Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1862-02-11
Distress among English MsnuHactur'
Ing Operatives. B.,

The accounts which now reach us from Eng
land and France, realize the fears of the effects
upon the working classes there of the partial
stoppage Of intercourse between the United
States and those countries. A letter from Man,
chester to the Times discloses sad state Of
poverty and want among the factory population
Of that city. The Manchester Guardian Of the
18th ult, speaking Of doiDgs at the Exchange,
remarks:
"Both buyers and producers, but particularly
the latter, have left the market this evening in
a state of anxiety such as they had not previ.
ously felt. They are, In fact, alarmed at their
present condition and immediate prospect. n
According to their lowest calculation, the
production of yarns and cloths Is reduced so
per cent; more generally IL is considered to be
go per cent. Selling commission agents are
the best judges in the case, and our Inquiries
are made from them as well as from great num-
bers Of producers.
"There is no choice Every day and every
week will rapidly carry further the curtailment
Of spinning and weaving. Many are preparing
to close their works (as others have been doing)
when their stoch of material is used up 9th
ers are going from four to three, or from three
to two days week
ALREADY the hands entirely unemployed are
numbered by thousands in single localities
Looking at this and at the coming increase, the
question is anxiously put on every hand, How
are these people to be kept7' And the question
will press more and more from this time"
These brief notices are pregnant with sug-
| gestions of freless hearths and empty boards
| In thousands OF households. As q general re-
mark, the workmen save but little in the best
Of times. And this for the plain reason that,
as wages are graduated, they cannot live COM
fortably as family men and save anything. For
IL Is an inexorable law of economy, under the
competitive system of industry now established,
that the operatives of the working classes musi
accept such wages, in ordinarily good times, as
will keep themselves in condition for labor and
maintain their reproductive energies at point
to insure their being replaced by new crop of
laborers, This remark, of course, applies to
old and densely populated communities, where
every wheel is settled in its own rut. Necessa-
rily there must be suffering in bad times.
At Manchester, great increase in the mortal
ity among children is observable. This has in
cited the authorities to have printed on card
boards, for distribution among the poor, instruc.
tions TO mothers as to the proper way to dress
and feed their infants; but, as the writer Justly
remarks, 1t is TO be feared that no precepte
however wise, will keep In trim the little lamE
of life that has been lighted In dark and wei
abode, below the level of the street, in which
there is no furniture, no food, no fuel, but per-
hsps in single apartment six to ten persons Of
either sex.
The distress In the smaller manufacturing
towns near Manchester is urgent. A clergy
man, at place called Angel Meadows, appeal
ing to the sympathies of the charitable, speaks
of two hundred families in his neighborhood IL
Q very destitute condition. Of these families
twenty or thirty we're 80 distressingly In want
that immediate relief was necessary to say.
from actual starvation. The only article o.
food in any house visited was q scanty measure
Of meal.
II is reckoned that some three hundred thous
and persons In Manchester and vicinity are in O
Estate of suffering, The future is as dark as the
| present; while I'LL agreed that to promise thes,
poor people good supply Of cotton next spring
or next year, is but to promise them cork ant
. toages IN Paradise, They must have relief nov
or they will not require it--except for burial.
. ~ al L g. Q . .