generally well filled. Listen to the noise issuing without, indicating the brutal revelry within. Once the honest operative acquires the habit of frequenting these places, and his honesty is in peril. Mixing with rogues and vagabonds, and hearing of their dexterous exploits, his worst passions are enkindled. The means of acquiring drink he here beholds in the hands of men who work not; and the fatal thought of copying their example enters his mind. Home, never truly happy before, is now hateful. Wife and children are forsaken, and, too frequently, a career of crime commenced. We cannot resist the remark, that the greatest benefit that could be conferred on the poor of Manchester, and those of other manufacturing districts, would be the passing of an act of parliament for the suppression of beer-shops. Manchester has, by some means, obtained at a distance, an unenviable notoriety on account of its rioting propensities. It is a matter of observation at home, that the exhibition of these propensities is a sure index of bad times. When trade is good, and the operative fully employed, he has neither time nor inclination to grow disorderly; but whenever the reverse is the case—when, for instance, the operatives are working "short time,' and they are compelled to live upon half their usual earnings-this circumstance, and the idle time on their hands, have a tendency, among the thousands of men who are solely dependent upon daily labour, to produce riotous discontent; and there is never wanting a "leading spirit,” more intellectual than the mass, who knows how to "direct the storm," especially if he sees a prospect of deriving pecuniary emolument to himself, though it be at the expense of the poor. Such have been the characteristics of several of the Manchester riots. The following observations on the working classes, are extracted from a speech made by the Rev. R. Parkinson, M. A., Canon of the Collegiate Church, Manchester, at a public charitable meeting, in Feb., 1839. They assist to prove that manufactures have not any peculiar tendency to deteriorate morals. PEACEFUL CHARACTER OF OPERATIVES. 103 This proposition we support. Some of the remarks on the social condition of the operatives of Manchester, may be applied to non-manufacturing communities :— "I believe that a feeling is becoming very prevalent elsewhere, that there is something in the character of manufactures which is unnatural, and opposed to the will of God. Now I maintain that that state to which we are tending in manufactures is as much the will of God as agricultural pursuits. I am aware that an able and well-known poet has said—and the saying has almost passed into a proverb God made the country, but man made the town,' meaning, of course, that the country was the most proper place for man to dwell in, and that the occupations of town-life were unnatural. I think, on the contrary, that, instead of an agricultural population, the people of this country were meant to be one of a very different character. I have no national predilections for my present mode of thinking. My birth and early education put me in a very different position from the one in which I now am; but being now an inhabitant of Manchester-having had ample opportunity of observing and judging-and being in a position where I can have no motive for a partial judgment, I maintain, that if we can strike an average of all classes of our population and the population of other districts, we shall find that the morality of this district will not be below that of the most primitive agricultural population. I have the authority of a high military officer, and also that of other persons, for saying, that the streets of Manchester, at ten o'clock at night, are as retired as those of the most rural districts. When we look at the extent of this parish, containing at least 300,000 souls-more than the population of the half of our counties-can we be surprised that there is a great amount of immorality? But a great proportion of that immorality is committed by those who have been already nursed in crime in districts of the country supposed to be more innocent than our own, and are, apparently, added to the number of those who swell 104 DWELLINGS OF OPERATIVES. our police reports, not so much because we hold out greater facilities in rearing them, as that they are apprehended through the superior vigilance of our police. I think it desirable that I should state this, as being an impartial observer, and one coming from a distant part of the country; and as I see some of the press here, I hope that my evidence may be recorded." The dwelling-houses of the operatives of Manchester need great improvement. Many houses are without back doors, or any outlet except the front door. This opens frequently into a narrow street containing thirty or forty similar dwellings, which street is made to serve not merely the purpose of a thoroughfare, but of an exposed main sewer. The agent of the statistical society, in 1834, visited 37,724 of the dwellings of the working classes in Manchester and Salford, which he thus classified : Houses... Single Rooms... 29,037 Of this number, 27,281 were found to be comfortable, and 10,443 uncomfortable. The average weekly rent paid for these 37,724 dwellings was 2s. 11d. per week, making an annual rental of £286,073. More than one-third were uncomfortable! That is, somewhat about 60,000 persons were living in miserable abodes-most likely similar to those just described. In the cellars enumerated, upwards of 18,000 people were crammed! To depict the misery of their abodes, would excite no emotions but those of pain. There exist also in Manchester, many low lodginghouses, which are graphically described in a pamphlet recently published. The author says: "Let the reader imagine himself introduced into a damp cellar, or dark and dirty garret, where he sees as many beds as it will hold, (from six to fourteen in number,) ranged side by side, and closely adjoining one. another; that in each of these beds he discovers from two to four persons, of either sex, and of all ages and CONDITION OF THE POOR. 105 characters, who are, however, hidden from his view by the mass of clothes taken from those in bed, and now hanging on lines in various directions about the apartment, and he will form some conception of the scene which a lodging-house at first view presents. Let him imagine that the temperature of this room is at a fever heat, owing to the total absence of all means of ventilation, and in consequence of so many persons breathing and being crowded together in so small a space; let him imagine himself assailed by a disgusting, faint, and sickening effluvia, to which the pure breath of heaven is a paradise, and he may then conceive the effects produced, on entering these crowded dormitories, by the vapour and steam floating about them. Let him remember that the bed-linen is rarely changed-once in six months-and that in these beds, meanwhile, have been located an ever changeful race of diseased and sick, as well as convalescent persons; and let him imagine these beds to be likewise visibly infested with all manner of vermin, and he will form a conception, far short however, of the reality of the horrible spectacle presented, not by one, but by many hundred lodging-houses in Manchester." We revert now to what we alluded a few pages backward, the present melancholy condition of the operatives, arising from the depressed state of trade. The results of an inquiry into the state of the poor, conducted in 1840-41, prove that, in 2,000 families, there was an average income only of 1s. 21d. per head. These families had in pawn articles of the value of £2,781 4s. 4d. At the time of this inquiry it was ascertained, that 200 provision dealers had made bad debts with poor operatives, during the three past years, to the amount of £23,000. The author of "Juvenile Delinquency" remarks,— alluding to the social condition of the operatives "Whoever has visited the habitations of the poor in Manchester, and whoever has passed, especially upon the Sabbath, through the quarters which they occupy, will have been surprised to see the number of shoeless, H 106 CONDITION OF THE POOR. half-naked, uncombed, and dirty little urchins, who, from two to six years old and upwards, swarm in the streets, some grovelling in the dirt and mire, or collected in knots, actively engaged in some idle amusement. The buoyancy of the youthful spirit, under circumstances the most disadvantageous, is a triumph to human nature, which can thus adapt and reconcile itself to all states of being: and the spectator might be disposed to sympathize in the mirth of these poor children around him, if he did not at the same time know, that 'All around their footsteps wait The ministers of human fate, Anxious to make this part of our work as complete as possible, we have obtained the following copies of letters addressed to a gentleman in this town. They serve to develop the extent of distress existing in Manchester. "Manchester, May 17th, 1841. "SIR,-In answer to your inquiries, I do assure you that in my hospital and general practice I find the most dreadful state of distress, amounting to starvation in very many cases. There is not only want of food, but of all the necessaries of life. I am often called by midwives to the hospital patients and others, in difficult and dangerous cases, where I find the wretched objects in dark, damp cellars, lying on a bed which scarcely separates them from the brick floor, the only covering being a piece of bagging, and the cast-off clothes; the poor and numerous children almost naked; nothing in the place worth calling furniture, such as an old chair or two, and a stool for the table, &c. "It would require volumes to describe the various miseries produced by poverty which at present (and for the last three years) the poor are suffering in this town. I could give you hundreds of cases, which would harrow up the feelings of humanity. In 1835, the funds of the Lying-in Hospital were so low, that it was thought proper to try to raise some revenue by making each patient pay two shillings; as it was thought, with a little providence, she might surely save that small sum: but the consequence was as follows: The year before the demand of 2s. the number of deliveries was 4,449 3 447 1,002 "Thus there is a falling off of one thousand and two patients. Now, these must have been the poorest and most wretched objects of charity; because those who could pay the two shillings were received at once.Latterly the distress has greatly increased among the poor, and it has been found absolutely necessary to forego the two shillings in a far greater number of cases of extreme poverty than heretofore. In fact, the misery and distress is at present so great, that numbers of poor creatures sink under the combined action of absolute want and disease. "In the year 1837, I was in the habit of collecting cases, of which I have many noted down in my note-book, but they became so numerous, that I |