100 more persons at work.
Staleybridge has 330 more working full time, and tioMn 0%41 1 •
rwin yesterday made applica-
-1,341 more working five days. Aechdale reports ) which fora avenredwict trial
as in in the action lately tried, in
S George Grey, but
a third week of continued decrease in the the court refused to Cisturlotlie favour
of
• • decision already given,

When Mr. PEABODY made his munificent gift to
the poor of London we are not surprised that he
expressed a desire that some part of it should be
laid out in the construction of dwelling-houses for
the labouring classes. Anyone who has seen any-
thing of the abodes of the very poor must be aware
of the terrible drain on their scanty resources occa-
sioned by the heavy rents they pay for wretched
accommodation. Eighteenpence or two shillings
a week is barely sufficient to obtain them a small
side room at the top of a house, in some dirty,
narrow court, up a dark and dilapidated staircase.
The heighth of the room is sometimes, indeed, an
advantage, from its lifting the denizens a little
above the atmosphere of the court below, but the
dangers of the ascent in these dimly-lighted
regions are often serious. Not long since an old
woman was killed by falling down one of these
staircases, and that in a court turning directly out
of one of our large thoroughfares. Yet the rooms
in this miserable abode were the usual price. The
inhabitants of such places find the street more
pleasant than the house; the court, narrow and
dirty as it is, is preferable to the dungeonlike
dwelling, and thus the great evils attending a vag-
rant, unsettled life are fostered, and the children so
brought up add daily to that large class of City
Arabs which forms the reserve force of our convicts
and pickpockets. The absence of light and
air are two of the worst features of most of the
dwellings of our poor, increased of course
by their own ignorance and indifference
respecting sanatory laws. Add to these the hor-
rors of overcrowding, and there will be little
room to wonder that typhus and cholera And
ready victims, and that cleanliness and morality
are often things unknown. When respectable
working people are driven to take refuge in
these rookeries their deterioration is eften rapid,
and it certainly seems to be time that some of
our social reformers should take up this question in a
new aspect. What are needed are houses in respect-
able neighbourhoods, constructed on the improved
sanatory principles of the day, with due regard to
drainage, ventilation, and other important points,
which can be let out in rooms at the same rate as
the present unhealthy and wretched dwellings,
without any restriction on the inhabitants except-
ing that their conduct shall be decent and orderly
while they lodge there. The Model Lodging Houses,
though excellent in their way, are too ambitious for
the class we refer to ; the community of the washing
and drying grounds being resented by many. Such
I feelings may appear to us absurd, existing in
such quarters, but they are there, nevertheless, and
the objection to letting their neighbour see their
ragged clothes will outweigh many advantages.
The great difficulty in this question is the reluc-
tance on the part of the landlords, who derive
large profits from the rents of this class of houses,
small and uncertain as the payment may seem.
The system is to charge a comparatively high
price for every unfurnished room in a house con-
taining, perhaps, eight or ten, and when the
rent gets in arrears, and the chanee of
payment seems small, to seize the scanty
effects and turn the lodger adrift. There is conse-
quently no great risk, and so long as unwary flies
will walk into spiders' nets there is no particular in•
ducement for the spiders to spend time and money
in making them more attractive. It is a pity that
legislation cannot do something to amend the
matter. It is certainly a striking fact that, as our
contemporary, the Builder, recently remarked,
" the large body of people who prey upon the honest
portion of the community, chiefly live in most
wretched homes." It is true that the instinct and
habits of the dangerous classes may lead them
to prefer the dark and winding rookery
to the world of open day, and these abodes
may often be chosen by them for their very
defects. But the question still remains, Are there
in this busy metropolis a sufficiency of clear, healthy,
and respectable homes for working men and
women, however poor ? Until this inquiry can be
answered in the affirmative there is work for our
legislators and social reformers to do with their
might.