The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-30 00:00:00

ing among the distressed, in which she mentions
that at one of the sewing schools in which she was,
the news came that, though on reduced wages, a
mill near would reopen and employ them all. MO
writer says that the girls wept and laughed by
turns, and became almost wild for joy I Let not
our readers imagine that their charity will create
idlers.

It is indeed another of the characteristics of the
North that there is a great deal of sturdy indepen-
dence and self-reliance. We do not mean that the
North, like all other parts of the kingdom, does not
furnish its full quota of those who like to live by
doing nothing, and at other's expense ; and who
will even prefer semi-beggary to industry. This is
but one of the vices incident to some of all classes.
But nowhere do we meet with more persons who
are ashamed not to earn their living; with more
who will part with all they have rather than—we
do not say beg—but rather than be dependent on
freely-proffered charity. They look at the money
as if it were a kind of degradation to take it. They
hardly feel that it is theirs if they have not given
money's worth for it. We have known of a high-
born lady compelled to open a school ; liberally and
delicately patronised, she yet shed tears over the
cheque which paid her first school bill. But we
may well question whether the tear which steals
down the cheek of the unmanned cotton operative
as he receives the first money which he has not
earned is not indicative of a better, if a ruder
breeding.
Mr. GLADSTONE, with his official view of the
distress in the North, illustrates it by the loss it
causes to the revenue. On the current year he
estimates the loss at a million sterling; and the
annual rate of loss, if things continue as they now
are. at a millinn ass w batf. ii; computation for
us all is, roughly, that each of us spends about one-
eighth of his income in supplying the demands of
the National Exchequer. £l3 out of less than
every hundred guineas of income ! Was this
slyly let out to stimulate the popular pressure on
his money-spending Chief ? Be that as it may,
since the loss on wages is well estimated at twelve
millions, Mr. GLADSTONE would not be far out in
his calculation of the effect of the cotton famine on
his budget. It will be such as to leave us little to
hope for from the promised reductions of expendi-
ture, in the shape of reduction of taxation. More
encouraging are the two facts that in some districts
the increase of pauperism, we use the technical
term, has been arrested, and in others even con-
verted into a decrease. While, on the other hand,
the benevolence of the country does not diminish.
Only about half the amount actually raised has
been expended—that is, about £600,000 is in hand
from subscriptions, wnich, it is expected, will yet
reach £1,500,000. Again, the Committees were
spending £25,000 a week, but the Executive Com-
mittee was receiving, between the 6th and 20th of
this month, at the rate of £7,000 a day. With
such facts before us, we may all rejoice that we do
not contribute in vain ; we may hope that the worst
of the crisis has been reached; and with stores of
cotton accumulating—although much of it may be
" Surate—and the prices of manufactured goods
rising, we may contemplate a considerable resump-
tion of work in the spring as quite a probability.