The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1842-04-02

Another who made his living by selling brooms
says go to mountain ten miles distant for the
heath this takes me one day | spend another day
in making them. would gladly sell them all for one
shilling would think myself well of il could EN-
ploy myself throughout the year in this manner there
is not sufficient demand for the bIooms cannot re-
sort TO this mode OF living mere than a month
get occasional day Is work have often taken three
pence day rather than be idle. My wife may earn
few pence day when she is employed to spin but if
she is employed one day, she may not be employed
for month again
The report says that the commissioners met man
with load of wattes on his back, who said 81 am
well able TO work, but there is no employment to be
had My wife and children begging at home now;
and we must soon give up the cabin and the land
have got notice to pay thirty shillngs rent, now
is partially reclaimed we cannot do this, and must
quit" The same witness says that, rather han beg,
he walked sixty miles for the load of wattles, and
brought them home his back to be made into fails
70 buy potatoes to feed his family and this he did
without tasting food the whole day. The same wit.
ness sad: "When we have eaten the few potatoes
got for these wattles know Of no that will en-
able US to live without begging. If any one took me
into his house. would be glad to work for him all the
winter if he but gave me my food, and Kept me from
begging. would let the family beg for themselves
My two next door neighbors would do quite as much
to earn one shilling have DONE" Another wit
ness says:
"Can any hardship be greater than to get up in the
morning. as have DONE hear your children crying for
1000 ana not 10 give tntlD W LOON az my
SELF able and willing to work, obliged to send
the oldest of my children out to beg food to feed the
young ones.
The reverend Mr. Hughes says that " he found a
father and four out of five children SICK and all oge-
Their in one bed Of moist rotten nothing else
under them their whole covering was a single fold
of what is called poverty blanket, which he was
sured had been the only they had used for eight
years"
Another witness says, | was thirteen weeks with
ln0an 10 kaI thnnt anv
meal in the day at all and SO much did il work upon
nv mind that fell sick' (This witness was zorro
borated by the curate and dispensary surgeon, who
were presently {" | often did not if the ground
opened and swallowed me-hat is more than any one
ever heard out of my mouth before would willing
ly turn to any part of the land that could get en-
poyment and often, If a penny would get thinner
for my wife and children, | could not get II. From
the pure anxiety of mind, many is the night do not
sleep wink, thinking OF my destuton; and often,
from weak ness my wife not able TO leave the place
she sits in. What is to become OF us do not know.
1t also appears that this man never drunk, and
| all present gave him an excellent character.
Another witness says "The town laborers will
not admit the country laborers if possible.
When appeared among the laborers ON the street,
they used to pet me with cabbage stumps to drive me
away, and to keep to themselves the little employment
that Is 10 be had.
might proceed to make extracts in relation to the
condition Of the sick widows and of the aged. l
/
| restitution One witness in reply to the question
whether any had died in his parish within the last
three years with actual want says "ron actual desii
tuition from twenty to thirty from disease caused by
extren want from sixty TO seventy = that the widow
If the Irish laborer has hope but III an early grave
that the orphan and the superanuated receive no
sympathy no protection from British beneyolence
But must close these extracts, adding what Is said
by the Reverend Andrew Phelan, who states that
within the last five II six years one hundred and
ninety families have been elected from the estates
landed proprietors In the bNrony of East ldrone
amounting in all to six hundred and twenty-slx o
! when one hundred and thirty-two are widows ant
orphans ! p He farther >ays-"I recollect, in on,
instance of ten eleven families who were driven of
Of one town land, three four persons persisted II
the most melancholy restitution. A few of the dis
possessed families erected temporary huts on the sid,
of the road opposite the land from which they wel'
removed, by pacing few sticks covered with straw
and potato stalks shield against the trials of thu
weather but the rain flowed in and some who hae
strength to bear up against the trials they had t
encounter sark beneath them. Among these wer
Stephen Cusmins, his wife, and Mary Pendergras
the two former VI ere old and fteble-he latter wa
confined in the hut She got cold during her con
tinement of which she died. After suffering some
time the infant died also