Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-04-16
LONDON LABORERS.

The late arrivals from England bring US
tidings of distress and destitution among the
free laborers of London, which has no paral-
lei in this country, except among the laborers
in the free States, where similar scenes some
times occur. With the double object of
teaching our people the value of their insti-
tutions, and to show our friends in free so.
ciety that there is ample employment for all
their benevolent impulses elsewhere than a.
mong the negro slaves, we present the fol-
lowing glimpse at the beauties of free society.
The miseries of the unemployed classes in
London continue to make themselves pain
fully apparent The several police courts
are besieged. daily by applicants for relief;
and large groups, we learn, parade the streets,
chanting words of distress, and bearing a
public declaration that they are out of en-
ployment. The proceedings at the Mansion
House may be taken as type of what &C.
CURED at the other offices. Three parties,
describing themselves respectively as grain
er, a house decorator, and bricklayer,
waited upon the Lord Mayor on Wednesday,
to make application on the part of themselves
and Others Here are their statements:
The bricklayer said he had not been to
the parish, and did not want to 60, if there
was possibility of getting work, or keeping
away at all.
The house decorator said he had a wife
and child, and having been out of work for
four months, had only been able to support
them by pledging and selling everything be-
longing to him; except the clothes on their
backs. Yesterday, being at the last push,
he went, with $50 others, to the work-house,
where they were set to break stones, and at
the end of the day he got Is. and a quarten
loaf, but most of the men who were single
got only i'd. or 3d. and half quartern loaf,
after being all day without anything to eat
That was a very little, and the stone break
ing had so blistered his hands, that he could
not go to it again, for if he did, his hands
would be in such state as to make it i'm
possible for him to do any work at his own
business for three weeks or month, even if
he got any. The poor fellow here held out
his hands, the palms of which, as he had
said, were blstcred all over.
The graincr said he did not appear so
much for himself as for the others, many of
whom, who had been twelve or twenty-four
hours without food, were growing very poisy.
He had done all he could do keep them qui-
ct, but they were growing desperate and
threatened to have food by fair means or foul,
unless something was done for them, and
that quickly. A good many of them were
anxious to emigrate to Australia if they could
get free passage, and land to cultivate
when they got there.
What startling and instructive contrast
to all this is presented by the institution of
slavery in the Southern States! At the very
moment that the free laborers of London
were bowling through the streets, and be-
seeching the Mayor to give them work, our
slaves were quietly resting in their cabins,
with no maddening hunger torturing them
by day, or corroding care to disturb their
slumbers by night. Both classes of laborers
were without work, but one was pinched
with hunger, frenzied by the sufferings of
wife and children, ready to starve if honest,
or to plunder to satisfy the cravings Of hun
ger, while the other was comfortably housed,
clothed and fed, saw wife and little ones en-
joying similar comforts, and was totally un-
concerned whether the morrow should be