lateable dishes at a cheap rate, from articles either to be purchased at the market, or supplied by the shop under the regu lation of the general committee. 8. That a ladies' committee be formed to attend to the cases of distressed lying-in women, and clothing for the female poor, to which committee all cases within its province should be referred by the gentlemen's committee. 9. That the minutes and accounts of the committee be regularly kept and fairly transcribed. All local establishments are requested to appoint one of their body to correspond with the secretary of this society; and if an account of the state of a place where distress prevails has not been already forwarded, it would be desirable to receive it under the following heads: Extent of the distress. Employment of the poor and their average earnings. Nature and extent of attempts at relief. General remarks. By the information already received, it appears that in many places the articles constituting the chief food of the poor are from one half to double their usual price, and that in several parts of the kingdom the stock of potatoes is quite exhausted. The sufferings of the manufacturer and labourer are increased in many places by a scarcity of work. It appears by a late investigation, that in Spitalfields and its neighbourhood more than 10,000 weavers and their dependents, were out of employment. At Burslem in Staffordshire, in a population of 9000 near 1000 are upon the parish; at Bolton, in a popula tion of 17000 there are 3000 paupers; at Nottingham a large proportion of the poor are without any employment, and those with families who have work are in great poverty; at Mansfield a very considerable number are utterly unable to procure the common necessaries of life, and many who have been far above want are now in very abject poverty; at Huddersfield the distress is said to be unexampled; and at Holmfirth the trade of the neighbourhood was never known to be so bad as it is at present; at Carlisle, Brampton and Wigan, hundreds of families are not able to obtain one half of what is essential to their subsistence; at Halifax the distressed cases are very numerous; at Birmingham and its neighbourhood the misery bas been extreme, and a subscription of between 3000l. and 40001. has been raised and expended by its benevolent inhabitants; the same generous exertion has been made at Liverpool; at Stockport hundreds of families are suffering for want of food; several of the manufactories from a failure of the proprietors being shut up, the hands are turned off, and are in the greatest distress; many of the manufacturers here, as in other places, have through feelings of humanity encumbered themselves with a large stock of goods, preferring a certain loss to the dreadful alternative of discharging the workmen without a prospect of their being able to obtain subsistence; at Manchester the calamity has been greatly increased by the late riots, as those in full work at the mills recently destroyed have now nothing to do. The reports from a variety of other districts are merely a repetition of the same melancholy facts; it would be impos sible to detail all the individual cases of suffering, but the fol lowing will give some idea of the nature of that distress which has called forth the exertions of this Association. In the neighbourhood of the metropolis, a poor weaver, his wife and nine children passed two days without any food, the baker with whom he had contracted a debt of 64. refusing to trust him any longer; in another case a poor family subsisted upon what they could pick out of the wash with which a neighbour fed his pigs; at Nottingham, a poor man out of work, with a wife and four children receiving very little parochial relief, was found in bed actually starving; the children were at the same time eating pea-husks which they had picked up in the streets; these, with the skins of potatoes gathered in the same way, had been the only food of the family for several days; relief was immediately given, but the poor man was too far gone to be recovered, and is since dead." The distress among the manufacturing poor in many districts has been such, that its effects are strongly marked upon their countenances; great numbers of them have not only parted with their beds, and almost every article of furniture and clothes, but are deeply in debt to chandlers, bakers, &c., and greatly in arrears for rent; so that were it possible for them to procure work immediately, it would be long, very long before they could reinstate themselves in their former rank in society. With these facts before us, it is surely not enough to say that while the poor laws exist, no person can be starved. The great bulk of misery is found in manufacturing districts, and it is to be recollected that many in middling circumstances are in a great degree dependent upon the poor, and suffer with them; in some of these cases the poor rates press so heavily, that the collectors are obliged to summon great numbers, whó declare themselves unable to pay in one parish in particular near the metropolis, two hundred are now in this situation, though the rate is not more than 6s. in the pound. In this instance, had it not been for the timely assistance of a local institution, many of the poor, and particularly children, must have suffered materially in their health, from a scanty supply of food; and although cases of persons being actually starved by a total want of the common necessaries of life are rare, yet it is well known to those conversant with such districts, that many perish by diseases which owe their origin to deficient nourishment. To obviate a misconception, which we are sorry to find has been very general, it is necessary to state, that it was never in the contemplation of this society to attempt to raise a sum which would alone suffice for all cases requiring assistance; nor was it instituted to relieve the legal burden of parishes, or to send money to those places where a sufficient number of affluent persons might be found to provide for their own poor; but one of the great objects in view is, to promote the establishment of local institutions; by means of which, benevolent individuals may exert themselves in the cause of the poor to the greatest advantage, by a personal inspection into their real situation, by watching over the administration of those funds which are raised by the authority of parliament, and by discriminating between the honest industrious and peaceable sufferer, and those pests of society who are eager to avail themselves of every opportunity to create disturbance. We understand that it is the intention of the committee to administer pecuniary aid, only where the ordinary and legal means of relief are obviously inadequate; and, that it is their earnest wish to promote an attention to such families as have hitherto supported themselves respectably by honest industry, and are making every sacrifice, and are submitting to every privation, in order to avoid the humiliation of soliciting parochial relief; it is indeed of great consequence to the community to keep up this feeling, and to prevent the industrious mechanic from being utterly crushed, lest, his spirits being broken, he should be reduced to the state of a pauper and become a permanent burden upon the community to these, relief might be given by local institutions, in such a way as to preserve their independence and enable them to support their respectability under the present temporary pressure. 238 Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing Poor. : Another of the primary objects of this society, an object which singly would deserve the most strenuous support of every friend to his country, is, to devise plans for increasing the quantity of food; this may be done in a variety of ways, but in none more promptly and effectually than by a plentiful supply of fish our insular situation enables us to avail our selves of this mode of relief with peculiar advantage, the sea presents us with an inexhaustible fund of wholesome and nutritious food, and it is only required to adopt judicious plans to put it into our possession: we understand that the committee has made contracts for fish to the amount of several thousand pounds, by which in a short time a large quantity of food, which, but for the exertions of this institution, would never have been brought into the country, will be sold at a very low price; this must infallibly diminish the consumption of corn and other articles of the first necessity, and thereby most materially benefit every rank in the kingdom. Local societies have been recommended to establish shops for the sale of such articles of food, at low prices, as will tend to diminish the consumption of corn; each of these stations may relieve a considerable district, and in this way the subscriptions may be made to produce their greatest effect. The funds of this Association are to be applied towards aiding the establishment of local institutions, particularly in those distressed districts, where for want of means they could not otherwise be formed. Several considerable sums have been already sent for the purpose of encouraging local subscriptions; it has also been recommended to benevolent individuals in those towns and places where the pressure of the times is least felt, to raise subscriptions in aid of this society; to which, as to a central point, information will be transmitted from all parts of the country; and while it serves as the depositary of national benevolence, it will distribute assistance to the different local establishments in such proportion as the state of its funds and the nature of the case may appear to require. All communications are requested to be made to the Secretary, William George Carter, Esq. John-street, Americasquare, London. Subscriptions are received at the following Bankers in Lon don: Messrs. Birch and Chambers; Bosanquet and Co.; Coutts and Co.; Down, Thornton, and Free; Drummonds and Co.; Hammersleys and Co.; Hankey and Co.; Hoare and Co.; Morland, Ransom, and Co.; Paxtons, Cockerell, Trail, and Co.; Smith, Payne, and Smith. 239 Spitalfields Association for the Relief of some particular Cases of Distress among the Industrious Poor. Ir is a melancholy consideration, that notwithstanding the large sums extracted from the public under the name of a poor's rate, so much real and solid misery should still exist in this country there is certainly some radical error, either in the system of parochial relief, or the administration of it, or both, which loudly calls for investigation; and to which we purpose to turn the attention of our readers in a future number in the mean time it is consoling to observe, that public-spirited individuals in different parts of the country are beginning to examine for themselves into the situation of their distressed fellow countrymen. Should these generous exertions become widely extended, we are quite sure that they will prepare the way for more enlightened and efficient plans for the relief of the poor; while at the same time the public will be relieved from a large portion of these enormous sums which are now levied for these purposes: it is therefore with sincere pleasure that we announce the formation of a local Institution for Spitalfields and its vicinity; which from the zeal of its members, and the manner in which it is conducted, promises to be of great public benefit and an example well worthy of imitation. The investigation which took place in Spitalfields developed much misery, for which there appeared no existing remedy; and although the relief afforded by the Soup Society was very extensive and saved the lives of many, it was notwithstanding evident that in a district so poor, so wretched, and extensive, much remained to be done: the gentlemen on the committee therefore determined to establish an association for the relief of at least some of the worst cases which had been discovered in the course of the inquiry: the first meeting was held in the latter end of April last; and the committee, which has gradually increased, now consists of above forty gentlemen: a large committee of ladies has also been formed, whose office it is to attend to such cases of their own sex as are sent to it from the gentlemen's committee: the whole of Spitalfields and its vicinity is divided into seventeen districts, each under the care of a subcommittee of two or more; by this arrangement, whenever notice of a case of great distress is received, it is forwarded to the subcommittee in whose district the street |