FEARFUL DISTRESS IN THE HOME COUNTRY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 615, 1 February 1879, Page 2

FEARFUL DISTRESS IN THE HOME COUNTRY.

Details of the distress in England contained in telegrams in American papers, showed that in Sheffield alone 2000 children and 3000 adults were in receipt of weekly relief in December last. Hundreds of families of iron- workers were in a state of utter destitution, and the distress was increasing daily. At Stocke-on-Trent the Distress Committee found the funds at its disposal wholly inadequate to meet the demands ; in North Staffordshire the condition of the working classes was bad in the extreme ; at Edinburgh, in response to a deputation, a great number of unemployed were set to work on the streets ; swarms of starving men, women, and children filled the streets of Dundee. An idea of the state of matters in Sheffield may be fbrmed from the fact that, one firm which formerly occupied 1,200 men, has reduced its hands to 40. £3,000,000 was lost to the town by the diversion of a contract for 60,000 tons of plates to South Wales. Hundreds of families are reported to be living in houses without furniture or fire. At Oldham the companies have commenced running their machinery at a reduction, and the four weeks strike has entailed a loss of £60,000 in wages alone. It was estimated that the proposed reduction of 12£ per cent, in wages in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire would affect 100,000 and a gigantic strike of colliers early in the new year was under discussion.