Many are the households which have been thus
broken up during the last twelve months. The
empty and closed houses one sees in walking
about the streets, bear testimony to the fact, and
show how these poor people have been driven
from their own little houses to single rooms, and
sometimes, very likely, even to a corner of a
room at sixpence or ninepence a week. At
all times I suspect that the money spent on
lodgings is the most grudged by the poor. I
went into a small room at Manchester, about
twelve or thirteen feet square, in which two
married couples and a young man, a lodger, all
lay at night. I have heard, even in prosperous
times, of a family earning fifty shillings a week
among them, spending only one shilling weekly
for rent.

In one home into which I went, a group
consisting of several people was ranged in a ring
round the fire. This ring extended on one side
to a bed placed against the wall—the occupant
of the bed was a dead man. His hands held a
book open, and the grave-clothes with which the
body was decked out in ghastly fashion, were
ornamented profusely with artificial flowers cut
out of paper. (There are itinerant purveyors of
these same flowers, by-the-by, who go round on
the look-out for a chance, and manage to make
a living by selling them.) To see the dead man
thus, as one may say, making one of the company,
was very horrible; and, coming upon this
thing suddenly and unexpectedly, it was long
before the unpleasant impression of the scene
could be got rid of. In another house, not far
from this, was another couch, which, though it
was nearly noon, was yet occupied. This time,
however, it was a living tenant who lay stretched
upon the bed. Not dead but how near to
death! An old woman two years short of a
hundred. In the room with her, was a baby
born three weeks before. I sat down between
these two, determined to rest awhile in
quarters such as I was not likely to find again.
What a map of wrinkles was the poor old
thing's face! How dry and shrivelled. How
pink and moist the skin of the newly-born
infant, the old woman's great-grandchild. And
the old creature had been like that once, and
had lain kicking and gasping in her mother's
arms. Which was the weaker, which the more
hapless of these two?

Ninety-eight! Why when that old woman
was born Sir Joshua Reynolds was painting
ladies with powder on their heads; Dr. Johnson
was perambulating Fleet-street without the
least fear of being garotted, and it took, Heaven
knows how many days, to get from London
to Blackburn. When the French Revolution
took place, the same old lady was a well-grown
damsel of three or four and twenty; and as to
the battle of Waterloo, she was turned of
middle-age when that comparatively recent event
came off. Yet this old woman could hear what
one said, and could give you a pleasant answer
to your remarks. Ready enough she was to
talk, and, as to the present crisis of distress in
her own neighbourhood, she knew all about that,
and said, twisting her poor old features about
into a crying face, that in all her recollection—
a pretty long experience— " she had never known
the like of it."

An old fellow some twenty years this good
old lady's junior, was hobbling along the streets
of Rochdale. " Did you get the blanket I sent
you last night?" asked the gentleman with whom
I was going the rounds; "and did it serve to
keep you warm?"— " Oh yes, sir," the old
fellow squeaked, " and I have found the way to
get all the warmth out of it— I put it next me,
sir— that's the way— I put it next me." Here
is a hint to those whom it may concern.
Except, by-the-by, for his valuable suggestion as
to the best mode of extracting all the warmth
from the blanket, I do not know that this old
gentleman has any right to figure in these
pages, as he certainly can in no way be
identified with the classes suffering from the cotton
failure. This old gentleman was Bill Jones; and
thirty years ago notices would appear in public-
house windows bearing reference to this very
hero of the blanket, and stating that on such
a day Bill Jones would "worry rats" for the
delectation of such members of the community
as had a taste for that particular sport.
The rat used to be tied by the tail to the middle
of a table, and Bill Jones, deprived temporarily
of the use of his hands, was expected to catch
the wretched animal and worry it—with his
teeth.

We have got a little into the outskirts of our
subject lately. Such queer things as these last
noted, turn up by the way, however, as one
goes along with a purpose in view, and it is
perhaps excusable to commemorate them, in
passing.

There is no lack of cases more directly
connected with the cotton failure. When the towns
where that failure was felt were first divided
into districts, in order that each section might
be visited, and the wants of the inhabitants
completely examined into, such scenes of misery
were disclosed that both visitor and visited
would be unable to abstain from tears. A
mother, a son, and two daughters, would be found
living upon three shillings a week. A family of
six persons, who used to make among them
five-and-twenty shillings a week, is now reduced
to seven shillings. I saw a man who had been
fifteen months out of work, and who received
for himself, his wife, and his child, five shillings
and threepence a week. There are people
living in these towns on less than one shilling a
week for everything. How are these things
done? What sort of an existence is that
which is kept up at so low a rate of
expenditure?

As to the cases of death from want, it is very
difficult to find out with certainty whether any
such have actually occurred. Death hastened
by want, death from disease the progress of
which lias been accelerated by want, there has
been unquestionably. One man, I heard on
good authority, did die at Manchester of sheer
want. The woman who shared his room, and,