LANCASHIRE DISTRESS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 18, 25 February 1863, Page 3

LANCASHIRE DISTRESS.

The special correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph writes as follows from Manchester :—

At Preston I have visited many cottages, where the poor uncomplaining creatures possessed not a vestige of furniture, bedding, or even clothing, except such as they actually stood in, and in some instances I found their misery aggravated by an utter want of fuel. Yet I observed no murmuring, no repining, no discontent ; but a fortitude, a submission, and a resignation, which was not merely wonderful, but heroic in the extreme. In one case, I visited a family of eleven persons — good, honest, and industrious artisans — who some time since were deprived of employment in consequence of the burning of the mill in which they worked. Since then they have procured a little occasional labour, until within the last few weeks, when they found themselves utterly destitute ; furniture, pictures, crockery, bedding, and everything else having been parted with for the purpose of procuring food. Yet, even in the midst of their affliction, they meekly bore their chastisement, and, instead of mourning their fate, were in the habit of holding a week-day evening prayer meeting. What a touching subject for our best artists. The pictures collected together in the Great Exhibition did not contain an incident more pathetic or more saddening than this. Imagine a small room, utterly destitute of chairs, table, &c., crowded with ragged, hunger-worn, cold, and ehivenng men and women, earnestly and hopefully uniting in devout prayer, or singing, with quivering lips and moistened eyes, the beautiful hymns which they sang in happier days in their places of worship.

Truly, the old poetry of life has not yet perished from us. In another house I found a woman surrounded by two or three children, who were piteously crying for the bread which she could not give them. The room, as usual, was stripped of its furniture, and on the district visitor, who accompanied me, giving the poor mother a ticket for relief, she told him, with choking sobs, that he need not call again, for the cup of their Borrow was full, they had parted with everything, in the hope of postponing the evil day, but in vain, and now they were going to the workhouse.

In a third home I discovered a poor woman lying on three old worm-eaten chairs, und covered with a thin tattered sheet, for want of a bedstead; and upon inquiring into her case I learned that her two grownup daughters, whose factory earnings had aided in maintaining her, had succumbed to the effects of privation and fever, despite of all herJoving, tender, and motherly care ; and now she, poor creature, was dying also. There was no food in the cupboard, but some kind Samaritan neighbour had kindled a bright fire, before which crouched a ragged and thiu-viaaged young girl, who formed the sole attendant on the expiring woman. Id a fourth abode I observed an aged man, worn down to ft skeleton, lting on a ricketty bedstead,

placed in a cold, damp, aud ill-lighted cellar, not fit fora dog to live in. There was no lire, no furniture, nnd no food. The dying man was covered with n thin dirty quilt, which scarcely concealed his wasted ami shivering limbs ; while the chaff was slowly dropping out of the numerous holes in the rotten mattress on which he lay, so that he could feel the woodwork of the bedstead beneath him.

In another place I found a family partaking of some relief which had just been procured from the soup kitchen, in the shape of hot coffee and bread. The children were greedily munching their slices, just cut from the loaves, while an infant in its mother's arms stretched forth its tiny hands in feeble supplications to the father, who was bending, with the wolfish glare of famine, over the little basin of coffee and the lump of bread which was to form his only meal for that day ; and m my eye took in these details, I noticed that the mother was restlessly rocking herself to and fro in the vain attempt to conceal the blinding tears of shame and sorrow which my presence had occasioned.

Everywhere I beheld the sad traces of the terrible affliction which has overwhelmed these poor people. Hundreds of homes have been completely stripped for the purpose of procuring food, and the warerooms of the pawnbroker and the furniture dealer are crammed to repletion with the too-cheaply sold goods of tho distressed operatives. Sunday scholars have parted with their best clothing, their prize Bibles and hymn-books, even the very shoes and stockings from their feet; and I have frequently seen them gaze sadly at the forfeited pledges displayed for sale in the pawnbrokers' windows, and weep as they recognised the humble but dearly-prized relics of "Auld lang syne."

At Wigan, a good-hearted and able individual who, under the norn de plume of " A Lancashire Lad," has rendered some powerful aid to the cause of the distressed operatives, accompanied me to a small but cleanly-looking cottage, where I found a young lad, whose shrunken features betokened the intensity ol the sufferings which he had undergone. There was a Btriking resemblance between the countenance of the little fellow and that shown in George Cruikshank's graphic delineation of Oliver Twist. The pale resigned features, fair hair, and delicate frame of the lad, impressed mo with a strong interest in his case. His story was simple but very true. His father had been absent for several weeks in search of work, leaving the mother to look after the children in the mean time. They had endured great privations, but the actual extent of their sufferings God and themselves alone knew.

When the attention ot our brave-heartod " Lancashire Lad " was directed to their pitiable state he found the poor fellow of whom I have spoken, sitting by the ill-fed fire shivering with cold, and clothed with nothing but an old canvas shirt and a tattered blanket, his trousers and clogs having been taken away for the purpose of enabling his brother to work in the coal pit. The " Lancashire Lad " took good care that instant relief was afforded to the family, and when we entered the house the sad and hopeless expression of the lad's features brightened into a grateful smile as he beheld the approach of his benefactor. Poor fellow, his arms and body were wasted to mere skm and bone; and the ceaseless hollow cough betokened that the time was not far distant when, released from earthly misery, he should become a dweller of the happy regions where " The wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

Sad and affecting as this case was, it formed but one of the many thousands which are continually being brought to light, and which too faithfully reveal the intensity of tho misfortune which has destroyed the happiness of so many families. The aid of the British people has not been bestowed one moment too early, certainly not before it was needed, for at the present moment it forms the sole barrier between thousands of operatives and thejterrible pangs of death from famine.

It is useless to mention poor-law relief to the majority of these men, for the artisans of the cotton districts are a proud and independent-minded race, who assiduously treasure the memories of the fierce and subboru stand so frequently made by their forefathers and by themselves against the cupidity and encroachments of the more reckless and grasping class of manufacturing capitalists, and they would die like dogs in the streets rather than accept the pauper's dole. It was in vain that I reasoned with one or two men of this stamp, and endeavoured to impress on their minds the fact that there was in reality less disgrace in asking for the relief which was their undoubted right, and which was contributed from wealth which they assisted in creating, than in partaking of the generously proffered charity of their fellow countrymen. Surrounded by the bare walls of their cottages— the empty grates, foodless shelves, aud naked bedsteads — they proudly drew themselves up, and firmly but respectfully declared the stern inflexibility of their resolution never to accept the hated and detested assistance of parochial officials. I might as well have breathed my remonstrances to the ocean for any thing which these people cared. The fact of the matter is, they have, from time immemorial, been reared in the belief that the name of " pauper " ia but another term for every conceivable description of moral degradation ; and they are likewise considerably influenced by a dread of the taunts to which they would be exposed at the hands of the more reckless and inconsiderate of their fellow workers, when returning prosperity should unclose the gates of the mill. But the deadly evils of want are daily closing tighter and tighter around them, and, despite their frantic struggles, the iron obstacles of pride and prejudice are rapidly giving way to the pressing claims of the starving wives and children of the miserable men. In Manchester the worst characteristics of the distress are not so apparent to the casual observer as in those places which are devoted to the sole manufacture of cotton goods, but its effects are quite as deeply felt by the small shopkeepers and the operatives themselves, as elßewhero. Many, if not all, of the traders in Ancoats and other districts are only taking five shillings over the counter where they formerly received five pounds ; and6hould the distress continue, there will shortly be an alarming increase in the number of bankruptcies amongst them. This is not at all surprising when it is considered that their traffic is entirely confined to the operative classes, who have now ceased to be their customers.

In the Manchester district there are eighty-five mills, of which fourteen are fully employed, fourtythree working short time, and twenty-eight are entirely closed. The number of operatives working full time is 6,706 ; working short time, say three days per week, 6,779 ; while the totally unemployed number not less than 10,900. If to these be added the number of the unemployed in other trades, the total exhibits a frightful array of figures.

LANCASHIRE Distbess. — Stockport has been the first among- the Lancashire boroughs to demand the aid ot the State. The distress there is becoming excessive. Out of 54,000 inhabitants, 37,000 are now wholly or partially dependent on charity, and the expenditure of the union and the relief committees has risen to £1,480 a week. Of this sum only £580 is furnished from the rates, and the total rate is only ss. in the pound, in Stockport, and 3a. in the whole union ; but this demand is pauperizing the poorer ratepayers at a terrible pace ; not half of the last rate will be collected, for, out of 8,100 assessments, 6,371 are under £6. The guardians, fearing the collapse of the voluntary charities, have, therefore, applied to the Secretary of State, backing their petition by proof that the people are living on Is. Bd. a head per week, and that scurvy and other diseases are breaking out among them. It must come to this, we fear ; but State aid to every borough in which the rate rises to ss. is a most dangerous precedent.— Spectator.

Omnibus Fabeb. — The Berlin Omnibus Company, which had already a very low tariff, have just reduced their fares to lid. for riding from the centre of the town to the outskirts, a distance of about two leagues. From one extremity of the city to the other, a dUtauce of four leagues, the fare is 2}d., passengers changing carriages at the central office.

A btbange Bequest. — Mr. Queensly, of Cambridge, who was a great admirer of the Grecian poets, has left directions in his will that his skin is to be tanned into a parchment, upon which is to be written the whole of the "Iliad" of Homer, which if then to be pretested to toe British Museum,