The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-08 00:00:00

sells now for 2L 2s. per quarter; wheat, 31. 15s. ; oatmeal,
41. ; and the highest average wages now, in the harvest,
amongst the agriculturists is 9s. 6d. per week, upon their own
victuals. Poor-rates are increasing in a frightful manner, and
the country is fast falling.
On the other side I send you a statement which was laid be-
fore us in the Dolgelley Board of Guardians lately, concerning the
parish of Dolgelley. It contains about 4,200 inhabitants. A
parish vestry was lately held to hear appeals against paying
poor-rates on rateable premises. Such vestry used to be held
every year. The appellants all pleaded their inability, on ac..
count of poverty. So many applied this year. The books for
the last four years were inspected, and the following was the
result sent to the Board :
In 1838 was excused to the amount 0f..... £42 0 0
1839 46 64 4 4 666644 57 0 0
1840 44 46
1841 44 46
1842 44 ‘. 44
Such statement plainly proves that this part, as well as
others, is fast sinking. Wool is almost unsaleable here, and
the mountain farmers are fast falling, as they almost all are obliged
to buy corn, above half the quantity they consume ; and thus
tithe (being commuted for) is rising, because the corn is
rising; the wool and lambs are falling in price and the
tithe rising ; and the corn they buy for their own consumption
also rising, which you plainly see falls doubly on the poor
hard-working farmer. What? Oh, what will become of us,
if the present inhuman laws continue to exist.
G. EVANS.

W. NELSTIIORPE, Esq. Mayor of the borough of
Stucliport, was then called upon by the Chairman, and
addressed the meeting as follows :—ln endeavouring to
lay before this meeting a statement of the distressed
condition of our borough, I must say that I feel myself
quite inadequate to the task. But this meeting may rest
assured of one thing, that it is impossible for me or any
other individual, to paint it in Loo black colours. I will
endeavour, as briefly as possible, to give you a general
statement of our condition, and then leave to the
hands of Mr. Foster, the Chairman of the Board of
Guardians, a more minute account. At the latter end of
last year the distress of our borough had arrived at such
a pitch that the charitable, and those that had it in their
power, could no longer stand still and look on without
making'an effort ;at least, to mitigate the distress that sur-
rounded them; a public meeting was held, and a subscrip-
tion entered into, and we raised amongst ourselves, and
from gentlemen at a distance, a sum exceeding 4,0001.
I ought to state that we received a considerable sum
from the Manufacturers' Relief Committee in London; a
short Report of the condition we were then in will be
found in the following circular :
Stockport, December, 1841.
The borough of Stockport, the working population of which
is engaged almost exclusively in this manufacture, has suffered
in common with other towns, from its general and long-conti-
nued depression.
The distress so occasioned has been increased to an extent, it
is believed, beyond that of any other town, by special and pe-
culiar circumstances of a local influence.

We allude to the entire stoppage of some of the largest esta-
blishments in the town and neighbourhood, by which several
thousand persons have been thrown out of employment, who
still remain without any prospect of being able to return to it.
Of the establishments at work, a great part are so only par-
tially ; and the working of short time (that is of four days per
week) has been continued to a greater or less extent since
May last.
Upwards of one-third of the horse-power in the town and
neighbourhood is unemployed, which, if at work, would give
employment to more than 4,000 persons. It is believed that
there are, altogether, about 5,000 operatives of various trades
unable to obtain employment.
Ihe consequences of this suspension of labour are extensive
loss and suffering among all classes dependent upon trade, and un.
exampled distress and privation among the working population.
This distress, heightened as it now is by the severity of the
weather, has arrived at a pitch of which it is impossible to
convey any adequate idea by mere statistical information.
The Poor-rates have regularly increased, and are now become
a serious drain upon the diminished resources of the compara-
tively few who are able to pay them.
Families, two or three together, are crowding into one house,
or leaving their cottages for cellars; some are quitting their
native land ; numbers, having exchanged all but the last ar-
ticles of their wearing apparel for the means of sustaining life,
are on the verge of destitution ; honest men, willing to work,
are compelled with their entire families to become street men-
dicants, or to live, day by day, on the precarious charity of
their neighbours ; and besides an increase of disease arising in
a great measure from a deficiency of food, many, it is to be
feared, are literally starving to death.
Of 15,823 individuals inhabiting 2,965 houses, lately visited
under the direction of a Committee appointed for ihe purpose,
1,204 only were found to be fully employed, 2,866 partially
emyloyed, and 4,148, able to work, were wholly without em-
ployment.
The average weekly income of the above 15,823 persons was
Is. 4%d. each.
The average weekly wages of those fully employed were
7s. 61,,id. each.
The average weekly wages of those partially employed were
4s, 714,d. each.
On behalf of the Committee, we are, yours most respectfully,
WILLIAM NELSTROP, Mayor, Treasurer.
SAML. R. CARRINGTON}H,n. Secretaries.
JOHN D. FERNLEY,
And since then the distress has increased, and none of
the mills then standing have been set to work ; in fact,
Gentlemen, there is not the (I had almost said) least pos-
sibility, for our poor-rates have gone on increasing to such
an extent that no man with capital and with a grain of
common sense, would come to a town like mini whore
the rates are likely to be tnis year, eight shillings in the
pound almost on the rack rent. In April last, after being in
operation thirteen weeks, and the funds were almost ex-
hausted, it was found that we have distributed relief as
follows
AVERAGE OF THE ENTIRE OPERATION OF THE 'mitre

COMMITTEE.

Families relieved, 3,143 ; individuals, 73,314 ; average
we.•kly income per head, 9d. 2 .10ths ; relief given ►n provisions,
2031. Bs. 10d. ; average relief per family, Is. 3d. 2-3ds ;
average relief per head, 3d. 2-3ds; income and relief per head,
Is. 26-30ths.

That Committee have ceased their operations for want
of funds, and left
~on their books 13,161 individuals
urgently requiring relief. Since 1836, our poor-rate
has gone on increasing to an alarming amount ; and, ex-
cept there be a speedy alteration in things, not only will
the working class be all paupers, but the middle class,
whom tiny are mainly dependent upon, will be paupers
also. The reduction of rents of all kinds of property is
very considerable. Public-house property was once
considered almost the best—if not the very best—

a person could have, but what is the case now :
Public-houses in the borough of Stockport, 136. Of this
number nine are at present empty, and many of the tenants
of those yet inhabited are offering their stocks and fixtures at •
enormous losses, in order to free themselves from the rents and
taxes, which all the money they draw will not enable them to
pay ; and yet the rents of a great portion of inns and public-
houses in Stockport have been reduced iu many instances
more than 30 per cent.,
_ in some instances 60 per
cent. ; but great as are the reductions above stated te-
nants cannot be procured. In 1839 there were in Stock-
port 233 beer-horses, and at present there are 104. Of pro-
vision, and other description of shops within the borough, there
are, untenanted, 149, and 14 closed as shops, though still in-
habited. It is supposed that there are nearly 300 houses and
shops empty of one description or other.
In consequence of the distressed state of trade a
reduction of wages is taking place almost unparalleled,
and I fear must go on till the manufacturing population
in the cotton districts are reduced to a condition from
which they can never recover themselves. Gentle-
men, is this a state of things that ought to exist ?
I am sure you . will all say no. I thought it
my duty to come here and make these statements.
I wish the country to know, I wish Sir R. Peel to know,
I wish her Majesty's Ministers to know, that the inha-
bitants of our borough have endured their unparalleled 1
distress with unparalleled patience. Whether that 1
is 'to be attributed to a sense of the kindly
feelings which their fellow-citizens have mani-
fested toward them and to their efforts to miti-
gate their distress ; or whether it is to be attributed
to the interposition. of Divine Providence ; or whether
it is to be attributed to the fact, that the poor are so de-
pressed physically that they have silently endured their
• sufferings, it is not for me to say. There is, however, a'
point beyond which human endurance cannot go ; and
unless some means are taken to relieve the dis-
tress of the poor of Stockport, I wish the
country to know, I wish Sir Robert Peel to know,
I wish the Government to know, that I cannot, and will
not, be responsible for the consequences which may
follow from the present state of things.—(Cheers.)
l'ho' CHAIRMAN here recommended that gentlemen
who might address the meeting would point out, as
far as might be in their power, the beneficial re-
sults which they had reason to know would follow
from a repeal of the Corn-laws. He believed that im-
mense effect had been produced by the statement made
yesterday by Mr. Ibbotson, of Sheffield, that if the
Corn-laws were now repealed he would instantly take
on 500 new hands, and that he would pledge, himself in
fourteen days there should not be a workman in Sheffield
out of employment. Such statements as these were
most valuable, because they intended to show that a
repeal of the Corn-laws would revive British industry.
Mr. FOSTER, the chairman of the Board of Guardians
of Stockport, then proceeded to address the meeting as
follows :—I have been for some time the chairman of the
Board of Guardians in Stockport, and I have collected
certain facts in connection with the administration
of 'the relief of the poor in that borough, a por-
tion of which I shall lay before the meeting
In 1839 a rate of ls. Bd. in the pound realized upwards
of 5,000/. In 1842 a rate of 2s. in the pound realised
only about 3,600/. If we say that in 1839 the rate had
been laid for 25., there would have been received 6,0001.
We at once perceive that there has been a defalcation in
one rate only of 2,400/. I have before stated
that the average of the expenditure of the
poor for Stockport, ending March, 1841, was
3,1241. ; the deficiency of one rate only for the!present
year is equal to the whole expenditure, excepting 724/.
The amount of expenditure on behalf of the poor in 1841,
at
IF:
eh before
quarterst ated,
ending
wasm a3r,
c12h42/.5, 'llBl4e2,amountwas expendedet37Los in
. 5d
.;
this will, if that scale of expenditure continues, make an
expenditure equal to 9,7481. ls. Bd. ; being an increase
in one year of 6,6241. Is. Bd., besides the amount raised
by private subscription. In the year 1839 a rate of
I s. Bd. in the pound was sufficient to meet all the demands
on the overseers as regards the poor and other rates.
The expenditure of the present year will, if the present
lamentable circumstances continue to prevail, re-
quire rates of Bs. in the pound, being nearly fivefold.
It has been pretty accurately ascertained that the amount
of reduction in wages has amounted to 6,0001. a week,
saywith-
drawn
circulation.shopkeepers
three
four, for 2,400/., was resold a few weeks since for 1,005/.
Three shops, whose rents amounted together to 1451. with
an incumbrance of about 351., leaving nett rent 1151. per
ann. Was sold for 1,305/. 'could multiply proofs of this de-
preciation. I have before stated that destitution and distress
lis extending in Stockport at the present time. It has also
much increased in other parts of our Union. In Hyde
district it has extended; in Hazelgrove district, where
\
the cases to the Board averaged about six or eight a-
week, in the present week'it amounted to seventy cases,
owing to the depression-of the silk trade. The senti-