The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-19 00:00:00

The Relief of Distress in the Manufacturing

Districts.

The following is the report of the Central Execu-
tive Committee to the General Committee :
Town-hall, Manchester, Nov. 16.

The Central Executive Committee has to report that from
a table compiled by the honorary secretary, and appended
hereto, it ascertains that the outlay for the relief of indi-
gence caused by the distress in the 28 Unions of the cotton
districts up to Michaelmas last amounted to £1,979,369;
tho outlay of the Boards of Guardians in excess of previous
years being in this sum combined with the expenditure of
the local relief committee.
Of this total the extra charge on the parochial rates in
1862 and 1863 was £823,470, and that derived from strictly
local subscriptions to either the local or central funds
amounted to £535,898, irrespective of the large sums ex-
pended in private charity.
Notwithstanding that the diminution of the number of
persons dependent on the parochial rates has up to the time
been progressive, and amounts to 288, 551 since January
last, your committee cannot rely on the continuance of the
present amount of employment. It therefore expects to
encounter an increased outlay to meet legitimate claims from
the diminution of work, or from the inclemency of the sea-
son in some of the winter months.

Having regard to the various contingencies affecting the
urgency and the duration of the distress, your committee
has pleasure in reporting that the balanee held by Messrs.
Heywood Brothers and Co. on the 14th inst. amounted to
£258,392 4s Id, by the Bridgewater House Fund £86,270175,
and by the Liverpool Committee £39,355 17s 6d, besides
subscriptions in large towns in Yorkshire and elsewhere
promised but not yet transmitted.
At the close of the year 1862 your committee reported
that it had "reached the middle of the winter without the
outbreak of any serious epidemic, or the appearance of any
of those grave forms of disease, such as scurvy, diarrhoea,
or dysentery, which commonly follow low diet, with little
variety of food and the use of inferior kinds of aliment." In
confirmation of this statement, the medical officer of the
Privy Council, in his report presented the 31st of March,
1863, says—" It was a most satisfactory issue to the
anxieties of 1863 that typhus did not become extensively
prevalent in the cotton districts, and that, so far as the
facts are yet known, there was no other great local derange-
ment of the public health." Every month of 1863 has been
marked by the increase of employment and wages, and the
diminution of indigence. And the last report of the hon.
secretary states that " there are now 288,551 more persons
dependent on their own resources, and " 120,000 persons
more in full work," than in January, 1863.
Your committee has carefully watched for any indica-
tions which might arise in the population of the loss of
power to resist endemic or epidemic disease, and it has ex-
amined with solicitude the quarterly reports of the Regis-
trar-General, as well as those of the Local Sanitary Asso-
ciations, to ascertain whether :the health and strength of
the cotton workmen has been seriously impaired.

The subject is one to which vigilance may be so pro-
perly directed, that your committee solicits public attention
to the following extracts from the Quarterly Reports of the
Registrar-General for 1863 :
On the 30th of January, 1863, after remarking that the
North-Western Counties, Yorkshire, London, the Northern
Counties and the West Midland are five divisions in which
the highest rate of mortalitp.prevnils, he states " that the
history of the distress is not written in the death registers
of the year that is closed" (1862).
On the 30th of April, 1863, occur the following remark-
able passages :—" On comparing the returns of the deaths
in the 11 divisions (of England) attention is immediately
drawn to the fact, that in all divisions, with one exception,
the deaths were more numerous last quarter than in the
March quarter of 1862—and the single exception is found
in that division where the staple industry in which half
a million of persons are dependent is overthrown, and for a
twelvemonth four-fifths of that number have sub-
sisted, unless the pittance has been added by previous earn-
ings or sale of household stock, on less than 4d a day per
head." It will be gratefully admitted that the legal pro-
vision for the distress and the spontaneous liberality of their
countrymen have hitherto sufficed to maintain the people
in health."

A paper read by Mr, Frederick Purdy, of the Statistical
Department of the Poor-law Board, before the British As-
sociation, after Mn elaborate comparison of the statistics of
mortality in the distressed districts, arrived at conclusions
in harmony with those of the Registrar-General.

The Registrar-General's Report of the 30th June, 1863,
records the prevalence of measles and scarlatina iu Lanca-
shire and Yorkshire, in common with many southern coun-
ties, but remarks that "in reviewing the whole facts of the
present return they will be found to support the conclusion
which former reports tended to establish, that sickness has
not been aggravated, nor mortality increased, by the dis-
tress which has prevailed, and which, happily, to a certain
extent has now been subdued."
In the report dated the 30th of October, 1863, the Regis-
trar-General states, as to the sanitary condition of England,
that "scarlatina and diarrhoea" widely diffused over the
country, wore the ehief immediate causes from which the
increase of mortality, then reported "sprung." " The un-
favourable influences that were at work pervaded the coun-
try generally, and Lancashire did not suffer more than most
parts, but less than some." And again, "notwithstanding
the distress which still prevails" in Lancashire, " and the
greater distress it has suffered, it will be seen that in the
present returns it may be compared with Yorkshire with-
out disadvantage."

Prior to the reception of this last Quarterly Report from
the Registrar-General your committee had before it a
report, obtained by Mr. Farnall, from the medical officers
of the several Poor-law Unions of the cotton districts.
This report exhibited a remarkable concurrence of opinion
among these gentlemen that, apart from epidemic maladies
whose origin and progress have been similar to those of other
counties in which no distress exists, the health of the popu-
lation is in a satisfactory condition, there being no ascertain-
able connection between the origin, character, or spread of
these diseases and the distress.

In the Ashton-under-Lyne Union alone, in which the
duration and pressure of the distress have been exceptionally
great, did the medical officers report that the tone of the
general health retarded convalescence from exhausting dis-
eases, and the recovery of women from child-birth,
Dr. Noble, in a report to the Manchester Statistical
Society, says concerning Manchester—" I have a certain
well-grounded conviction that, within the last two years,
there has been nothing as to the mortality of the cotton
districts in any respect unusual, and assuredly nothing to
establish a relation of cause and effect between it and the
distress."

Your committee has borne in mind the " almost singular
mildness of the winter" of 1862-3 (see " Report of Medical
Officer of Privy Council), and would call the attention of the
committees of all relief districts in which want of employ-
ment and consequent distress still prevail extensively, to the
expediency of precautions against a winter of greater seve-
rity. An allowance for fuel and the distribution of clothing
are necessary wherever the family has been long mainly de-
pendent on the relief funds, and these may be provided from
the general grants.

Having regard, also, to the more remote rather than the
immediate consequences of a prolonged period of privation,
your committee has, in the " Manual" recently published,
called the attention of the local authorities to various sani-
tary precautions, especially the immediate emptying of
cesspools and ashpits; the lime-washing of the houses ; the
removal of all nuisances ; and a house to house visitation
to secure cleanliness and ventilation in the dwellings of
those in the receipt of relief, as well as to the arrangements
required to prevent the spread of infectious and contagious
disease. Your committee has likewise informed the
various local committees that it is prepared to take into
consideration applications for clothing suitable
for the cotton operatives about to be employed on public
works:

The fluctuations of employment will require the utmost
vigilance both from your executive committee and from the
local committee of relief. in order to meet the real wants of
the unemployed,
Signed on behalf of the committee,
DERBY, Chairman.
JOHN WM. MACLURE, Hon. Sec.

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