The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1862-02-15
Distress amcp- English Manufacturins 9,
OueraIiypS. q

cHSidti'css
The accounts which nov reach us from
England and France, realize the fears of
the effects upon the working classes there
OF the partial s.oppage of intercourse be.
tween the United States and those coun.
tries. letter from Manchester in the
Times discloses sad state Of poverty and
want among the factory population of that
city. The Manchester Guardian, of TIA
18th, speaking OF doings at the Exchan..
remarks '
Both buyers and producers, but rartic.
ularly the latter, have left the market this
evening in state Ct anxie'y such as they
had not previously felt. They are i'm fact.
alarmed at their present condition and
immediate prospect
According to the lowest calculation, the
production OF yarns and cloths is reduced
to o0 per cent. more generally it is 1ccn-
sldered to be 90 per cent. Selling COM
mission agents are the best judges in the
case, and our inquiries are made from
them and from great numbers of producers.
There is no choice Every day and
every week will rapidly carry further tho
curtailment Of spinning aud weaving
Many are preparing to close their works
(as others have been doing) when their
stock OF materials is used up Others are
going from four TO three or from three to
two days 4 week.
Already the hands entirely unempolyed d
ere numbered by thousands in single 10.
calities. Looking at this and at the COM
ing increase, the question is anxiously put
on every hand, How are these people TO
be kept? And the question will press
more and more from this time
These brief notices are pregnant with
suggestions Of iire.ess hearthe AID empty
boards in thousands Of households. As q
general remark the work,uen, save bnt
little in the best cf times. And this for
the plain reason that as wages are grad
ua:ed, ;hfy cannot live comfortably as
family men and save any thing For it
IS an inexorable law or economy, under
the competitive system Of industry now
estabi shed, that the operatives Of tho
working classes must accept such wages,
in ord .nirily good times, as viii keep
Themselves IN condition for labor and
maintain their reproductive energies at
point TO insure their oe.ng replaced by
Eew crop of labcregs This remark, of
course, applies to old and densely popula.
tel )nmunities, where every wheel is set
teled in its own rut. Necessarily there
must be su.feri1s in bad times. .-
u" -ia'ANi4toStAi great I.Clc0>e III Inc
mortality among children IS observable.
This has melted the authorities 20 have
printed on card boards. for distribution
an o1g the poor, Instructions to mothers
as TO the proper way 10 dress and feed
their Infants; hut, as the writer Justly
remarks, 1t IS TO lie feared that no precepts,
however wise, will keep in trim The little
lamp Of life th4t has teen lighted in a
dark and wCt abode. teiow the level of
the street, in wh.eh there is 10 furniture
no food no fuel but perhaps in a single
apartment SIX 20 ten persons OF either sex.
The distress in the smaller manufactur.
ing towns near Manchester is urgent A
4 clergyman at pia e called Angel
Ieadows, "a ii-.s.:ng ~ thc symra.hies oe
the cllar. ah!e speaks of two hundred
fainiirs in his uciglborkood in verv
destitute coldit On. CF these families.
twenty or thirty were so distressingly in
wait, that immediate relief was necessary
TO save from actual starvation. The only
rrtic.c Of food in any house visited was a
scar;y measure Of meal
i - rec.:ouel that some three hundred
thousand persons N Manchester and Vi
cinity a:e in a -la,c of suffering The
future Is as dark gS the present; while it.
IS agreed that to prom ss thcss poor people
= good supply of cotton next spring, or
next year, is but to promise them work
and wsgss IN Fsua,ise. They must have
relief now, or they will not require it.
except for burial