HO §0b^t;t P^tttjj ®l»ut;isitirw % im\ to 1303 Cornell University Library HD9881.5 .A75 1865 The h story of the cotton .tamjli* 3 1924 030 128 213 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030128213 THE COTTON FAMINE. LONDON PRINTED BY S POTT I SWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE THE HISTORY OF THE COTTON FAMINE f FROM THE FALL OF SUMTER TO THE PASSING OF THE PUBLIC WORKS ACT. WITH A POSTSCJRIFT. E. AETHUE AENOLD EESIDEKT GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR OP PUBLIC WORKB. NEW EDITION. LONDON: SAUNDEKS, OTLEY, AND CO. 66 BEOOK STREET, W. 1865. lAll riffJiis reserved.~\ J) TO THE EIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES PELHAM YILLIERS, M.P. PEESIDENT OF THE POOR LAW BOARD, atjthoe of the union belief aid and public 'works (manttfactitking distkiois) acts, a minister whose constant devotion to the public service COMPELS THE BEST ENERGIES OF HIS OFFICERS, PREFACE THE ORIGINAL EDITION. ' The Histoet op the Cotton Famine ' should be a welcome chapter in the annals of our country, for it records one of the greatest of our national triumphs. The period to which I have carried the history in this volume, may be considered the termination of the 'Famine.' The succeeding winter and spring were marked by severe distress, — which indeed still prevails in certain localities, — but the improving condition of the markets, the great decrease of indigence as compared with that of the winter season of 1862, and the salutary influence of the Union Eelief Aid and the Public Works Acts, suggest that the crisis had been passed at the close of the Session of 1863. Much that would be an iteration of the doings and suffer- ings of 1862 remains to be told. Yet it would not be an uninteresting progress to follow the revival of this great industry, from 'these times, so exceptional in all their cir- cumstances, to the full re-establishment of the cotton manufacture upon a broader and surer foundation than it has ever yet occupied. I am confident that the restoration of this manufacture is not far distant, Nor can I see any reason to suppose that the great increase of working power which has been Vm PEEFACE. added during the years of Famine, is larger than the world's demand will furnish with employment. That this extension is calculated to depreciate manufacturing profits, there can be little doubt ; and I apprehend that no oife, well acquainted with the district, has failed to perceive that unless invention makes rapid advance, the manu- facture will be crippled for want of labour. The Appendix to this volume includes copies of the Union Eelief Aid and Public Works (Manufacturing Districts) Acts, together with the Manual of the Central Executive Committee, and a Eeport by Mr. Eawlinson, C.E., showing the purposes to which the loans borrowed under the provisions of the Public Works Act are now being applied. Of these public works — which engage my official labours — it is well known that great as are the benefits that have attended their progress, even these are very inferior to the advantages which will be permanently secured by their completion. I cannot but be conscious of having failed to do justice to the charitable efforts of individuals both within and outside the district. A long-drawn record of their names and their good deeds might have made my pages more illustrious, but I Lave a strong conviction that such are not those who will censure the preference for matter more instructive and historical. I am very much indebted to the distinguished gen- tlemen — the Special Commissioner and the Grovernment Engineer — ^with whom I have the pleasure of being asso- ciated in Her Majesty's Service. To Mr. Maclure, the Honorary Secretary of the Central Eelief Committee ; to Mr. Gibbs, the Secretary of the Mansion House Committee, as well as to many other gentlemen, I owe the acknow- ledgment of valuable information. E. AETHUE AENOLD. Manchester: July 1864. THE HISTOEY OP THE COTTON FAMINE. CHAPTER I. • INTEODUCTOET. Long before Eve span, — long before Lancashire was dry land, or the Mersey a river, — the Manufacturing Districts were being prepared to become the home of a great in- dustry. Geology is the parent of geography. When Dr. Buckland, in commencing his Bridgewater Treatise, started his three travellers upon three imaginary diagonals, drawn from the south-western to the north-eastern shores of the kingdom, the route of the second lay across the coal-fields from the Tamar to the Tyne. Eightly enough did he suppose that such a traveller would regard England as nothing else than a stupendous manufactory. It is not then mere chance which centres a particular industry in a particular locality; there are always favouring circum- stances, if not indispensable conditions, sufficient to ac- count for such a concentration. To roll back the history of our island to the time when the coal-measures, and all the carboniferous group of strata were deposited, is indeed a task impossible to man. The foot-prints on the sand- rocks, the leaf-prints in the coal-beds,- hidden from all touch of life since the foundation of the world, these are B 2 HISTOET OF THE our mute instructors — these proclaim to us that most cer- tain limitation of our knowledge concerning the work of Creation. The district with which this history is concerned, is also remarkable in its natural features, for its especial adapta- bility to the manufacture of an exotic raw material. If the primeval restlessness of this portion of the earth's crust had not upheaved some of the older and harder strata to the surface — if the chalk of Kent or the sand of Norfolk had here superimposed, the streams which fed the infant industry of Lancashire would never have existed. These streams owe their perennial supplies to the geological features, and the geographical position of the district. The elevation of most of the towns in this part of the kingdom is very considerable. Even Manchester is 120 feet above the sea-level ; Bolton is 200 feet higher than the Cotton Metropolis, and superior elevation generally ensures increased rainfall. London is 50 feet above the level of the sea, and endures an average rainfall of 24'8 inches, Manchester prefers a damp atmosphere for her spinning-rooms and weaving-sheds, and rejoices in a rain- fall of 37'3 inches; while Bolton, in consideration of standing so much higher in the world than either, is drenched with 49'5 inches per annum. Greater still is the rainfall upon the hills around Glossop, and still greater is the moisture in the mountainous region upon the Cum- berland border. In the neighbourhood of Windermere, the rainfall in 1860 equalled 102-58 inches. Ikying on the western coast, the cotton manufacturing districts are exposed to the aqueous vapours of the Northern Atlantic, where the union of the heated Gulf Stream with the Arctic waters envelopes Newfoundland in perpetual fog, and produces the rain-clouds which are so often an unwelcome sight upon our western horizon. This unusually large supply of water-power was among the first causes of the pre-eminence of this district in the cotton manufacture. Its surface, very varied in altitude, is grooved by the hand of Nature in deep channels, worn in strata, generally impermeable, which collect the rain- water, and gather it into manageable streams. With what patient devotion these streams have given themselves to the prosperity of Lancashire ! Merrily they rippled over COTTON FAMINE. , 3 their pebbly beds, when the mill-wheel was theirs, and theirs only. They threw themselves, or were led into reservoirs, and have continued to supply the district with pure water, so soft, that as compared with that of London, it is estimated to require one-half less soap, and one-third less tea, to produce equal results in the washing-tub, or in the more social tea-pot. They were not offended when Brindley said they were good for nothing but to feed canals. They suffered themselves to be led over hills and across valleys at the will of the engineer, and now, when they have fallen to baser uses, and are made to feed the boilers of their successful rival, and to act as the main sewers of the district, they still do their office to the best of their ability. But their day of greatness has passed away. In manufacturing progress, as in human civilisa- tion, there are the barbarous, the picturesque and the prosaic epochs. In the history of the cotton manufacture, the hand-loom represents the first, and the water-mill the second ; but the poetry of this manufacture departed when Watt perfected the all-subduing mechanism of which Newcomen had an imperfect vision, and the iron muscles of the steam-engine became the power of the cotton dis- tricts. But Nature had beforehand provided Lancashire with an inexhaustible supply of food for this untiring helper. The superiority of steam over water power consists in the greater force, speed, and regularity of movement, — ^in the security which it affords against the accidents of floods and droughts. Had it not been for the extensive coal- field which underlies the larger part of Lancashire at no very great distance froir; the surface, this county could never have become the seat of a trade so enormous. All the larger cotton towns, with the single exception of Pres- ton, are situated upon, or in close proximity to, the strata known as the coal-measures ; and perhaps, from her less grimy throne on the new red sandstone, ' proud Preston ' has had some reason to call her sister towns black. The coal-field of Lancashire is of very irregular form. Its northern boundary extends from Colne through Blackburn to Ormskirk, thence it stretches in a southerly direction, and venturing within the patrician purlieus of Knowsley, it runs across the Manchester and Liverpool Eailway, and B 2 4 . HISTORY OF THE returns again towards St. Helens. Leigh is its southern boundary at one point and Broughton at another. From some miles north of Kochdale it extends southerly with an average width of six or eight miles, far into the heart of Cheshire. But on this narrow part of the coal-field are located some of the busiest towns in the cotton district. Oldham is there, famous for cotton and coals, for Cobbett and colliers. Ashton is there, renowned for the wealth of its manufacturers and the warmth of its polemics. Staly- bridge is on the coal, where it is said that the spindles move more rapidly than in any other town, and where the Irish immigrants abound so thickly. Stockport looks out upon this narrow coal-field. It extends to and beyond Macclesfield, which has been associated during the Cotton Famine with the cotton towns, although it is engaged in the silk trade, and the main cause of its depression is in the whimsical changes of unstable fashion. On the south- ern and western sides of this coal, there extends a bed of new red sandstone, which originally overlaid the Lan- castrian coal-fields, and was removed from it by denuda- tion as the coal-measures rose to their present elevation. The merest school-boy in geology cannot doubt this, if, following the line of contact,' he observes how the strata of the sandstone — evidently originally laid in horizontal planes by water — dip away from the uplifted coal-mea- sures. What does not Lancashire owe to Nature ! Had the upheaval of her. surface continued during its submer- sion, the coal-fields might have shared the same fate as the red sandstone which once covered it ; the hills between Lancashire and Yorkshire, between the cotton and the woollen trades, between the coal-fields of the two counties, might have been of obdurate granite instead of being composed of workable millstone grit, and the great hearts of Lancashire and' Yorkshire, instead of producing clothing for millions upon millions of human beings, might have echoed with the crow of the grouse or with the tinkle from the bell-wether of the mountain flock. It is hot necessary now to do more .than generalise the geological features of the district. A more minute in- quiry would include a survey of the drift beds which overlie the coal, and which form the surface of a large part of Lancashire. Wishing to offend no one, it is still COTTON FAMINE. 5 hardly dangerous to state broadly that the red sandstone district is that which is the most agreeable in the English dominions of King Cotton. Alderley Edge, the chosen seat of much of the textile aristocracy, is a bold bluff composed of this rock. Chorlton, Rusholme, Cheetham, and part of Broughton — all very eligible and pleasant suburbs of Manchester — are on the sandstone. The Mersey winds its way through this formation from Stock- port to its mouth. The immemorial elms of Knowsley and Eufford Parks attack it with their roots. Cuerden Hall enjoys an equally good foundation. Preston and Garstang are upon the same footing. Of the soil of Lan- cashire lying to the west of this sandstone formation, the greater part is made up of alluvial deposit, where rich pastures, fat oxen, and good corn-fields abound. The north of the county about Lancaster is composed of mill- stone grit, which passes into upper limestone shale about Clitheroe. Of these formations, those in the north and east of the county — the limestones and millstones — are the oldest ; that is to say, in the original stratification the coal-measures which occupy the middle of the county rested upon them, and the sandstone upon the coal. It was a fortunate move for Lancashire when they were lifted for her enricliment and service. The geographical advantages possessed by this manu- facturing district may be included in one word — Liverpool. Yet it must not be supposed that Liverpool made the cotton trade ; the reverse is more nearly the truth. But no one can take credit for the construction of the Mersey. None but Nature's hand could have carved out that mag- nificent estuary lying in front of and above Liverpool. Whether the cotton trade could have adopted another port it is impossible to say ; but it is quite certain that there is none possessing anchorage so wide, so deep, so sheltered, and yet so accessible. The shore at Liverpool afforded unusual facilities for the construction of docks, and the same wind which bore a vessel from the Mersey would waft her across the Atlantic to the rich Sea Islands, or to New Orleans, the great emporium of the Cotton States of America. The natives of Lancashire are wont to boast the purity of their origin as true Anglo-Britong, and some carry this 6 HISTORY OF THE very pardonable pride so far as to assert the same of their dialect. There may be good grounds for this. AH those invasions which form the chief events in the history of this country up to thfe commencement of the twelfth century were made upon the eastern and southern shores. The Picts had possessed themselves of Scotland. The Danes ravaged the eastern side of the country ; while the south was the prize for which all who could get there fought. The Norman conquest must have tended to drive many of the Anglo-Saxon race northwards, and the moors of Lan- cashire may have become the home of these people. Or it may be, that this part of the kingdom, then uncared for, unreclaimed, and to a great extent inaccessible, pre- served unmolested and free from admixture with foreign races its aboriginal population. It may be that Lancashire is entitled to this distinction, and that here the Ancient- Britons would feel most at ease, were they to revisit their old home. But how would they be astonished, if, with their woad-dyed faces and rude implements, they could now see their descendants tending the elaborate machinery of a power-loom, or dyeing, not themselves only, but also clothing for millions beyond the seas ! Pure Lancashire dialect, — such as may be heard in Ancoats, such as is talked at Bacup — is easily distinguish- able from the merely broad talk of a Northumbrian. It is even musical ; and the regard which the people of the county have for it is shown in their fondness for poems written in the local dialect, and still more by the way in which such verses affect them when the theme is homely and pathetic. Lancashire is, no doubt, a county of very ancient settlement ; and among the poor as well as the rich there are many families which might date their loca- tion from the Heptarchy. But what America has been to Europ6, Lancashire has been to England — the great drain for surplus population. J''or nearly a century she has been offering to the working classes such reward for their labour as it was impossible to obtain elsewhere. For years and years she has wanted ' hands ' as she now wants cotton, and her demand was not made in vain. Nowhere else upon an equal space of God's earth has population obeyed the summons of capital to an equal extent, or with equal fecundity. From north, east, and south, numbers have COTTOX FAMINE. 7 flocked to share the profits of the cotton, trade ; and from the west, across St. George's Channel, crowds of Irish- fleeing ftom a poverty at home which would seem starva- tion to ap Englishman — have swollen the army of cotton- workers. The natural increase of the people has been no less re- markable. Sentiment is not necessarily destroyed by the acknowledgment of facts. The laws of population are inevitable. The doctrines of Malthus were received as the laws of poUtical economy have generally been received by the multitude. But he did not condemn matrimony, nor suggest any unnatural restriction upon the increase of population. He did but show what was the unfailing consequence of the civilised state upon the laws of popula- tion, and how, as this state becomes more developed, pru- dential motives would affect the natural instinct. It is not debasing to human nature to acknowledge that an urgent demand for labour will increase the procreated supply. In a poor and unimprovable country, an increase of population diminishes the wealth of the community, while under contrary conditions such an increase tends directly to augment the common resources. This is merely an exposition of fact. It would be as false in the one case to recommend celibacy, as in the other unduly to encourage matrimony. But it is well known that surer than argument will be the stationary or retrograde condi- tion of the population in the decaying country ; while in the prosperous locality it will need no impulse to pro- gression at a rate commensurate with the increasing wealth of the community. The population of the cotton districts has had every encouragement to increase. And while thus referring to the ' cotton districts,' it will be well to make a momentary interpolation. In the course of this history, these districts will often be referred to under the common denominations of ' Lancashire,' the ' cotton districts,' and the ' manufac- turing districts ; ' all to some extent fallacious, for there are other cotton districts, and other manufacturing dis- tricts, while Lancashire, in such a reference, includes portions of Cheshire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire. It need hardly be said that there are sufficiently good precedents for this use. 8 HISTORY OF THE In 1861, the population of Lancashire amounted to twelve per cent, of that of England and Wales. But the births in this county amounted to thirteen and a half per cent, of those of the English and Welsh populations. Such had been the effect of a superior demand for labour. In 1801 the population of the county of Lancaster amounted to 673,486. In 1861 it had grown to 2,429,440. In the same period the population of Manchester rose from 94,876 to 460,018. The population of Burnley had grown from 4,000 to nearly 30,000 in the same interval ; and. all the cotton towns would show a somewhat similar rate of extension. Taking the whole county, the population had increased 100 per cent, in little over thirty years — a rate faster than would seem possible unless aided by immi- gration. Thirty years ago, great efforts were made to in- duce agricultural labourers to migrate into Lancashire, and" among the ablest, and possibly not the least effective, were those in the form of letters from Messrs. Henry and Edmund Ashworth to the Secretary of the Poor Law Commissioners, giving a full account of the improved con- dition of some families which had abandoned their pas- toral life in Buckinghamshire, and had found in manu- facture greater prosperity than they had experienced in agriculture. It is often remarked that many of the features of Ame- rican society are reproduced in Lancashire. And why is this ? These features, which some think very ugly and others very much admire, are nothing more than mani- festations of the supremacy of labour. Labour and capital rule in the manufacturing districts. A fish out of water is in a comfortable position compared with that of an idle man in a Lancashire town, where for the most part, master and man, millionnaire and the poorest of his hands, eat to live, and live to work, ten hours a day for five or six days of the week. The extraordinary increase of the population in Lanca- shire is greatly due to continuous immigration, but also to a natural rate of increase by births unexampled in this country. Dr. Kay (now Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth) estimated in 1835, that from 1821 to 1831, 17,000 per- sons per annum had flocked into Lancashire from other parts of the United Kingdom, and that at that time the COTTON FAMINE. 9 • Irish and their immediate descendants dwelling in Man- chester and Liverpool numbered 110,000. During the last twenty years the annual rate of increase has been about 40,000, of which probably one-fourth only is due to immigration. That the population of Lancashire is far from being all native, is evidenced by the fact, that in 1851 as large a proportion as 27 per cent, was returned as having been born elsewhere. In 1861 this percentage had fallen to 26-4, showing that immigration was declining, but that even then more than one-fourth of the population of Lancashire was foreign. In 1861 there were 640,844 dwellers in Lancashire who were not born within the county. Of this number 217,320 could boast Hibernian nativity; 37,260 were emigrants from Scotland; 17,329 were born abroad ; 374 drew their first breath at sea, and the remainder came from other counties of England and from Wales. Every county has its representatives in the manufacturing districts. Here are Londoners by thousands, hundreds of men and maids of Kent ; nearly two thousand Somersetshire lasses, a lai-ge muster of Yorkshiremen, and a fair representation of the Principality. So that what- ever it may once have been, the population of Lancashire is certainly now a conglomerate, the better perhaps for being thus compounded. The purpose of this introduction will be completed when a survey has been taken of the chief industry of the county, including that fringe of the adjoining counties ot York, Derby, and Chester, which together form the cotton districts. Long before the natural resources of the dis- trict were enlisted to assist in the cotton manufacture — long before the keel of the 'Mayflower' grounded on the New England shore — long before the streams and the coal-fields of Lancashire did suit and service to King Cotton, the spinning-wheel and the hand-loom were busy in the hovels of Bolton and Manchester. Lancashire was the manufacturing county when Elizabeth began her splendid reign, and whilst the Spanish Duke of Alva was ravaging the Low Countries, he drove to the shores of England and to the county of Lancaster many skilful artisans from the thriving towns of Belgium. Bolton became the home of a number of these refugees, who worked diligently as subjects of Queen Bess, and pro- 10 HISTORY OF THE bably with more benefit to themselves than when they were liable to the continuous alarms endured by those who dwelt in the land which was the shambles of the mediaeval wars of Europe. But if it be sought to discover why Lancashire, at this early time and with no apparent advantage over other counties — save that of climate — became the home of the cotton manufacture, it may well be answered, that the circumstance arose from its comparative incapacity for agriculture, from the moisture of the temperature, and the ready supply of fuel. Lancashire in the time of Elizabeth was one wide expanse of desolate moor and unwholesome bog-Jand. Cultivation was only attempted here and there ; land drainage, even in its rudest form, did not venture to operate upon a case so hopeless. The towns fixed them- selves on the banks of the rivers and warmed the moist atmosphere with the peat which lay so ready to their hands. Clustering round some well-dowered abbey or de- pendent upon some grave monastery, the villages grew, their inhabitants plying the distaff and the shuttle as their only means of subsistence. And so it came to pass, that when the thrifty weavers of Ghent sought a new location, they found themselves at home in Bolton-le-Moors. But while the cotton manufacture was thus giving feeble signs of life in this country, there was a land far across the globe, where it was already a most ancient and most honoured form of industry. While the handicraftsmen of Lancashire were fumbling over their coarse yarn, and turning out clumsy fabrics composed of cotton and wool, there were millions of deft workers in the empire of Aurungzebe, weaving such fabrics as can only be equalled by the finest machinery now within the giant mills of Manchester. What encouragement there is for commercial ambition in the fact that cotton, which has received within our own time at least kingly attributes, was then chiefly imported for the manufacture of candle wicks ; while Lan- cashire did a lively trade in rushes for the same and less honourable purposes. To India belongs the origin of the cotton manufacture. Shall not England henceforth remember this more truly? ' The debt she owes to Greece for value received in litera- ture, — are not the defunct Bavarian dynasty and the dower COTTON FAMINE. 11 of the present boy-king, some acknowledgment of it ? She has well repaid Italy for her teaching in art. It will be a strange but a happy instance of retributive justice, if India, whose cotton manufactures first excited our envy and cupidity, should become a chief source of our supply of the raw material, and turning her lithe fingers from the wheel and the web to the cultivation of the cotton plant, should provide Lancashire with the raw material and receive clothing in repayment. No Europeans have ever yet been able to vie with the Hindoos in the fineness of their hand manufactures. Those who are acquainted with the race, and know their frequent lubrications and their listless inactivity, will hardly be surprised at this. A Hindoo woman needs no clasp to her armlet any more than she would to her finger ring ; it passes over her hand. And if time is money in the East, as it is said to be in the West, Her Majesty's subjects in Hindostan are the most prodigal people upon earth. The nomenclature of the cotton trade is to a large extent Eastern. ' Cop,' a term so familiar in every spinning-mill and on every exchange throughout the dis- trict, is simply an Anglicism of the Indian word for cotton. Far to the south of Bombay, near the western coast of India, lies the town of Calicut, to which belongs the honour of giving a name to all the calico ever produced. On the banks of the Tigris stands the city of Mosul, once the narrow home of the muslin manufacture, and from this city the name of the fabric is derived. Towards the latter part of the eighteenth century, the English cotton manufacturej's suffered so severely from competition with the goods brought over in the vessels chartered by the East India Company, that every artifice was used, and it is even said that in some places threats were resorted to, in order to induce the women of this country to wear the coarse textures of home manufacture in preference to the more beautiful fabrics of India. Nothing is more curious in the history of the cotton trade than the readiness it has displayed at all times to accept protection for itself, and to denounce the use of this de- fence by other trades. Not that this is by any means an unnatural feature of any industry. Need we, as an ex- ample of this, remember how, when it was proposed to 12 HISTORY OF THE abolish the duty on the importation of raw cotton, the flax spinners petitioned against this step on the ground that the wearing of cotton caused erotic sensations, and thereupon set themselves up as protectors of the morals of the people ? For nearly three thousand years India possessed a vir- tual monopoly of the cotton trade ; and bad it not been for the invention and improvement of our machinery, she would still have maintained supremacy. As it is, the manufacture is not progressing in India. Her hand-spin- ners are in the same position as our own hand-loom weavers, professors of an art which has long since been distanced by invention. Their occupation must go where those of the stage-coachmen and the Great Moguls have gone be- fore. The irresistible logic of facts confirms their sentence. In 1815 there were but eight pounds of cotton yarn ex- ported from England. Eight hundred thousand pounds weight of cotton goods were exported in the same year ; but these were for the consumption of the English army and residents. In 1860thiscountry exported 241,978,364 pounds of yarn and goods to India. Britain has become, or is fast becoming, the clothier of Hindostan; and the cause is obvious. In 1812 we could manufacture coarse yarn cheaper by a shilling a pound than the Hindoo spinner; but in 1860 our manufacture cost only one-fourth the price of Indian. The natives of India will never manufacture with machinery en an extensive scale; their constitution and habits, their climate and their frequent ceremonials render it impossible. One of the best reasons given why the cotton manufacture has not largely succeeded in Eoman Catholic countries is, because of its disturbance by the continual recurrence of feast and fast days. To return to the English manufacture of cotton, which we left in the hands of the Flemings and the Lancastrians of the time of Elizabeth. From that day it grew — it could hardly be -said to flourish — until the invention of the spinning-jenny marked the first step in that advance which was to lead to such tremendous results. It will be well, perhaps, to attempt a little explanation here. Cotton has been described by a now eminent writer as the ' flocculous product of a malvaceous shrub ; ' his meaning would have been more clear, though possibly less ' sen- sational,' had he simply informed his readers that it was COTTON FAMINE. 13 the wool of the seed pod of a plant known as gossypium among botanists, growing wherever it is planted under a tropical sun, in a deep fresh soil, and with sufficient moistui-e. The wool consists of filaments, of cylindrical shape before drying, varying in length from half an inch to nearly two inches. There are equal differences in the diameters of these filaments, which vary from the tsVo*^ **^ ^^^ 2 oVo*^ part of an inch. It is evident that in spin- ning this wool into yarn or thread, the most important requisites are the length and strength, the fineness, and the equability of the woolly fibres. Of all substances, whether of animal or vegetable production, cotton has certainly the greatest capacity for textile manufacture. The operation of cotton-spinning may be described in a few words. It is nothing more than making a yarn by elongating and twisting a bundle of cotton fibres. But the history of the cotton manufacture shows that the pro- cess by which it has been perfected was slow and laborious. At the first, this elongation and spinning were performed by the hand and the distaff; that is to say, one person worked at one thread, and spun but one yarn. These were the spinsters of the medieval period. Of all those who are published as spinsters in the modern temples of Hymen, how few are there who have a right to the desig- nation ! Such was the condition of the cotton manfacture when James Hargreaves, a poor Blackburn weaver, invented the spinning -jenny. It was in the power of the jenny to accomplish as much with one man's hands as sixteen or twenty could do with the single spindle. A simple frame contained machinery which, being moved backwards and forwards, produced on several threads the elongating action formerly achieved by the thumb and finger ; while a wheel, turned with the other hand, wound the yarns so produced upon as many spindles. By some authorities this inven- tion is ascribed to Thomas Highs, who, it is said, gave to his machine the name of his daughter ' Jenny.' But to whichever of these two the merit of the invention may belong, it is certain that such a machine was produced by Hargreaves in 1764. Can we of this generation, who have broken threshing-machines and opposed free-trade, — can we, conscious of our glass walls, pelt the fools who broke 14 HISTOEY OF THE Hargreave's machine, and drove him out from Lancashire to iind a new home? But the fault of the jenny, as of the more simple and more ancient process, was the want of some mechanism to attenuate the cotton into a regular and even yarn. This want was soon supplied. To the inventor of the drawing-rollers belongs of indefeasible right the first place among the fathers of our manufac- turing machinery. This was Eichard, afterwards Sir Richard, Arkwright. All the minor details of his machine may be forgotten, for the sake of the rollers. If he did not first conceive the plan, to him at least belongs the honour of making public the discovery, that by moving two rollers — the lower one grooved, the upper having a plane surface — in opposite directions, with different rates of rotation, and pressed together with weighted levers, the elongation of the yarn could be produced with a regularity and fineness determined by the speed and pressure of the rollers. Arkwright's spinning machine was called a water- frame, because water-power was by this means first applied to the manufacture of cotton ; and the term ' water-twist,' so common in the trade circulars and market lists of the present day, is only the technical name for a yarn made on an improved machine most nearly resembling the original water-frame of Arkwright. The all-important principle in the water-frame was the drawiag-roUers, There is, however, one other portion of the machine of great value, and this is known as 'the spindle and flyer,' the use of which is to wind the yarn, as it leaves the rollers, upon the bobbins on which it is removed to be prepared for weaving. The mere action of being drawn through the rollers could not give the yam the requisite twisting. This is accomplished by the spindle, which passes through the bobbin or reel, having at its upper end two widely extending prongs hanging downwards over the sides of the bobbin. The yarn runs through one of these prongs, called the flyer, which is hollowed for the purpose, and so becomes twisted as it is deposited upon the bobbin. Ark- wright deserves to be recognised as the parent of the factory system — at least of the mechanical part of it ; for to his genius we are indebted for the greater part of the modus operandi. Like Hargreaves, he was a prophet without honour in COTTON FAMINE. 15 his own country. Bom at Preston, in 1732, and appren- ticed to a barber, be laboured over bis machines until their superior powers began to attract envious attention. But Arkwright was a man of far greater strength of cha- racter than.the inventor of the spinning-jenny. Hargreaves was to Arkwright as Herschel to Newton — one discovered a meinber, while the other founded a system. Arkwright's ' mill, situate at Birkacre, near Chorley, was destroyed -by a furious and ignorant mob who, there is too much reason to suppose, were incited to the act by the enemies of the great inventor. Like Hargreaves, he retired to Notting- ham; but, unlike Hargreaves, he made a partnership which led him to opulence and honour. In 1773 the firm of which he was a member sold the first cloth ever manu- factured in this country entirely of cotton-wool, and it is not long since the peerage of England was enriched by the elevation of a descendant of one of his partners, in the person of Lord Belper. The constellation of the great inventors of the factory system of machinery will be complete when to the names of Hargreaves and Arkwright have been added those of Crompton and Cartwright. To the first, the manufacturing districts owe that most valuable auxiliary the ' mule,' or 'mule-jenny,' so called because, born of the spinning- jenny and the water-twist frame, it is distinct from, while it partakes the qualities of both. The principal events in the life of Crompton would seem to show that he was a man gifted with genius, fired with impulse, but destitute of those solid qualities which, united to the inventive faculty in Arkwright, led him on to fortune and high position. In Nelson Square, Bolton, near where he was born, a statue has been now raised to the man who gave to the world this machine, which in itself united the elongating and twisting principles with that of the drawing rollers, and in such a manner that the finest yarns could be spun by its agency. Such was Crompton's invention. He took no patent, and made little secret of his discovery. But Lancashire had grown wiser since the destruction of Hargreave's machine and Arkwright's mill. Crompton was annoyed by the intrusion of curious visitors, and in consequence he determined to exhibit his invention to any one who would pay a guinea to see it. About twenty 16 HISTORY OF THE years afterwards, when the mule had become very generally adopted, he made a tour of the United Kingdom, to prepare a statement of the extent to which his invention had been made use of. Aided by friends, he laid before Parliament the results of his inquiry, and so established a claim upon the national bounty. The glittering prospect of a recog- nition and reward for his labours from the august hands of 'Parliament could not but have been very exciting to the sanguine inventor, and more highly valued perhaps by one of his temperament and habits than the opulence and dignity which crowned the career of Arkwright, or than the royal favour which conferred the patent of rank upon the now all-honoured name of Peel. After much solicitation on the part of Crompton's friends, a Committee was appointed to consider his claims. The present Earl of Derby was the chairman, and the deliberations of the Committee resulted in the recommendation of Crompton as highly deserving of reward. So far everything favoured his expectations. It is said that among the last words uttered by Mr. Perceval — probably in the presence of the assassin whose pistol was to terminate his useful life — was a remark to Sir Eobert Peel, ' You will be glad to hear that we mean to propose for Crompton 20,000L' Whether he was inspired by the Minister's promise, or by a private estimate of the value and importance of his invention, it is impossibe to say ; but it is certain that Crompton assessed his due at something like this amount, and was grievously disappointed when, upon the proposi- tion of Lord Stanley, it was resolved that 5,000L should be given in recognition of his services to the cotton manu- facture. The House of Commons has held many a beating heart and throbbing brain, many a statesman fearing no one ;but himself, and many a timid aspirant fearing all else ; but surely it never held such another as the gloomy, sanguine mechanic who turned away from watching the passage of this Bill, a disappointed man. At the inaugu- ration of his statue in Bolton, in September 1862, his only son, a poor man aged seventy-two, was present, to whom Lord Palmerston has since sent a donation of 501. from the Eoyal Bounty Fund. Cartwright was the inventor of the power-loom. Others, whose name is legion, have brought the machinery of the COTTON FAMINE. 17 cotton factories to its present high state of perfection. Many of them have deserved to be, and would have been famous, had they not formed units in a crowd nearly, if not equally, meritorious. Of the various descriptions of cotton, the most valuable is k jown as ' Sea Island,' the produce of the islands lying along the shores of South Carolina and Georgia. But it was no uncommon seed from which this cotton was origin- ally produced. The length of its staple and the fineness of its quality are entirely attributable to local influences. Among the constituents of the cotton plant, potash occu- pies a most important position ; and this fact, taken to- gether with the peculiar luxuriance of Sea Island cotton, seems to prove that a saline atmosphere is necessary to produce the finest qualities. Certain it is that Sea Island cotton is unequalled in quality, and that even in the States it cannot be produced at a greater distance than fifteen or twenty miles from the coast. Next in natural quality, though it is not yet marketed quite so well as the Ameri- can cotton, is the produce of Egypt. During the Cotton Famine, many of the fine-spinning mills have lived upon Egyptian instead of their usual fare of Sea Island cotton, and the rapidly improving condition in which it is brought to market will enable it under any circumstances to main- tain a high place in the estimation of manufacturers. The produce of Brazil holds the next rank ; then come the inferior sorts of American, ' Upland Georgia,' ' Middling Orleans,' ' Boweds,' — so called from its being cleaned with a bow-string, — but the last, and least valued, is the cotton of India, generally termed ' Surat,' of which the principal sorts are known as ' Dharwar,' ' Broach,' and* 'Dhollerah.' Up to the year 1861, Indian cotton was very rarely used, except in admixture with superior growths. It will be necessary to refer more fully to the cotton supply, and to the question of cotton growing in India ; but at present the survey is limited to the aspect of affairs in the manufacturing districts. It is time that reference was made to the cotton mills. But all mills are not alike. Of that large and wealthy class generally understood by the designation- of manufac- turers, some are spinners only, making nothing but yarn ; others are weavers only ; but the most important section c 18 HISTOEY OF THE of this class combines the operations of spinning and weaving. In the language of the trade, a master-spinner is not a manufacturer, but only a master weaver. Yet, as this is neither in accordance with the verbal significance, nor with the general appreciation of the word, it may, here, at least, be disregarded. All, however, may be sub- divided into two distinct classes — fine and coarse spinners, and manufacturers of heavy and fine goods. Among the former are included fustians and that large class of fabrics known in the trade as ' domestics,' of which shirting and sheeting form a large part. The fine mills produce muslin, lace, and other yarns for the articles de luxe of the cotton trade. A cotton-mill is the perfection of mechanism, both human and metallic ; but architecturally, it is a brick box pierced with from four to eight rows of windows ; some- times it is cornered with pilasters, and invariably, at no great distance, there rises one of those tall chimneys, which are so numerous in the cotton manufacturing district, that an imaginative person might almost suppose them to be the natural produce of its soil. Volumes- of smoke roll from these tapering shafts, but not to so great an extent as formerly, when the atmosphere of towns and the economy of fuel were so much disregarded. Of late years there has been a remarkable tendency to increase the size of the cotton factories, and although there must be a point at which there is a greater economy of labour by a division of establishments, that point would seem to be constantly moving under the influence of inven- tion, in a direction favourable to the enlargement of mills. Where there is no practical limit to the capital to be em- ployed, the building possesses enormous dimensions ; in fact, it is as big and contains as much brickwork, roofing, and flooring as can be put together for from 30,000L to 40,000L Such a mill would contain two steam-engines, with an aggregate power of 200 or 250 horses, which would keep in motion all the machinery required for cleaning, carding, and spinning the raw cotton, besides from 1,000 to 1,500 power-looms engaged in weaving the yam into cloth or other commodities. Thus fitted completely, this factory and its machinery would cost from 80,000^. to 100,OOOL, and would employ from 1,000 to 1,500 hands. That which gives such a peculiar character to factory labour COTTON FAMINE. 19 is ' the power.' The portion of the mill which the steam- engine inhabits is generally lighted, and indeed indicated, by a long window, through which its bright arms may be seen plunging up and down, and its -hot, white breath, puffing from an adjacent waste-pipe. The distribution of its force throughout the mill is a triumph of mechanical art, achieved by spindles, firmly fixed on every ceiling, which communicate the power to other spindles, placed at right angles, by means of pinion-wheels; from these spindles it is transmitted to the machines upon the various floors through the medium of endless bands and drum- wheels. There is no record of a factory operative having deified ' the power ' and done idolatrous worship to it ; but we cannot wonder that these beautiful machines have received such honours when exported among populations ignorant of Christianity. In visiting a factory, it becomes a diffi- cult (.question to determine whether steam-power is the Frankenstein — the master, or whether it is the loyal servant of man, — the slave-driver or the driven. While the oper- atives are, in the early morning, paying unwilling heed to the tapping at their windows of the professional ' knocker- up,' and are preparing to commence the toil of another day, ' the power ' is getting warmer and warmer, until, when the factory bell ceases ringing at six, it becomes en-- dued with motion, and the whole mill is full of inanimate as well as animate life. In the lowest department of fac- tory labour, in the blowing-room, where the scutching- machines open the raw cotton and clean it from the husks, leaves, and seeds, due to the inferior machines — to the carelessness or knavery of growers — though the feeders be absent, there is the power at six o'clock whirring away upon the ceiling. This operation is not one demanding much skill, and the Irish are very often found in the blow- ing room. The raw cotton having been first loosened out, is passed into the scutching-machine, where it is beaten about by fan-flyers circulating with a speed of 2,000 revolutions per minute ; the seeds and husks fall through a wooden rail-sieve, on which the cotton rests, and the dust is drawn upwards through a casing, by draught created by an up- per set of flyers. The very best qualities of cotton do not always need such rough treatment, and one reason of the C 2 20 HISTOKT OF THE superior value of some growths over others is that they make less waste; in American this is estimated at 12 per cent., and in Surat at 25 per cent. After passing from the attentions of these rotating flyers, the cotton is carried onwards, and issues from between two rollers in a flat ' flap,' generally two feet wide by half an inch thick, and as it issues is wound upon an iron spindle. When this spindle is. filled it is removed to the cardiug-engities, wherein, by means of cylinders revolving in closely-fitting frames, both stuck full of thin, crooked wires, in size about equal to common pins, bent to a right angle, the fibres are gently coaxed into a longitudinal position, and are moved towards the rollers, from which they leave the ma- chine in a transparent fleecy web, which is gathered by a funnel into the softest and most incoherent of ropes. Thus the first stage of spinning is completed, and the ' card end,' as this rope is called, deposits itself in circu- lar tin ' pots,' in the state known to the outside world as wadding. Then the elongating rollers begin their work. The tender production of the carding-^engine is subjected to the drawing-frames, which give a little more consistence and much greater length to the fleecy rope, now become a 'drawing.' In most mills the 'drawing' now passes to the coarse and then to the fine ' bobbin-and-fly frame.' The advantage of this machine, and the great benefit gained by its invention, consisted in the fact that it per- forms the operation of elongating and twisting the ' roving' — as the 'drawing' is termed after it has passed through this machine- -without endangering its fracture by making &ny strain upon it. The difficulty to be overcome was that the bobbin or reel 1 upon which the 'roving' was wound would not retain tlie same size while the automaton flyers ran round and rourid it, depositing and twisting the roving, not yet strong enough to hear much twi ting. As the bobbin bBcajne filledjand its diameter increased under the attentions of the flkrer, the strain upon the roving became too great. This was oT^viated by an invention of Mr, Houldsworth, who, by adopting a conically-shaped dram, adjusted the speed of the bobbin and the flyer to a mutual and accommodating action. These bobbins, when filled with roving, are removed to COTTON FAMINE. 21 the ' throstle-frames ' or to the mules, and are there spun into yarn. The 'throstle,' on which that much-quoted commodity « water-twist ' is made, elongates, twists, and winds with one continuous operation. The mule does its spiriting more gently, and elongates the roving by passing it through three sets of drawing-rollers, during which operation the carriage advances, drawing out the yarn; then, while' the rollers cease to give out the yam, the length already drawn out is stretched and twisted by the turning of the spindles; the carriage then returns to beneath the rollers, while the spindles are actively winding up the yarn. When full, they are removed, and the yarn taken from them, resembling nothing so much in size and shape as a 'tip- cat;' in which condition it is thrown into a basket to be sold as *cop,' or to be taken to the winding- room, where the yarn undergoes the first preparation for weaving. Yarns are sold in hanks, each containing a length of 840 yards. However fine the yarn may be, the same length is made into the hank ; so that the quality of the yarn is indicated by the numbers of hanks which make a pound in weight. The enigma of Indian telegrams is solved by remembering that 20's water-twist means a coarse yarn of twenty hanks to the pound, the product -of the 'throstle- frame;' and the announcement, ' mule-twist firm,' is no longer perplexing when it only suggests the invention of Samuel Crompton ; nor 'grey shirtings dull' mysterious, when it is remembered that the colour is but a synonym for 'unbleached.' But if the yarn be not intended for sale it is taken to the winding-room, where it is prepared for ' warp ' or * weft ;' warp being the longitudinal, and weft the latitu- dinal threads of cloth. And in these winding-rooms are often found the aristocracy of the operative class. Prior to the invention of the self-acting spinning-machines, a spinner was a great man in his way. The management of the hand-mule, of which there are. still many in use, required considerable skill and great practice. He ap- pointed his own ' piecers ' and his ' scavenger ' — places generally filled by his younger children. His wife was rarely a mill hand. These were the lawgivers on the subject of strikes. The general adoption of automaton 22 HISTORY OF THE maclunery has considerably lowered the preteBsions of the spinners. But even now the handicraft required in a cotton mill is very coBsiderable. None will doubt this who have watched the precision and unerring regularity with which, at the summons of the factory bell, the ' hands,' men, women, and children, move to their -appointed place in the monstrous building, and with what qniet and as- sured self-confidence each sets about the work of feeding or attending to the various machines. Nor, being thus acquainted with the drill and order of the factory system, would the observer wonder at the anxiety of the manufac- turers to keep their people together, soft-fingered and light-handed, ready for the revival of the cotton trade. The system adopted for the payment of wages has, under the combined infiuence of the deliberations and dis- agreements of masters and operatives, risen to a high degree of perfection. A standard list of prices for spin- ning and weaving is published in most of the chief centres of the manufacture. Take that of Preston as an example, which is issued as compiled by the ' Cotton-Spinners' and Manufacturers' Association and adopted by tte ' Operative Spinners' and Weavers' Associations.' The rate of pay- ment for spinning is calculated upon 1001b. weight of yam, and progresses with the number of spindles in the spinning-machine, and also with the fineness of the yam. According to this standard list of prices, an operative spinning 40's yarn on a mule with from 381 to 400 spindles, would receive 50^d. for every 100 lb. of yarn; while, if he were spinning lOO's yam on the same number of spindles, h« would have 195^d per 100 lb. of yarn. This would include the wages of a man and boy — a minder and a creeler — engaged in manufacturing with a self-acting mule. But if the machine contained from 981 to 1,000 spindles, another boy — a piecer — would be required, and the payment of the three would be, for 40's yarn, A2^d. ; and for lOO's yarn, IGS^d. for every 1001b. in weight. There is therefore a considerable difference in the earnings of the spinner, according as his machine has many or few spindles. The standard list of prices is not affected by fluctuation in wages, any rise or fall being accomplished by the addition or subtraction of a percentage agreed to by employers and employed. COTTON FAMINE. 23 Standing in an atmosphere heated to about eighty- degrees — scented and thickened with oil, cotton-dust, and steam — with clothing which is rather a slight homage to decency than a compliance with ordinary fashion, the ' self- acting minders,' their creelers, and piecers earn wages varying, for the men, from 20s. to 35s. ; and for the boys, according to their age, from 6s. to 14s. per week. The wages on the throstle-frames are rather less than on the mules, and on the former many women and girls are employed. The duties of the spinners on self-acting machines are not very onerous. Besides directing the machinery, they have, in technical language, to ' fill the creels,' to 'piece the yarns,' and to 'doff the cops;' in other words, to feed the rollers with bobbins of roving, to reunite the ends of any broken yarns, and to remove and relieve the spindles of the spun yarn. Piecers — boys and girls^are the attendants upon all the machines used for spinning, from the roving-frames to the fine mules : and it is the addition of the wages of these younger members of his family which makes the earnings of the operative appear so large. ' Winding,' which is the preliminary to weaving, consists in passing the yarn on to bobbins or reels, from which it is ' warped' on to a large polygonal frame ; in which con- dition it is- wound in perfect parallelism on to large reels with iron ends of the prebise width of the power-looms. The winders and warpers earn about 25s. per week, and are perhaps among the best paid and most comfortably placed of the employes in a factory. The yarn, which has now become ' warp,' is then ' beamed ' and ' twisted ' — a very curious and cunning hand-operation impossible to describe — and having been sized, it reaches the loom-shed, which is always on the ground-floor, in order to prevent vibration. The working life of a power-loom weaver is passed amid a noise most resembling that which accompa- nies an express train through a long tunnel. A weaver, either male or female, attends two, three, or four looms, which produce pieces of cloth varying from 24 to 37 yards in length. Their rate of earnings averages about 12s. to 14s. per week. The wages of weavers, like those of spinners, are regulated by the standard lists of prices. This is not a history of the Cotton Manufacture, and 24 HISTORY OF THE the mills are only thus visited in order to give some idea of how the operative's life is passed, and what is the description of labour in which he is ordinarily engaged. Bat the manufacture is full of mechanical and general interest to the highest degree; and nowhere more so than in the fine-spinning mills. By means of the self-acting mide, European spinners have at last been able to over- match the Hindoo in the fineness of their yarns. Messrs. Houldsworths' factory at Manchester is famous for fine spinning. When it is remembered that 32's is a common- sized yarn for weaving calicoes, the delicacy of this firm's machinery will be appreciated by the fact that they can spin 540's yarn, one pound weight of which would contain a thread long enough to reach from London to Newcastle. In the Exhibition of 1862 they displayed 700's yarn, a pound of which would be 588,000 yards in length. According to Hindoo poets, the Dacca looms produced ' woven wind ;' but this is something still finer, still more immaterial. There are many other operations carried on in the various descriptions of factories, such as the preparation of sewing thread, muslin weaving, and fustian cutting ; and there aie the bleaching, dyeing, and printing works. It would also be an interesting inquiry to look into the occu- pations of the numerous camp-followers of the great army of cotton workers. Many of these will cross the widened path of this history as it progresses into the depths of ' Lancashire distress.' But the purposes of this Intro- duction will be accomplished with a concluding glance ai'. the position of the cotton trade in the zenith of its glory at the close of the year 1860. The dreary totals which Mr. Gladstone's eloquence illu- minates, and the rolling numerals of the National Debt, become almost insignificant beside the figures which this statement involves. Arithmetic itself grows dizzy as it approaches the returns of the cotton trade for 1860. One hundred years back and the cotton manufactures of England had been valued at 20G,000L a year. Had not French, American, and Russian wars, — had not railways and telegraphs their part and lot in this century, surely it would be known as the Cotton Age. This year 1860 was the ' annus mirabilis ' of King Cotton. In this year his COTTON FAMINE. 25 dependents were most numerous, and his throne most wide. There was no Daniel at band to interpret to him the handwriting on the wall, which within twelve months should be read by all who ran in letters of blood. What cared he 'i An argosy of ships bore him across every sea, and into every port. He listened to the humming of his spindles, and to the rattle of his looms; he drank of the fulness of his power, and was satisfied ; for he was great, — yes, verj' great. P'here were in Great Britain in 1860 some 2,650 cotton factories, worked by a population of about 440,000 per- sons, whose wages amounted to 11,500,000^. a year.J Of these workers, 90 per cent, were adults, and 56 per cent, were females. A power, equal to that of 300,000 horses, of which 18,500 was water-power, drove the machinery which these quick eyes and active fingers guided and governed. Among other offices performed by this giant force was the twirling of 30,387,467 spindles, at rates varying from 4,000 to 6,000 revolutions per minute. Each of these spindles could consume 9^ oz. of cotton-wool per week ; their required food for the year, therefore, equalled Uj051,623,380 lb. of cotton. The actual cons\unption for the year, inclusive of w&ste, was 1,083,600,000 lb., and the total quantity imported 1,390,938,752 Ib^ About 350,000 power-looms threw their shuttles with un- erring regularity, impelled by the strength of these steam and water horses ;" and, besides supplying the household requirements of this kingdom, which in the article of i^otton manufactures then amounted to about 24,000,000^ in annual value, and 180,000,000 lb. in weight, this popula- tion, these spindles, and these looms, being supported with ail invested capital of 65,000,000^., produced for exportation 2,776,218,427 yards of cotton cloth, besides 197,343,655 lb. of cotton twi.st and yarn.^ In addition to this, they manufactured and exported hosiery and small wares, valued at 1,795,! 63L The total declared value of their exports for the year amounted to 52,012,380?. 7lf figures can ever be magnificent — if naked totals ever reach to the sublime, surely the British cotton trade in 1860 claims our admira- tion, ^s production for this single year equalled in value 76,012,380/., or nearly six millious more than the gross revenue of the kingdom for the same period. _^ 26 HISTORY OF THE Of this stupendous trade, the share of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire may be judged from the fact, that the number of mills in each county respectively was 1,920, 200, and 75. Of the factory workers, they held re- spectively 310,000, 38,000, and 12,000; thus engrossing upwards of eighty per cent, of the whole trade. It is not, therefore, without good reason that Lancashire, including the adjoining borders of its southern neighbours, is known par excellence as the cotton manufacturing district. The cotton supply of 1860 presents another array of vast totals. lb. '» America sent .... 1,115,890,608 The East Indies sent The West Indies sent The Brazils sent Other countries sent 204,141,168 1,050,784 17,286,864 62,569,328 Total .... 1,390,938,752 Of this quantity, 250,428,640 lb. were exported, the re- mainder, 1,140,510,112 lb., being retained for home con- sumption. And at the close of this year of terrific prosperity — this year of unequalled production, there remained in the country a stock of raw cotton amounting to 250,286,605 lb. Is it marvellous that a trade like this should have in- spired its chief agents with a belief — shall we not say a conviction — that the greatness, ay, the very existence of England as a first-rate power, depended upon its continu- ance ? Is it strange that a county, which in extent is but the thirty-third part of England, but which contained one- tenth of the riches and of the population of the country — is it strange that such a province, the chosen seat of such a trade, should be somewhat vain and overbearing, should become regarded with envy and dislike by many of its neighbours ? There is no marvel in this ; the wonder yet remains to be told. The succeeding pages of this history will de- scribe how this great industry was stricken, palsied, and withered ; how, in its prostration, those who had made great gains, and those who had been its human machinery, bore themselves and their altered fortunes. They will COTTON FAMINE. 27 tell a long tale of privations nobly borne, and of charity that never faileth. They will record examples of manage- ment and governance worthy of imitation for all time. But they will fail in doing justice to England if they neglect to show how she rose superior to this crisis : how the loss of this trade, on which she was supposed to lean, made no unsightly gaps in her revenue, and was not suf- fered to influence her policy. They will fail, also, in a very important duty, if they do not inculcate, from the events of the past, the lessons of adversity; if they do not point out how this time of trial has been utilised by the fulfilment of duties and obliga- tions hitherto neglected. They will show how, and to what extent, the insecure foundation of this trade has been replaced by more reliable, because more numerous sources of supply. They can be but an unworthy monument to the memory of one of the greatest moral triumphs that ever ennobled a people ; but their record will not be in vain, if, by recalling the incidents of this period, it pro- motes the lasting establishment of a kindlier feeling be- tween class and class, — if it encourages a more practical fulfilment of that most high and sacred command, that men should do to' others as they would others should do to them. — -"" 28 HISTOKY OP THE CHAPTEE II. iPRIL SEPTEMBER 1861. The history of the Cotton Famine naturally commences ■with the bloodless bombardment of Fort Sumter on the 13th of April, 1861. The event took the world by sur- prise. No one saw — certainly no warning voice of au- thority proclaimed, that this most courteous hostility, that this military performance was the overture to the most tragic opera yet placed upon the world's stage. Mr. Lin- coln had been elected President on the 4th of March, — on the 30th he had delivered his Inaugural Address — the first and last occasion upon which, the chief magistrate of the United States is officially called upon to make a speech. His tone was eminently pacific — indeed, nothing less illogical than the argument of war could reconcile the present doings of the Abolitionist Generalissimo of 'the Federal armies with his inaugural utterance: — 'I ' have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with 'the institution of Slavery in the States where it exists. ' I believe I have no lawful right to do so ; and I have 'no inclination to do so.' We must confess in all hu- mility that our purview was small indeed ; we neither fore- saw the toilsome strife which was about to dye the Central States with human blood, nor did we regard Abraham Lin- coln as destined to become the most relentless enemy of the social curse of America. It never even occurred to us that he and his party were dissembling, in order to obtain complete possession of the Republic : and when the 13th of>April arrived, and that sound was heard, so new, so startling to young America — when a hostile can- non-shot boomed across Charlestown harbour, even then COTTON FAMINE. 29 we persisted in believing that this interchange of iron compliments between Greneral Beauregard and Major Anderson was nothing more than a game of brag. There are many now, and their numbers will probably be increasing, who would gain a facile reputation for prophecy by the pretended prediction of accomplished facts. There are many whose most mournful recollection will be, that they could not foresee the signs of the times, and share that golden harvest which is ever the strange accompaniment of a modern famine. It is told of one of the kings of England, that he was never seen to smile after the drowning of his hopeful son, and the same per- petual gloom is said to overhang the visage of at least one. manufacturer, who, in the temporary absence of his good genius, cancelled speculative transactions made in his name, which, being, confirmed, would have raised him to the metallic rank of a millionaire. At this time, fortunes lay ready to the hands of investors ; ' Middling Orleans '—the gauge of the cotton market — was selling after the fall of Sumter at 7^d. per lb., which in Decem- ber, eight months later, was worth a shilling. Where was then the capita) of the cotton trade, and where that genius for money-making with which its constituents are not falsely credited? The fact is, that the Cotton Famine — if this word still means scarcity -^id not commence for a year after the period to which reference is now made. ^ April 1861 was a time of gorged" markets, both at home and abroad. The India and China markets had been overfed with manufac- tures until they threatened to burst with bankruptcy. The enormous demand of these new markets had so stimu- lated the home manufacture, that new mills had sprung up in every town and township in the cotton districts, and, with reckless cupidity, manufacturers had rushed to divide the profits of the increased trade. In the preceding year India had taken manufactures to the value of 17,000,000^., one third of the . whole export; but mer- chants still piled the goods in the warehouses of Bombay, until ruin stared them in the face, and they began to realise the fact that these commodities had become an unmarketable burden. One of the wisest heads in Lan- cashire had forewarned them of this. Twelve months had ^. 30 HISTORY OF THE passed since they had been told from the chair of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, not to regard the trade of 1860 as normal, or the increase of exports to the East as continuous ; but the cotton trade is not the only one which it would be difficult to turn from markets that [eemed to promise high rates of profit. Such a glut of production had there been in 1859 and 1860, that at the time to which we are referring not a few houses in Manchester and Liverpool felt the severest diffi- culty in meeting their liabilities. They had plenty of goods in stock, but the enchanter, demand, was not at hand to turn them into gold. In Bombay, ' shirtings ' found no buyers; no one cared to inquire after mule-yarns, and water-twist was a drug in the market. There was a larger supply of cotton in England than there had been for years previous to this time. The increasing probability of hostilities in America had induced the shippers of the Southern States to bring forward the crop of 1860 with unusual haste; and before the end of May 1861, the im- ports from America for the five months of the year amounted to 1,650,000 bales — a supply largely exceeding the total importation from the same source during the whole year of 1857. This unexampled import was super- added to the T^ge stock of 594,505 bales remaining in England at the expiration of 1860. Nor was this all. Cotton was arriving from the East as well as from the West. The rumour of a deficient crop in America, and the murmurs of that coming storm, of which the first flash was seen at Fort Sumter, had roused the feeble energies of the Asiatic planters, and they contributed to augment the cot- ton supply of Britain. In the first six months of 1861, the Indian supply, which for the same period of 1860 had been 249,000 bales, amounted to 314,500 bales, an in- crease of 65,500 bales. But that we know what followed this ; were it not that we have since seen a half a million cotton-workers and their dependents become the helpless recipients of Poor Law allowances or private benefactions, we might well think the title of this history a misnomer, and question the existence of a Cotton Famine. A Cotton Famine ! In June 1861, the cotton trade was suffering from apoplexy, with a full larder. There was nothing it stood so much in COTTON FAMINE. 31 need of as depletion. Come it must, either by an artificial or a forced suspension of trade. Every one was looking out for buyers. The importers of cotton had invested largely, and pressed by the wants of the American planters — patriotic or rebellious, as viewed through Southern or Northern spectacles — they forced their ~ wares upon apa- thetic speculators and unwilling manufacturers, who, though possessed of much yarn and cloth, may have had but little cash, and less desire to increase their stocks of goods. No one believed in the long continuance of the war. Though Sumter had fallen two months back, though Mr. Lincoln had gathered together his first army, though the Southern States had become a drill-ground and Rich- mond a barrack, yet the sales to speculators in Liverpool were less in June than they had been in January, and ' Middling Orleans was quiet,' though advanced to 8d, per pound. This rise, forced upon the market by the situation in America, was the means of saving many manufacturers from impending difficulties. In 1859 and 1860, the years of ' terrific prosperity ' and over-production. Middling Orleans had been quoted on the last day of each year at 6^d. and 7f d. respectively. The adventitious circumstance of the American war, had brought profits to those who, but for this outbreak, would have had to suspend pay- ments. Notwithstanding the enormous mass of goods in stock, estimated to value upwards of ^20,000,000, the rising market for the raw material galvanised the trade in manufactures into life ; and the prices of yarns and cloth having slowly declined since the commencement of the year, now rose languidly, and liberated some of the capital of the cotton trade — set it free to be invested far more profitably in the raw material. Probably at no one period in the history of the cotton trade was there such a weight of cotton and cotton manu- factures in England as at the time of the battle of Bull Run. Production continued at nearly the same rate as it had done in 1860. The exports of yarn and goods for the first nine months of the year 1861 amounted to 537,969,0001b., less only by 16,250,0001b. than the ex- ports for the same period of the previous year. But the total production of yarns and goods from January to Sep- 32 HISTORY OF THE tember, 1861, was 779,279,000 lb., of which therefore 241,801,000 lb. were retained at home. The average home consumptioa for this period would be 135,000,000 lb. ; so that in the first nine months of 1861, at least 100,000,000 lb. of yarn and goods were added to the large stocks then remaining in the country. The overfed condition of the foreign markets, especially those of India and China, may be best judged from the fact that they were subsequently troubled with indigestion and loss of appetite for upwards of two years. The weight of raw cotton and of manu- factures at this time in the hands, or at the disposal of the British cotton trade, cannot have fallen far short of 1,000,000,000 lb. This was in their possession when first they welcomed a rising market. They had recklessly pushed production beyond requirement; with all the as- sistance of low wages, light taxation, and perfect domestic peace, manufacturers had made their spindles revolve faster, their shuttles move more quickly, than they had ever done before. They had done this in fear and trem- ling — they had been encouraged by the excitement which burned at the prospect of such increasing markets — they had aroused a competition which recognised no duty para- mount to that of obtaining the largest share of profits ; and at the moment in which they might have expected judgment and execution — in the shape of a large depre- ciation in the value of their commodities — almost in the very hour when the reaction to which they had given no heed was upon them^ the scene shifted— the war in America assumed an aspect of determined continuance^ and the blockade of the Southern ports was declared effective. The price of cotton rose rapidly, and immediately a golden radiance of profit hovered around these plethoric stocks which were stored throughout the world. The first signs of distress in the manufacturing districts appeared in October, when many factories began 'to run short time. But the American war, to which this distress was then generally referred, had as yet far less to do with it than the overstocked condition of the markets. Specu- lation had forced the price of Middling Orleans up to lOd. per pound on the 30th of September ; but even this rate would not have deterred spinners from continuing opera- tions, had it not been for the fact that they must work for COTTON FAMINE. 33 stock, there being no demand for goods in the markets. Every one who can pretend to the slightest knowledge of the cotton trade knows that ' short time ' must, under any circumstances, have prevailed very extensively during the winter of 1861 and the whole of 1862. Before it became evident that war would ensue in America, many of the great spokesmen of the cotton trade had predicted this necessity. Had there been no war in America, 'hard times ' must have come upon all in the winter of 1^1. As it was, this event brought relief to the holders of goods, wealth to the speculators in cotton, and a comfort- less autumn, with a hopeless winter prospect, to the opera- tives. That difficulty which, happily for Englishmen, is expe- rienced iu attempting any very accurate division of classes in this country, is nowhere found greater than in referring to the cotton trade. The line between master and opera- tive— between, employer and employed — would seem clear and well-defined enough ; but practically it is not so. In the course of this history it will oftentimes be necessary to refer to the manufacturers as a class, and to the opera- tives as a class. It will be well therefore to understand the gradations of each, which meet upon and almost ob- literate the line of division. Highest of the operative class are the overlookers and minders, and the lowest of the manufacturer class are men of precisely the same stamp and origin. Backed by some capitalist, and masters only in name, or plodding on towards independence with their mill mortgaged to the top brick of its tall chimney, the position of many of these men, during a disturbed condi- tion of the trade is full of danger and anxiety. The easy crains which attend a rising market are not for them. The troubled sea of an excited trade engulfs many, and they drop out from the list of manufacturers unnoticed and un known. But when Englishmen talk of the manufacturers as a class, it is not of these men they speak ; they refer to those who are really the representatives of the class. When they speak of landholders as a class, they do not allude to the shareholder in the semi-political building society, or to the cottier who is squatted upon his patch of waste. If they talk of grocers, they are not including every village huckster with the representative men of that D 34 HISTORY OF THE important trade. The most casual view of the manufac- turing districts will convince any one that the number of factories of the first class in size is increasing more rapidly than any other. This is the tendency of the trade. From the commencement of the Cotton Famine, a.nd throughout its duration, many of the inferior class of manufacturers have been as nearly irresponsible as employers of labour can be. If here and there they have succeeded in specu- lation, it has been at a risk more than equally propor- tioned to their gains. They have had in general a hard struggle to keep their machinery in order, to pay their rates, to live without their ordinary profits, and in many cases to submit to the loss of their cottage rentals. If they have given their time freely to the organisation of committees, and to the dispensation of relief,— if they have never screwed their cottage rents from relief allow- ances, nor taken advantage of the prevailing distress to press down wages to a starvation-point, — they have done all that could be expected of them. In alluding to the constituents of the cotton trade, it is necessary to remember that the merchants and brokers, who are neither manufacturers nor employers of operative labour, are an exceedingly wealthy and responsible class. Some insight into the nature of the division of the manufacturers will be gained by recollecting that at the close of I86I, there were in the three counties of Lan- caster, Chester, and Derby, 2,270 factories engaged in the manufacture of cotton. Of this number, 890 were en- gaged in spinning only ; 593 were devoted solely to weaving; 152 were ' mis9elIaneous ' mills; and in 635 both spinning and weaving were carried on. At the same date there were in these niree counties 369,452 persons employed in the manufacture, which would give an aver- age of 162 to each factory. Of these 2,270 factories it is estimated that one-third are what may be called ' small ' establishments. It has been ascertained by one of the factory inspectors, that in this proportion the working power was less than 'twenty horses.' Therefore the re- sponsible manufacturers may be taken to be about two- thirds of the whole number. But they employ very many more than two-thirds of the mill hands. Eepresentation therefore upon the principle of numbers falls due to the COTTON FAMINE. 35 higher class of manufacturers, as it certainly would if the test of capital were applied. Having thus analysed the employers of labour, fairness demands that no less should be done for the inferior class. With every desire to do justice to the operatives, it is pos- sible that this history may not emulate those speeches and writings which have but thinly disguised a contemptuous fear beneath the most fulsome adulation. Yet it will not be thought censurable to refuse to be among the number of those, of whom Mr. Disraeli truly said, 'the people have their parasites as well as monarchies and aristocracies.' None can be blind to the virtues of this working class ; the almost uninterrupted reign of peace and order ■throughout this terrible crisis ; the readiness with which many have taken advantage of, their compulsory leisure to make up for the neglected hours of youth, by diligence in schools and leeture-rooms ; the willingness and patience which many have displayed in learning to handle the spade, the pickaxe, or the barrow, preferring to earn their subsistence rather than receive it at the hand of charity, are deserving of high praise. Nor will their goodness one towards another be wasted or forgotten. How much of all this is owing to the beneficial legislation of late years, to the Factory and Free Trade Laws, — how much to the fault- less energy with which so many of their superiorsin posi- tion have served them during this crisis, will be bettei judged at the conclusion than at the opening of this his- tory. In regarding the Manchester of the present day, it will be Well to recall to mind the Manchester of the past. When Johnson made his tour to the Hebrides, his friends looked upon him as a man bent on a desperate enterprise. The Highlanders who have since held fast in a ' thin red line ' the honour of England, who are now the favoured, if not the favourite neighbours of our widowed and be- loved Queen,, were then regarded as a ferocious race of murderers and marauders, addicted to scanty clothing, and Universally troubled with the itch. And the manufacturing districts, were they not sup- posed even in our own time, to be filled with a population whose loyalty could only be ensured by the material bribe of high wageSj — by the constant company of light dragoons, and by the continual indulgence of their self-will and self- d2 36 HISTOEY OP THE interest in the legislation of the country ? Happily for England, still more happily for the manufacturing dis- tricts, much of this picture which was real, and much that was imaginary, have together passed away. The grey- headed recorder of those troublous times, when he and the century were very young together, when Mr. Deputy- Constable Nadin was the Jeffreys of Manchester, and Peterloo a famous battle-ground, still lives honoured by the class to which he belongs by birth and early associa- tion. But now, no longer forced to hide from the strong arm of the law, which is, as it should he, -nothing but a terror to the wrong-doer and an equaliser of the weak against the strong, the author of the ' Life of a Eadical ' has seen Manchester pass through hard times to which those of former years were mild and momentary, free from any serious menace of the public peace, and amid the undisturbed reign of order and authority. Is it not also a happy emblem of improvem^it that in St. Peter's Square — the scene of that foolish and exaggerated en- counter — -he may hear, in place of the curses of a crowd and the cries of the wounded, the strains of a choir unsur- passed in sweetness by any in the district ? When William IV. received Dr. Dalton, the King's first question was, 'Well, Doctor, are you. all quiet at Man- chester ? ' as though discord were the normal state of this city. And it is said that the highest placed of womankind was not free from this fearful impression an her first visit to this district ; and that her astonishment was as great as her delight, when she saw these crowds of working people, which had been the terror of her uncles and the anxiety of her grandfather J linked hand-in-band to form for her the noblest body-guard a Sovereign can possess. If the result of this time of trial shall be, that England, better informed of the weakness as well as the strength of Lancashire, shall regard tli.e chief industry of tiiis county with greater sympathy g-nd satisfaction ; and if, on the other hand, Lan- cashire — grown wise by experience-^sfaali perceive that her greatness is dependent upon, and cannot exist in isola- tion from that of England, the lesson of this Famine will not have been in vain, and Charity's true mission—that of uniting hearts and hands — will have been fulfilled. Eng- land wi-^l not grudge to Lancashire the credit she has COTTON FAMINE. 37 gained in this campaign against so dire an enemy ; and surely Lancashire will have learned her subordination to the commonwealth, in seeing that even the sudden pro- stration of her mighty industry^ while it brought aid from every quarter,- caused none but local difficulties ;ind scarcely affected the general prosperity of the empire. In speaking of the oper'ative class, it may be almost assumed that their natrfral acuteness is taken for granted. It is no libel on the working classes in general to say that in this respect the cotton-workers stand to them in the proportion of five to four. But this intellectual superiority is owing to the character of their labour, and not to any peculiarity of race. It is well known that we cannot use the muscles and the brain very actively at one and the same time. In the village coterie it is the sedentary shoe- maker or the stitching tailor who is the politician or the poet. Hodge comes in miry from his work, with strength only sufficient to fall on to the settle, and to be a listener and a sharer in the recuperative cheer. In these days of automaton machinery, there are many moments in every hour when the varied and immense production of a cotton factory would continue, though ninety-five per cent, of the ' hands ' were suddenly withdrawn. The work is ex- citing, but not laborious. It quickens the eye and the action of the brain to watch a thousand threads, being obliged to dart upon and repair any that break, lest even a single spindle should be idle : and it strengthens the brain to do this with bodily labour which is exercising but not exhausting. It polishes the mental faculties to work in continued contact with hundreds of others, in a dis- cipline necessarily so severe and regular as that of a cotton factory. The bodily system becomes feverishly quickened by thus working in a high and moist temperature. Even the rattle of the machinery contributes to preserve the brain of the operative from that emptiness which so fatally contracts its power. As regulated by the Factory Laws, operative labour in those establishments — and there are many — wbich are well ventilated and cleanly, is not by any means an unhealthy form of industry. The high and damp temperature will not make rosy cheeks ; and the general paleness of complexion is one of the most remark- able features of the people! But with personal cleanliness 38 HISTORY OF THE — rendered peculiarly necessary by the sudorific effects of their working atmosphere — and temperate habits, the ope- rative has a far better chance of a long life and a merry one than the agricultural labourer. But as to his intelli- gence, there is jio doubt that the prodigies of literature and general ' self-help ' which have left the spindle and and the shuttle to astonish even the weary quidnuncs of London, have given place to an impression that the stan- dard of education among the factory-workers is much higher than it really is. Curious Cockneys, making their first round of a spinning<-room or a loom-shed, have been sur- prised if they did not find several copies of Csesar's Com- mentaries, or stray volumes of works on moral philosophy, lying ready to the hands of learned workmen. There are, as there have been, men among them whose erudition is astounding — linguists and botanists, philosophers and po- litical students ; there are women filled with religious zeal, and gifted with a power of expression which is beautiful and almost divine ; but this is no more true of the bulk of them than it would be to assert that Trinity College was filled with wranglers, or Christ Church with double- first-classmen. Indeed, on the contrary, it may well be thought that the previous character of the population of this district was due to their dense ignorance, — an ignorance which, so far from being lightened by comparatively high wages and comfortable existence, was really fostered and encouraged by the hungry demand for labour. It was thus that the cotton districts nurtured a population which was not un- reasonably regarded as dangerous. Well fed, and warmly, if not healthily housed, they increased and multiplied, the more regardless of the moral responsibilities of parentage because their offspring were a source of increased gain to them. When the migration of agricultural labourers to the cotton districts was being encouraged in 1834, by the very able letters of the Messrs. Ashworth and the comprehen- sive reports of Dr. Kay, it was satisfactory, no doubt, to find that the Bledlow peasant, forty years of age, with a family of nine children, could, by the help of these 'encum- brances,' so far better his condition as to advance from 16s. 3d. in Buckinghamshire, to 41s. 6d. in Lancashire. And, considering that in one place he was at least an COTTOy FAMINE, 39 occasional pauper, while in the North he was a cherished acquisition, and 'would rather be transported to Van Diemen's Land than go back to that there bungling parish of mine,' it would seem surprising that the Law of Settlement yet prevails, — a law which, but for the amend- ments carried by Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Villiers, would have hurried away thousands and thousands of paupers, to the different union-houses of the kingdom during the period of the Cotton Famine. But though the Bledlow peasant rejoiced, it is not quite certain that his removal benefited his children equally with himself. In Bucks they might have received some education at the National School, while in Lancashire they had to earn seventy per cent, of the paternal income. "\Mien honest Joseph Brotherton hushed the House of Commons by the simple narration of his own sufferings and privations as a factory boy, he spoke as one of those units who now and then escaped from the general destiny. This speech aided very materially in the passing of one of those legislative measures which struck at the root of the ignorance and misery of the manufacturing districts. By the benevolent provisions of the Factory Laws, it is enacted that ten hours shall be the limit of labour in a factory ; that no child under the age of thirteen years shall be allowed to work full time; that no woman, young person, or child shall be employed in a factory for more than five hours before one o'clock in the afternoon of any day without an interval of leisure for at least thirty minutes. Every manufacturer, before commencing to work a factory, must send notice to the Government Inspector or the sub-inspector of the district. In every such establishment an abstract of the factory laws must be affixed to movable boards, and placed prominently before the notice of the workpeople. To this abstract must be added the names and addresses of the inspector, sub- inspector, and certifying surgeon, and also notice of the allotted hours of work. It is required that every factory shall have a clock, that the machinery in motion shall be fenced as much as possible, in order to prevent accidents, and that the interior of the factory shall be lime-washed once in fourteen months, in' order to promote health. Christmas Dayand Good Friday, besides eight half-holidays. 40 HISTOEY OF THE must be given in the year, and of the latter, four are to be allowed between the 15th of March and the 1st of October. With reference to employment, the law declares that from eight to thirteen years of age the operatives are to be classified as * children ; ' from thirteen to eighteen as ' young persons,' and with unusual deference to a weakness of the fairer sex, women of all ages are placed in this interesting class. The duties of the surgeon consist for the most part in making certificates as to age, and in every factory, registers of the class of persons employed are duly kept for inspection and reference. None of the ' young persons ' can be employed before sis in the morning, after six in the evening, or after two o'clock on Saturdays. But the law is especially and desirably stringent with respect to children. All the restrictions of the working hours of ' young persons ' apply also to children. But besides these, it is enacted that no child can be set to work before noon and after one o'clock of the same day. With the exception of Saturday, chil- dren must attend school for three hours daily, and the occupier of the factory in which they are employed, is required to ascertain on Monday morning, from the certifi- cate of the schoolmaster, that such attendance has been duly made. These provisions have certainly had a ten- dency, which may well be thought beneficial, to diminish the employment of children and young persons. When children are employed, it is necessary to have two sets, one of which works in the before-noon, and the other in the later half of the day, changing their hours of labour every week. The requirement as to school attendance has led, in the larger factories — which are in every respect the most healthful, both morally and physically — to the establish- ment of factory schools, in order that when the legislative regulation as to three hours' schooling was completed, the child might be ready to its work. The army of King Cotton is recruited without reference to stature, and as to age, eight years is sufficient. At thirteen the operative attains his majjority and becomes a ' full-timer.' From the age of eight to thirteen is therefore the noviciate of the operative. At the age of thirteen he passes from a COTTON FAMINE. 41 ' half-timer ' to a ' full-timer,' from wages of three or four shillings to three or more times that amount per week. The ignorance of the elder generation of operatives — so painfully manifested in the adult schools which have been one of the many good consequences of the .Cotton Famine — is not, therefore, continued to the same extent in the middle or the rising generation. Still much improve- ment is needed here. In many, too many cases, the parents, knowing that their children must attend school from the moment they enter the factory, gives themselves no thought about their mental or moral training. While babes, they leave them during the hours of labour too often in the hands of crones, who preserve the quiet of their ' kindergarten ' with the pernicious assistance of ' Daffy's Elixir ' and ' Godfrey's Cordial ;' and the interval between this condition and their entry upon factory life is freqiiently passed in the utter absence of all control. The main anxiety of these parents is to push their children from their profitless minority to their profitable majority in their fourteenth year. On this subject it may be well to refer to the high authority of the Factory Inspectors. In , Mr. Redgrave's Report for 1861, one of his sub-inspectors ' regrets to say that, when work is pretty plentiful, every effort is made by the parents to deprive the children of the benefits of the educational clauses of the Factory Acts, by getting them passed for full time before they are thirteen.' Mr. Baker, in one of his Reports, finds that in his district there were, in 1861, 21,239 factory workers under the age of thirteen. Of this number he fears that ' at least 14,000 would never have been sent to school by parental affection or consideration unless they had been employed in factories.' The children are in too many cases merely the helots of their parents, who hope to gain as much as possible from their labour, before the time arrives in which they declare their independence. This is true only of the iniferior, though it must be said, of a large class of factory opera- tives. Of the half-timers, who in compliance with the law spend one-half of their working day at school, not fifty per cent, have received even the slightest previous schooling. Boys and girls from eight to twelve_jears of age have to be taught the alphabet. It is found that those who attend school in the morning, and the factory in the 42 HISTOET OF THE after part of the day, make better progress in their studies than when the operation is reversed. But what a poor hope is there for the education of the half-timer, if he is to be allowed to ' grow ' in his own way until he ten or eleven years old, — less cared for even than the immortal ' Topsy,' — and then to pass his one or two years of school- ing simultaneously with his entry on factory life ! It is said that for the first year the noise and confinement in the mill exercises a benumbing influence upon the children. It may well be so. At all events, if their minds were fortified by a longer education they would be strengthened to resist this influence, and it does appear to be of the highest importance that an amendment of the Factory Laws should require some educational test of the children, in order to compel their parents to fulfil their duty. It has been suggested that the law should be made to bribe the parents by permitting their children to pass for full-timers at twelve instead of thirteen years of age, if at the earlier period they had attained a certain standard of knowledge. But this proposal, although it might possibly succeed in promoting education, has obvious defects. No one would say that to attain this end it was necessary or advisable to condemn a child to ten hours a day of labour at the tender age of. twelve years. Besides, what is most necessary is, that the parents should be compelled 'to pay some more attention to the bringing-up of their children before they become half-timers. For this reason, many will be dis- posed to agree with Mr. Baker in his view of this subject, and to join his recommendation that 'a certificate of a certain minimum amount of education previous to employ- ment, and a certificate of a maximum amount thereof on attaining the age of thirteen ' should be required, and that in default of this, ' the education begun during half-time employment should be carried on to a period not exceed- ing sixteen years of age in some night school, until the required maximum amount of education be attained.' But the difficulty lies deeper than it appears to do. Children frequently leave their parents at a very early age in the manufacturing districts. Girls of sixteen years, and lads of the same age, find that they can enjoy greater liberty, and if not greater comforts, that at least they can have their own way more completely, in a separate home, COTTOIir FAMINE. 43 and these partings cause little surprise or disturbance. As might be expected where labour is in such great demand, juvenile marriages are more common in Lancashire than in any other of the English counties. The census returns of 1861 show that among the population of Bolton 45 husbands and 172 wives were coupled at the immature age of 'fifteen and under;' in Burnley there were 51 husbands and 147 wives ; in Stockport 59 husbands and 179 wives in the same category. The same reliable evi- dence shows that from fifteen to twenty is an age at which a considerable number of the male, and a still greater pro- portion of the female operatives are married. For the last fifty years the cotton manufacture has given such encou- ragement to matrimony as never existed elsewhere. And it must be admitted that to the best of its ability the opera- tive class has fulfilled the Sc riptura l command. They have been fruitful, they have inultipjied^_&nd_ii^ti^^_^^e not replenished the earth', iheyliave^ certainly to some extent subdued it by enwrapping its people in the produce of their hands. No one who. has ever attended morning service at Manchester Cathedral will forget the ceremony of asking the banns of marriage. When the happy couples make their appearance after the third publication, it is to be hoped that they are not so confused as are most of those listeners to this long-drawn string of some hundred names. Nineteen to twenty-two in the male and seventeen to twenty in the female sex are the usual matrimonial ages. Boy- husband and girl-wife — themselves often not fully-grown — become the parents of weakly children, specially requir- ing what they rarely get, a mother's care. The husband and wife can earn at least thirty shillings per week, can rent a house which is wind and weather proof, though a filthy roadway may rise high above the door-sill, — though the paved floor be perpetually damp, and though, through the back door, fever-seeds are wafted from the pestiferous ' midden,' which is ' Lancashire ' for that unwholesome combination of an open cesspool and an ashpit, usually to be found at the back of their houses. But it is the condition of the cotton trade, and of the various classes included in this denomination, which are the immediate subjects of inquiry. It is necessary, how- ever, before plunging into the details of a distress from 44 HISTORY OJF THE which we shall not emerge even at the close of this volume, that reference should be made to those laws which existed at this period for relieving want and destitution. It is necessary to examine what legal machinery was avail- able for securing the due and efficient relief of the poor, and what capacity of expansion or adaptation to these peculiar and unprecedented circumstances this machinery contained. It will be conceded, not readily perhaps, but upon reflection, that of all the legislative institutions of a country, the law relating to the relief of the poor is one of those by which its civilization is most surely tested. The condition of the Poor Law is certainly among the truest tests of the progressive and general diffusion of political knowledge and economical principles which can be found in any state. How slow, for instance, how very slow are the steps which lead from the alms-giving of the single rich noble, or the solitary abbey, to the acknow- ledged lien of the poor upon the wealth of the country. What costly steps, what cautious progress must be taken, to fix upon whom should rest — not of his own pleasure, but upon compulsion — the duty of maintaining the poor and needy. Then, again, the question, who are the poor and needy — who are they that have the right to be the unbidden claimants of public provision ? — opens the door through which, by patience, perseverance, and experience, imposture, indolence, and vice, have been at length cast out. A Poor I^aw is especially an institution which does not admit of being transplanted from a nation of ripe intelligence to one of inferior civilization ; it must grow with the growth, and strengthen with the strength of social knowledge. Of all home legislation, it is the least popular, though by no means the least important. Nor is this surprising, considering that its mission is to the least attractive portion of the community. To the mind's eye, indeed, there is something more alluring in the largesse-giving, purse-flinging days of old, than in the measured . and unwelcome tread of the modern collector of poor-rates. But the old system made many beggars, and starved those who could not, or who were too proud to beg. There is very little that can be called interesting in the Poor Law. COTTON FAMINE. 45 It never exercises the least influence upon the national policy abroad ; and though we are an insular and a home- loving people, yet the debates of Parliament would soon cease to have any general interest, if the subjects to which they referred were all within the range of her Majesty's dominions. People are not usually much attracted by institutions which are the result of a long period of legis- lation, unless privileges and dignities are attached to them, such as catch the eye or excite the imagination. But they would not like to lose them, and any attempt to destroy such institutions will call forth the popular affection and appreciation for them. The English people do not under- value the Habeas Corpus Act or the Eeform Bill, although there have been times when a discussion upon either subject would clear any assembly in the country. 80 it is with the Poor Law. It is accepted by all, and perhaps languidly admired by some ; but few are at the trouble to satisfy themselves that its provisions are the laborious result of three centuries of active legislation, and that, so far as human knowledge, justice, and reason can accomplish, they are based upon right and immutable principles. The acknowledged foundation of the English Poor Law is the 43rd Elizabeth, c. 2, an Act now more extensively appealed to than any other of equal antiquity upon the statute-book. Due probably to the sagacious and prescient mind of Cecil, it has remained to our ow;i time one of the many honourable monuments of the Elizabethan era. The particular statutes by which pauperism is now relieved and controlled, commence with the 35th Greorge III., c. 101. This Act, passed in 1795, had a special reference to the case of many of those persons who had migrated from southern homes to settle in the manufacturing districts, where they could earn higher wages, and who, by the depression of trade or other unavoidable circum- stances, were likely to become temporarily chargeable upon the funds raised for the relief of the poor. It may excite a smile to remember, that this Act was passed to prevent the parochial authorities from robbing a poor man of the position he may have won by honest labour, and from transporting him to his native parish, lest he should becojne 9. pauper in their neighbourhood. This 46 HISTOET OF THE was in the days when beadledom was triumphant. Next followed an Act depriving orders of removal of their Median and Persian character, and permitting their suspension. Among the four remaining Poor Laws of the reign of George III., the only one of particular importance is that— the 54th Greo. III. c. 170 — which enables justices to excuse poor persons from the payment of rates, upon receiving proof of their poverty. A revolution in the system of poor-law administration occurred between the passing of the Acts last referred to, and the establishment of that great statute, 'The Poor Law Amendment Act' (4th and 5th Will. IV., c. 76), which Was passed in August, 1834. By this Act, the Poor Law Board Was established as a separate department of State, became invested with independent authority, and empowered to issue .from time to time, orders and regula- tions relative to matters concerning the relief of the poor. By this Act the union system was organised. It repealed the power possessed bj- the magistrates under the 36th Greo. Ill,, c. 23, to order relief to be given to the poor at their own dwellings, a power which had led to the most monstrous abuses, and which was really a perversion of the spirit of the more ancient Poor Law. Its mover. Lord Althorp, anticipated as its effect, the raising of the British labourer from the condition of a "pauperised slave ' to a degree of independence. And it will be remembered that ^t was at this period the agitation took place, with reference to that migration of agricultural labourers into Lancashire, to which allusion has been previously made. The Parochial Assessment Act (6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 96) is concerned with the area of rateability, the description of property to be rated, and with details relating to these subjects. We pass on to a statute which may be desig- nated as the poor man's Magna Charta. It will probably not be long before the general consent to the principle of this Act, and of that recent statute by which it was enlarged, shall give him also his Bill of Eights by the abolition of the Law of Settlement. The 9th and 10th Vict., c. 66, declares, that no person shall be removable after five years' residence in any parish, provided that during that period they have not been chargeable. By COTTON FAMINE. 47 this enactment, whicli was described by the then Secretary of the Poor Law Board as ' having the rare good fortune of being begun by one administration and finished by another,' the Law. of Settlement received a severe blow. It was further shaken by Mr. Villiers in the Session of 1862, who introduced and carried the 24th & 25th Vict., c. 55, which reduced the time of residence from five to three years. With this tendency in recent legislation, the abolition of the law involving compulsory removal may be regarded as certain, if not impending. The 9th & 10th Vict., c. 66, also included the humane provision that no widow should be removed for twelve months after the death of her husband. A year later and it was found advisable to transfer the cost of the paupers rendered irremovable by the provisions of this Act, from the parochial to the common fund of the union, and this was accomplished by an Act (10th & llth Vict., c. 110), bearing the respectable name of Mr. Bodkin. This brief summary of the chief statutes referring to the relief of the poor, may be closed with a mention of the Small Tene- ments Act (13th & 14th Vict., c. 99), which permitted vestries to declare, by the vote of a majority, that the owners of small tenements not exceeding 61. in value, shall be rated instead of the occupiers. Such are the most important of the Poor Laws at present in force, but as these are modified and regulated from time to time by Ofders of the Board, it will be necessary to extend this examination, in order to define with any degree of precision the law as it stood with respect to the unexampled amount of pauperism so shortly to be cast upon its resources. It must, however, be borne in mind that in the administration of the Poor Laws in Lancashire and the adjoining unions, the Board has always recognised the peculiar constitution of the district. They have not always been able to relieve themselves of those apprehensions to which earlier reference has been made. This is instanced by the fact that in their annual report for 1840, the reason given for the tardy introduction of the new law into Lancashire, and especially into the unions of Bolton, Bury, Ashton, and Eochdale, is stated in the following terms : — ' The depressed condition of the manufacturing population to which we have already ad- 48 HISTORY 'OF THE verted, and the disquietude of the public mind occasioned by the Chartist riot at Newport, in Monmouthshire, rendered us extremely unwilling to take any step in the manufacturing districts in Lancashire, which might have even a remote tendency to produce a disturbance, or which might be used by designing persons as a pretext for agitation.' They go on to say, * The reasons which led us to abstain from interference with these unions seemed not sufficiently applicable to Lancaster,' which union had been accordingly formed and declared. There is yet stronger evidence than this of the discretionary and special power vested in the Poor Law Board, by which they could render local or relax the application of the various statutes they administered. One of the most important of the orders of the Poor Law Board is known as the, ' Out^door Eelief Prohibitory Order.' Upon the evils of an uncontrolled dispensation of out.-door relief, it is hardly necessary to dwell. The statement of an Irish peer, that he had seen out-'door relief in food being devoured by a pauper's ass, the pauper herself being much too well fed to eat it ; or that which confidently asserts that a gentleman's coachman was a recipient of out-door relief, will meet with no discredit from those who know the evils engendered by the existence of this system when free from all control. Perhaps these evils reached they climax in the reign of George III., when the poor-rates were liberally dispensed in aid of wages, — when the farmer could obtain the labour of the men > on the rounds ' for a merely nominal sum, the remainder of their wages being made good by the parish. Jeremy Bentham satirised the Act by which these ignorant practices were sanctioned, as being made up of the ' under ability ' or ' supplemental wages,' the 'family relief or 'extra children,' the 'cow money,' the ' relief extension ' or ' opulence relief,' and the ' appren- ticeship' clauses. It is not now necessary to argue against this economically immoral system. The country has grown wiser as well as older since George III. was King, and the order referred to, prohibiting the relief of any able-bodied perspns out of the union workhouse, is one of the consequences of this improvement. But to this prohibition there are several exceptions, and ' 1st, COTTON FAMINE. 49 When such person shall require relief on account of sudden or urgent necessity.' In their Instructional Letter which accompanied this order, the Commissioners define ' sudden and urgent necessity ' ' as any case of destitution requiring instant relief.' This order, which was issued on December 21, 1844, has however no application to any one of the unions in the county of Lancaster. The ' Outdoor Eelief Eegulation Order,' issued on December 14, 1852, is, on the contrary, addressed to every union within the county of Lancaster, and has formed the ruling principle for the administration of outdoor relief during the prevalence of the Cotton Famine. The first article of this order declares, that whenever the guardians allow relief to any able-bodied male person, out of the workhouse, one-half at least of the relief so allowed shall be given in food or fuel, or in other necessaries. There is a conspicuous omission here of any other class than 'able-bodied males,' and the instructional letter sent with this order expressly states that ' the guardians have therefore full discretion as to the description of relief to be given to indigent poor of every other class.' They are, however, specially precluded from bestowing relief to redeem from pawn any ' tools, implements, or other articles,'' belonging to those persons who are in receipt of these allowances, nor have they power to purchase and give to any persons tools or implements. The impor- tance of these provisions and the necessity for observing them will be clearly seen as this history proceeds. The order is emphatic upon the point that ' no relief shall be given to any able-bodied male person while he is employed for wages or hire, or remuneration by any person.' In applying this very wholesome regulation to the circumstances of the Cotton Famine, it will be neces- sary to observe how it is modified by the instructional letter accompanying the order, in these significant terms : — ' The board desire however to point out that what it is intended actually to prohibit, is the giving relief at the same identical time as that at which the person receiving it is in actual employment, and in the receipt of wages (unless he falls within any of the excep- tions afterwards set forth), and that relief given in any other case, as, for instance, in that of a man working for E 50 HISTORY OF THE wages on one day and being without work the next, or working half the week and being unemployed during the remainder, and being then in need of relief, is not pro- hibited by this article.' This order then goes on to declare in Article VI., that every able-bodied male person, if relieved out of the work- house, shall be set to work by the guardians and be kept employed under their direction and superintendence so long as he continues to receive relief.' The apparent stringency of this article is relaxed by several exceptions mentioned in Article VII., in which sudden and urgent necessity and sickness are specified and included. But the most important modifications of Article VI. are con- tained in the instructional letter of the same date as the order. The guardians are therein warned that all their payments should assume the form of relief, not of wages ; and they are pointedly reminded, that ' if, however, owing to any commercial pressure or general depression of trade, large masses of people should hereafter be thrown out of em- ployment, that upon such an emergency the board would, upon the representation of the guardians, be prepared at once, as on former occasions, to take such steps, by tem- porary suspension of this article or otherwise, as might be expedient to meet satisfactorily and effectdally the diflS- culty experienced ; ' and further, the guardians are told, that any deviation from the terms of this order will not be illegal, provided that report is made concerning it, within three weeks from the date of such departure from the regulation. The Poor Laws are necessarily thus liberal and expansive when administered by a central authority, from the variety of circumstances perpetually submitted to its arbitrament, and from the number of those which are constantly craving to be made exceptions. Prior to the passing of the ' Out- door Belief Regulation Order,' the requirement of the Poor Law Amendment Act, that relief should only be given to the able-bodied, within the union-house, had been modi- fied by an instructional letter dated the 30th of April, 1842, which states that when the guardians have not pro- vided adequate workhouse accommodation, or where lar