Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-02-03
DISTRESS IN ENGLAND,

Poverty and Suffering Among the Working
Classes.
(Forney's London Correspondence Philadelphia
Press.
Beggary follows the absence of employ
ment all over the Kingdom, and if the season
were as harsh as the times, Charity, however
generous and active would be
Intellectual. The newspapers are full
of sad details, and the half has not
been told. In the manufacturing districts
nothing but the liberal perseverance of the
rich saves the poor from starvation. 1 have
sent you some of the facts printed in the
Times, and the News of to-day is even more
candid. Two thousand half famished chill
dren in one district of South Wales, called
Merthyr, were fed last night. Shoeless,
ragged, unwashed boys and girls,
from two to twelve years of age,
weeks! "The better classes came forth and
superintendent the benefaction, and the con-
trast at the distribution between the richly
attired ladies and the half-naked children
must have been very suggestive. The same
paper tells shocking story of distress in
the great iron and steel district of Sheffield.
A few facts may give you the skeleton of the
romance. :'The Sheffield work-house has
more inmates, and many of these able bodied
men, than it ever held before. In one dis
trict that of Brightside, which is in the i'm
mediate neighborhood of the large iron and
tseel works. there are about two thousand
cottage houses empty, and in some few in
stances almost entire rows of cottages
are inlet. 10 make matters worse,
those employed at the Atlas and
Cyclops Works, two of the largest establish
ments in the town, have had to submit to a
reduction in the rate of wages, and the works
have not yet been re-opened after the holi-
days. The works of Messrs. Brown, Bayley
& Dixon Qimited) have also remained closed
since the Saturday before Christmas, and
many of the cutlery houses are likewise
closed. AS rule, the steel meters and the
puddlers have not been engaged more than
two or three days week for months, and
hence they have been living almost at starva-
ton point. Everything available has gone
to the pawn broker long since; and how some
of the men and their families live is mys-
terry. Application for relief of rates are I'M
usually numerous, and the applicants are
altogether of different class from those
who usually make their appearance
before the overseer. Many of
them are young men; large
number are iron workers and men engaged
in the steel trade. In consequence of the
depression being SO long continued, and
coming on SO gradually, only those who are
in the immediate neigeborhood can be aware
how severe the distress really is. At the adj
joining town of Rotterdam soup kitchens
have been set on foot, and at Sheffield sub
scriptions will probably be raised for that or
some other way of mitigating the misery
which the working classes are now suffering
Though the majority of the former occu-
pants still remain at Sheffield, they endeavor
to curtail their expenses as much as possible
by making one house do for two or three
families, and live as best they can in the e1-
pectation of better times turning up. But a
comparative few of the iron workers are en-
| gagged at all.