The National tribune., 1883-10-11
SPLENDID MISERY.
Manchester. the Paradise of the British
WOrkingman
Special Correspondence National TriOune.

attIdetiVe elty, L was vet not prepared Tor
finding Manchester such as it is Smoke-be-
grlmed, Birmingham and Manchester both are,
and to this extent ugly and forbidding: but in
Manchester, as in Birmingham, strong effort is
being made TO overcome the smoke nuisance,
and so great is the faith of Manchester in the
success of this movement that the Manchester
corporation has recently built, at cost of
nearly five million dollars the most beautiful
town hall to be found in the world. A vast
gothic structure, placed in the center of the
city, this town hall may well be d source
oil pride to every citizen Of Manchester, not
only by reason of its beauty, but because,
as the American consul Colonel Albert ID.
SHAW, assured as. every penny spent upon it
was honestly spent for value honestly received.
Indeed, everything that have said of the ex-
ceilence of the local government of Birning-
nam is equally true of the government of
Manchester. Here are avenues Widened at
great cost, and vast water supplies; here are
me schools anda libraries and penny banks,
cheap gas and trustworthy police, and these
are the results of the labOrS of corporation
which so commands respect that year by year
the citizens intrfst one additional function
after another TO its upright and able admins
tration. Thus, only the other day, munich
pal art gallery was opened in Manchester, con-
hded by Its founders to the care of the corpora
ton with the stipulation that the corporation
spend $4,000 t42,0O0) per year in keeping up
thebulldlng and adding to the collection. To
the work of conducting this gallery the ma
tional government lends aid by sending down
from the South KenSington museum precious
corrections OF objects d art from time to time;
and citizens of Manchester show vet deeper
confidence IN their local government by giving
outright to this municipal gallery admirable
pictures from their own collections.
THE NEED OF ARr-LIFE
possession of the essentials OF town life, by
reason of corporation which does its duty,
are free from the need TO waste precious time
over discussions of their streets and drains,
their drinking water and police and are thus
enabled to expend their public spirit upon the
smoke nuisance and what may be called the
art-life of their town.
That they should do this there is most ur-
gent need, for Manchester lives by the prOduc-
tion of textile fabrics; and French taste and
the increasing skill OF American designers are
pressing the Manchester manufacturers very
closely IN this matter. When the taste OF
England and America is growing every year
more true and delicate, the cheapness and the
durability Of textile fabrics are not sufficient
recommendations without the third requisite
beauty OF design and finish But it is difficult,
indeed, TO discover how the art of design may
be developed in Manchester under existing
SAICuuiotd!lCSS DeolSI6TS LlUSG. ] WOULD seem.
live among conditions calculated to suggest
beautiful combinations of forms and colors
But the working people of Manchester live
under low-hanging sky, black with fog and
smoke, except during the few lovely days of
the north-of-England summer. They live,
moreover, in rows of houses, not, indeed so
vile as those of Halesowen, of Lye-Waste, and
Cradley, but small and crowded and hideousIy
monotOnous. We drove one morning in An
coats mart of elosalyr-br1iTt
through miles of narrow streets well drained,
well lighted and well policed; wholesome, so
far as the care of the corporation can make
them wholesome, but utterly destitute of
everything which ought to make the surround
ings OF human homes beautiful and attractive.
The street is the only playground Of childhood,
the public house the only gathering place of
men and women. All privacy of home life and
all the grace of hospitality is shut forever out
of the lives of thousands of honest working
people in this city, whose prosperity must more
and more depend upon the refinement of her
workers and their power to produce designs
pleasing to the eyes of cultivated purchasers.
NOT ALTOGETHER PARADISE.
Manchester is called I" the paradise of English
workmen," !" for fine machinery, abundant cap
ital, close organization of labor, and the early
occupation of textile markets by Lancashire
manufacturers give to the Manchester weaver
and spinner vast superiority in the matter of
wages over his Iuckless brothers the Birming-
ham mailer and the Dowlais collier; but if
Ancoats be a part of the paradise of the English
workman, alas, for him! In our drive the
coaChman carried his hat and whip and sat
with bent head, trying to escape clothes-lines
that, crossing the sooty streets, gave painful
evidence of the lack Of yards behind the low
rooted houses that lined these narrow thor
oughfares. Indeed, hundreds of blocks of An
f- EN-r %-.l = Ix,T - l.. !.
with the wall of another house, where every
back door should be, parti-wall, answering
for the back as well as for the sides of every
house. Formerly several families occupied one
house, the cellar sufieing fer family abode,
as Mrs. Gaskell has described in her melancholy
story, Mary Barton;" but now these cellar
dwellings are forbidden and abandoned, and
the ideal towards which Manchester is evi-
IDENTIFY striving is the occupation of house bv
every family. That this ideal is by no means
realized as yet, our visit TO Ancoats clearly
showed; and even if every baek-to-back house
were occupied by single family, this family
would yet be i'll off with only the street for
playground and clothesdrying space
That circumstances such as these are little
calculated TO cultivate the perception of beauty
among Manchester workmen, the manufactur-
ers, the citizens generally, and the corporation,
are coming clearly to see. And with char
acteristic English delibeEation and effective
ness they are proceeding TO palliate the evil.
The English peopls, even in Manchester, can
not be called n radical PEOPLE. To my Ameri-
can eyes they seem always 20 palliate evil not
to find its root and remove it, but TO admin
ister local Notwithstanding symptoms, as it
were The cure for the hideOusneSs of life in
Ancoats for instance, might suggest itself TO a
radical American mind under the form of legis-
lation forbidding the construction of back-to-
back blocks, eOndemning certain districts to be
cleared and used as parks, widening certain
streets, forcing the use of well-known means of
stopping smoky ehimneys-theSe measures to
be taken as preliminary to instruction in the
art of living. But the people of Manchester
are, as | have said, not in any American sense
radical. They will destroy nothing in Ancoats
they win palliate. Thus far they have begun
by establishing cheap baths and employing a
organist, a part of whose duty
is to give, twice every week, an organ recital
in superb room in the town hall, the
price of admission being, l think, two pence,
or if not two pence, a sum so small as TO shut
out no one do not know how many Ancoats
working people go to these organ recitaIs
hope many of them may do so. Perhaps some
of the patched and tattered clothes that were
drying in AneOats streets were being prepared
for wear on one of these occasionsI
PALLIATIoN, BUT NOT ERADICATION.
What the Manchester people propose to do |
for Ancoats forms varied programme. They |
have begun to build eotfee-houses to limited (
extent aud they are meditating gymnasia on
the same basis of small fees, upon which the /
baths have already proved successful. Their |
chief hope, however is the characteristic En-