The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-21 00:00:00

than 31,0004 The pressure of the poor-rates were, by
this means, falling on little more than three-fourths of
the rated inhabitants of the town. An inquiry had
been made in December last into the condition of up-
wards of 1,000 families, consisting of 5,300 individuals.
Those 5,300 persons it appeared, were earning 3101.
a week, which made an average of about 14d. a head.
It was found that 950 families had beds, 50 families had
no beds, and there was among them only 456 blankets,
making 101 people to every blanket. ; 53 families were
wholly without beds, and 425 people were sleeping on
the floor. The furniture was mostly pawned or sold ;
and, among the 5,300 people, there were only 3,000
seats, or about two chairs for every three persons. The
meeting would perhaps be anxious to know how the
tradesmen of the town fared. He would mention, as
a sample of the returns from business, that a manufac-
turer told him that, after having taken stock on the
Ist of July, he found he had lost to the amount of
one penny in the pound upon all the cotton he had con-
sumed, which was about 20,000113. per week. His weekly
loss was, therefore, 831., or 4,3001. a year. The party to
whom he alluded was not a large manufacturer, but lie
was a very industrious, skilful, and intelligent man.
He added, that his losses at the present moment were
greater than they had been, and if his losses bad for-
merly been Id. per lb. he would not answer that they
were not now nearer 2d.—(Hear.) He would mention
another fact. Last week he had been present at a con-
versation among buyers and manufacturers of goods, and
one of them remarked upon the practice of a certain
well-known manufacuire at 4s. 100.- per piece. An
estimate had been gone into regarding the cost, when it
appeared that the loss could not be less than 10d. upon
each piece. The correctness of this estimate had been
fully corroborated by a relative of the manufacturer,
who had joined in the. conversation. That manu-
facturer produced 6,000 pieces a week ; and his loss at
10d. in the piece was therellme 2501, a week,
1,0001. a month, or 13,0001. a year.—(z,ear, hear.)
Now the manufacturerer in question was one
of the most celebrated in the trade, coMmanding the
highest prices; and if such were the state of his busi-
ness, what, he would ask, must be the condition of the
inferior manufacturers ? How long could such a state
of things continue ? Manufacturing business could be
conducted so long only as capital was found to work it.
How long that capital could be commanded time would
show. It might be asked, how it was that manufac-
turers, who were now carrying on business at a loss, did
not put a, stop to their works ? But it was not so easy as
some might imagine to stop a large manufacturing con-
cern. First of all, machinery would waste away daily
and hourly whether it were employed or not, so that in
any case the interest upon its outlay would be sacrificed.
Again, it should be remembered that manufacturers felt,
that if they stopped the working of their machinery,
they would find it very difficult, it' not impossible, to re-
gain hereafter the customers whom-they would lose by
that means. Besides, many manufacturers had, like
himself,' a great number of cottages attached to
their mills tenanted by their labourers, and if they-
ceased to employ those labourers, they would also be ex-
posed to the loss of the rents of their cottages. The
merchants, the bankers, and the bill-brokers in London
might imagine from the amount of their transactions
that there was no large falling off in the trade of the
country. But those gentlemen should remember that
bills of Exchange did not always represent bona fide
transactions. They frequently represented nothing but
emergencies and difficulties. Last Septeniber or October,
the people of this country were anxious lest the harvest
should turn out unpropitioss, lest some mishap should
o-cur to the Bank of England, lest it should be called
upon to pay more gold for corn than it had in its coffers.
A gentleman now, he believed, in London, but who
during last September was at New Orleans, told him
that at that very time the people of the interior had sent
down to New Orleans a quantity of barrels of flour, of
barrels of beef, of barrels of pork, and of other provi-
sions, with instructions to devote the proceeds arising
from the sale of those articles to be laid out in
the purchase of manufactures and clothing for them-
selves. So large was the quantity of provisions sent
down, ticst the wareh,.uaes of New Orleans would not
contain them ; they were piled upon the quays of the

place. The sun was hot at the time—it set these pro,
visions fermenting—the wind set in towards a particular
part of the city from these quays. and produced yellow
fever and mortality. Thus these provisions were suf-
fered to be destroyed and to produce disease, while the
people of this country were starving for want of food.
and the people of America were in want of our manu-
factures tor clothing.—(Cheers.) He would leave it to
the meeting to decide how far that law could be right
which interposed between man and the gifts of his
Maker-L(Cheers)—which ordered that the goodness of
the Almighty should be trodden under foot rather than
the people of England should be fed and the people of
America be clothed.—(Cheers.) They heard a great
deal of commercial treaties with Spain and Portugal,
while free trade with the State of New York alone
would be worth more than the whole trade of the
Peninsula together.—(Cheers.) In allusion to the
transaction which he had related as having occurred
last year at New Orleans, he would just observe that on
that side of the water 16,000,000 of persons, and on this
side 26,000,000 had suffered in consequence of the
existence of these laws, and if any pers?ns
benefited by their existence, their numbers did not
exceed 30,000. Did they think that 40,000,000 of
people would permit this havoc to be played with their
interests for the benefit of the 30,000 ?—(Cheers.) He
came not to this meeting to offend, but to speak the
language of commonsense and truth.—(Cheers.) If the
advantage of 30,000 persons were to be suffered to out-
weigh the interests of 40,000,000, lie would say let him ,
not be an inhabitant of that country to be one of the
40,000,000 who should suffer.— (Cheers.) lie would
4, now return to the case of the man to whom he had
F. before alluded, as having left his employ to go to
America, and join the Mormonites, but who had since
' returned. He had taken out with him certain articles of
clothing, of crOckery, &c., which he had been told were
rf
dear in that country. He took out with him his wife
and children, and finding that he had been deceived by
the representations of the Mormonites, he determined to
return, and in order to raise funds he disposed of various
articles which he had brought out with him. His
crockery he sold in small quantities at six times the
price he had given for it in Bolton. Articles of
clothing fetened three or four times as much as they had
• cost, thus showing dustbin America food was plentiful
bat clothing was scarcr He had purchased a pound of
sugar in New York for 3d. He Mr. Ashworth
had in Bolton purchased a pound of sugar of equal
quality, for which he had paidBd. (The two respective
pounds of sugar were produced, and the pound of three-
penny American sugar was of rather superior quality to
the pound, of Bolton eightpenny sugar.) He had inquired
of a general shopkeeper how the poor were getting on ;
he said very poorly ; that he scarcely ever took more
than a penny or a halfpenny from any customer. He
• (Mr. Ashworth) asked him what he could sell for a half-
penny, and he produced a halfpenny-worth of tea, of
sugar, of coffee, of bread (a thin half round). They
could uow see the reason why the Government issued a
coinage of half farthings.—(Cheers.) He was sorry he
had detained them so leng—(Cheers)—but it was a
subject deeply interesting to all of them. He would
detain them no longer, but let it rest with them, and
rely upon their exertions to secure the industrial free-
dom of the ceuntry.—(Loud cheers.)
Mr. WitaintsoN rose, and was -about to address the
meeting, when
Mr. P. A. TAYLOR rose to order. It had been
arranged that the gentlemen from the north should first
lay their statements before the meeting. He suggested
that they should first hear their statements, and then
nothing could be more in order than for Mr. Wilkinson,
or any other gentleman, to address the meeting as to the
remedy.
Mr. Provost HENDERSON, of Paisley, would shortly
allude to the state of the inhabitants of Paisley. The
inhabitants of Paisley occupied a part of the country
which, with the exception of Middlesex and Surrey, and
of Lancashire, was the most populous district of the Bri-
tish islands. The people there were living upon oat-
meal mixed with saw-dust, and had even eaten cattle
which had died of disease. That rumour had been
doubted. But he would repeat, that such things had
occurred. In Scotland that species of meat had been
sold in the market under the name of Braxey. Let
those of the aristocracy who doubted if these things
could be, try the experiment of living as these people
lived. Let him tell his butler to shut him up in a room
with 301 b. of meal for a month, and a quantity of meat
obtained from an animal which had died of disease, and
then at the end of the month let them see if he would
not have eat up the unwholesome animal food. They
had been trying in Scotland and in England, under the
Poor-law, to ascertain the smallest quantity of food on
which human beings could exist. They now in Scot-
land supported them on little more than 2d. a day-
-10,000 persons were maintained on 11,000 shillings
a week.—(Cries of " shame.") He had been sent
up by the Magistracy- of Paisley to represent to the
Government the necessity of increasing the allowance
to the poor of Paisley. On their road up, his colleagues
and himself visited many of the distressed districts.
They visited twenty houses in Bolton and twenty houses
in Stockport, inhabited by persons who had once moved
in a respectable sphere. In not one of those houses
was there a scrap of blanket to be found. Here were
persons wanting clothing, and yet the Government talked
of over-production !--(Cheers.) In Stockport, he was
present at a sale of machinery by the local authorities,
and a dressing machine, with the latest improvements,
the original cost of which, two years ago, had been 521.,
was knocked down for 41. 2s. Here was a reduction of
92 per cent. What would merchants say if such a re-
duction were made in the value of their capital ? What
would landlords say if such a depreciation were to take
place in the value of their estates.—(Cheers.) They
had waited on the Government, and the Government
would do nothing. The Secretary of State had said to
the deputation, "You seem to imagine that the Govern-
ment is bound to find food for the starving people. The
Government will do no such thing. They leave it to
you and the Relief Committee to settle the matter be-
tween you."—(Cries of " Shame.") The clergymen of
the town had sent up by himself an l his colleagues a
memorial to the Government, from which he would
read some some extracts. The lion. Gentleman then
proceeded to read the following extracts from the memo-
rial :
MEMORIAL PROM THE CLERGYMEN OF IFAISLEY TO HER
MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT.
Their resources were now at an end and yet the distress
continued, and they apprehended ills of such a nature and to
such an extent, as to render national measures and contri-
butions absolutely necessary. They, therefore, earnestly im-
Plored her Majesty's Government
to sanction these, and to
bring them before both Houses of Parliament without delay.
They deprecated the melancholy results which would follow- a
prorogation of Parliament previous to the adoption of means
for relief of the suffering
people, on a scale far more large and
effective than any which have as yet been adopted by the Le-
gislature.
.‘ We beg leave farther to give, as we hereby do, a flat and
pointed contradiction to the avermentkir,
-Gm whatever quarter,
of a waist of economy and care in the tribution of the funds
edteittigtered in Paisley prior to the arrival of the Special Coin-