The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-27 00:00:00

THE DISTRESS IN THE DIA.NU-
rACTURING DISTRICTS•

THE QUEEN'S LETTER.

TO: HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,
,FOR. A. COLLECTION IN AID OF THE SUBSCRIPTIONS
ENTERED INTO FOR THE RELIEF OF THE WORKING
CLASSES IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.
Victoria R.
Most Reverend Father in God, our right trusty and
right entirely beloved Councillor, we greet you well.
11 hereas, in some districts in England and Scotland,
many of the working classes have suffered, and con-
tinue to 'suffer, severe distress; and whereas many of
our subjects have entered into voluntary subscriptions
for their relief, and have at the same time humbly
prayed us to issue our Royal letters directed to the
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Arch-
bishop of York, authorising them to promote contri-
butions within their several provinces for the same
benevolent purpose : We, taking the premises into
our Royal consideration, and being always ready to
give the best encouragement and countenance to such
humane and charitable undertakings, are graciously
pleased to condescend to their request ; and we do
hereby direct these our letters be communicated
by you to the several suffragan Bishops within
your province, expressly requiring them to take
care that publication be made hereof on such Sunday
in the present or in the ensuing month, and in such
places, within their respective dioceses, as the said
Bishops .hall appoint; and that upon this occasion the
ministers in each parish do effectually excite the
parishioners to a liberal contribution, which shall be
collected the week following at their respective dwell-
ings by the churchwardens or overseers of the poor in
each parish ; and the ministers of the several parishes
are to cause the sum so collected to be paid imme-
diately into the hands of the Bank of England, to be
accounted for by them, and applied to the carrying on
and promoting the above-mentioned good designs.
And so we bid you very heartily farewell.
Given at our Court at Saint James's, the 11th
day of May 1842, in the fifth year of our reign.
. .
By her Majesty's command,
J. R. G. GRAHAM.
To the Most Reverend Father in God,

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our Right Trusty and Right Entirely
Beloved Councillor, William Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of
aH England, and Metropolitan.

London House, May 20, 1842.

Reverend Brother,—ln obedience to the commands
of her Majesty, I require you to read from the desk
in your church or chapel the Queen's Letter, a copy
of which I have caused to be transmitted to you, on
such Sunday before the Ist day of July next as you
may judge most convenient, immediately after the
Morning or Evening Prayers.
You are also desired to cause the Queen's Letter to
be read in like manner in every place of worship be-
longing to the Established Church in your parish (if
there be any besides the parish church), and to com-
municate this letter to the minister or ministers
thereof.

The accompanying statement will supply authen-
tic information in regard to the distress which pre-
vails in the places therein mentioned, and which
unhappily extends to many other populous districts
similarly circumstanced.
I trust, therefore, that you will feel it your duty,
as a minister of Christ, to give full effect to her Ma-
jesty's gracious intentions, by earnest exhortation from
the pulpit, and to make known and enforce, as widely
and strongly as possible, the claims of the sufferers
on the charity of their Christian brethren.
The amount collected is to be paid, within three
weeks after the collection, into the Bank of England,
or its branches in the country ; or by Post-office
orders addressed to and made payable to the cashiers
of the Bank of England, London.
From your affectionate brother,
C. J. LONDON.
THE STATEMENT.—STOCKPORT.

Stockport, in Cheshire, is one of the principal
seats of the cotton manufacture, and a large portion
of its population is dependent on that manufacture
for support.
During the last three years many failures among
the mill-owners have occurred, but distress among
the working people did not assume a very aggravated
form until within the last eight months; since that
time a large number of the manufacturing workmen,
accustomed to constant industry, have been reduced
by the stoppage of mills to want of employment, and
to a dependence on legal or voluntary alms. Their
privations have been borne, by a population not ac-
customed to such dependence, with fortitude and re-
signation, and the virtues which they have exhibited
under such severe trials, not less than the sufferings
which they have endured, and are still enduring,
entitle them to the sympathy and consideration of their
fell ow countrymen.
Mr. Waddington, the Secretary of the Relief Fund
in Stockport, states in the Official Report upon the
distress in that town, that the great majority of the
distressed families have no visible means of support ;
that for some weeks they had subsisted by credit; that
when that had filled their next resource was to sell
their furniture, their wearing apparel, their bed and
bedding, and in many instances women had been com-
pelled even to part with their marriage rings.; and that
their dwellings were found literally stripped of every ar-
ticle of comfort. Ile subsequently proceeds to state, in
reference to the district of which he acted as visitor,
" The greater proportion of the inhabitants of that
district were in as lamentable a state of destitution as
it is possible to imagine ; I am convinced that the
Relief Fund has been the cause of saving hundreds
in the borough from a premature grave."
BURNLEY.

Severe distress likewise prevails extensively at
Burnley in Lancashire, and in the neighbouring dis-
trict, owing to the same causes as the distress at
Stockport.
In this district less efficient assistance appears to have
been afforded to the settled poor from the poor-rates, and
moreover many destitute persons who had migrated
thither from other parts of the country have been
deterred from applying for parochial relief, by the fear
of removal in consequence of thus becoming chargeable.
The funds provided by the law for the relief of or-
dinary destitution in England, however ample they
may be, can scarcely be expected to suffice in the de-
pressed state of Stockport and Burnley, inasmuch as
the resources of the rate-payers themselves are dimi-
nished in nearly the same proportion in which the de-
mands of the working-classes upon those resources
are increased.
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