The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-26 00:00:00

THE DISTRESS IN BLACKBURN.

The distribution of clothing has been continued
with some vigour during the past week. Since the
11th inst., no fewer than 6,679 articles have been
given to 939 families, or, in that number of cases
embracing 3,579 persons, at a cost of £BO3 13s. 6d.
This was up to Wednesday evening ; on which oc-
casion the clothing committee heard 300 more cases,
embracing 1,100 persons, and ordered a distribution
of 2,000 articles to be made on the following day
(Thursday). These articles were valued at £3OO. By
to day, the committee will have distributed in all,
since the commencement of this winter, 22,897
articles of clothing of various kinds to 11,969
persons, comprised in 3,069 cases or families, of an
eginegate value of £3,498 7s, a portion of which
has of course been contributed to them in clothing
by the generous of the destitute in this period of the
year to protect them from cold, by furnishing them
with apparel of a good and substantial kind. The
guardians of the poor relieved £4,337 persons be-
longing to the Blackburn relief district with
£229 15s sd, against 4,439 persons with £232 7s
4d in the previous week; the labour committee
relieved 612 able-bodied men employed at out-door
work with £232 lOs 3d in money and £43 16s 9d
in kind, consisting of 74401 b. of flour and 9801 b. of
oatmeal ; the relief committee granted £4O 2s 2d to
125 needlewomen engaged in the making up of ar-
ticles of clothing and £l3 13s in money and £l5 5s
3d in kind (2,1601 b. of flour and 480ib, of oatmeal)
to 144 families not otherwise relieved, numbering
652 persons. In this way it will be seen that
from all sources there were 87 fewer recipients
of relief this week than last at a less cost of £4
4s Bd. The total expenditure of the week, inde-
pendently of the clothing department, was
£575 5s ld, of which £345 9s 8d was ex-
pended by the relief and labour committees and
£229 15s. sd, by the guardians, against £579 98 9d
in the preceding week. The sewing schools were
closed last Wednesday, but the committee have
voted an additional sum for clothing, with the view
to employ such of the needlewomen who required re-
lief for a few weeks longer in making up the piece
articles at their own dwellings. It is very gratify-
ing to report that every family which has applied
for clothing up to last Tuesday night, were on Wed-
nesday
and yesterday supplied with such articles as
the committee considered necessary. In reference
to the destitution of the Union we may state, that
last week 5,887 persons were relieved in the week—.
£324 3s. 10d. against 5,953 persons in the preceding
week with £324 133. ld,, and against 16,291 with
£929 2s. 7d. in the corresponding week of 1862,
The master's returns shewed that there were 414
inmates in the Union Workhouse last Saturday,
against 468 in the corresponding week of 1862.'
This day (Christmas-day) the whole of the inmates
are to be regaled with their Christmas dinner of
roast beef and plum pudding. On
Wednesday the
man James Soyands, who was the ringleader of the
disturbance among the labourers in tha Park on the
21st of October last, was fined 20s. and costs for
assaulting James Brown, one of the gangers, and
was sent to gaol for a month in default of payment.
Everthi ng is very quiet and trade is depressed.

THE DUTY ON PETROLEUM IN FRANCE.—The
Grocer says :—" It is reckoned that the Budget of the city
of Paris alas suffered this year a very considerable loss
through the introduction of petroleum, the duty on which
is only 10f,, against cojztt ;Of. thf) 100 litreff,