Home Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine - Edwin Waugh
CHAPTER XXII.
AN INCIDENT BY THE WAYSIDE.
"Take physic, pomp!
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the Heavens more just."
--King Lear.
On the Saturday after my return from Wigan, a little incident fell
in my way, which I thought worth taking note of at the time; and
perhaps it may not be uninteresting to your readers. On that day I
went up to Levenshulme, to spend the afternoon with an old friend of
mine, a man of studious habits, living in a retired part of that
green suburb. The time went pleasantly by whilst I was with the calm
old student, conversing upon the state of Lancashire, and the
strange events which are upheaving the civilised world in great
billows of change,--and drinking in the peaceful charm which
pervaded everything about the man and his house and the scene which
it stood in.
After tea, he came with me across the fields to the "Midway Inn," on
Stockport Road, where the omnibuses call on their way to Manchester.
It was a lovely evening, very clear and cool, and twilight was
sinking upon the scene. Waiting for the next omnibus, we leaned
against the long wooden watering-trough in front of the inn. The
irregular old building looked picturesque in the soft light of
declining day, and all around was so still that we could hear the
voices of bowlers who were lingering upon the green, off at the
north side of the house, and retired from the highway by an
intervening garden. The varied tones of animation, and the phrases
uttered by the players, on different parts of the green, came
through the quiet air with a cheery ring. The language of the
bowling-green sounds very quaint to people unused to the game. "Too
much land, James!" cries one. "Bravo, bully-bowl! That's th' first
wood! Come again for more!" cries another. "Th' wrong bias, John!"
"How's that?" "A good road; but it wants legs! Narrow; narrow, o' to
pieces!" These, and such like phrases of the game, came distinctly
from the green into the highway that quiet evening. And here I am
reminded, as I write, that the philosophic Doctor Dalton was a
regular bowler upon Tattersall's green, at Old Trafford. These
things, however, are all aside from the little matters which I wish
to tell.
As we stood by the watering-trough, listening to the voices of the
bowlers, and to the occasional ringing of bells mingled with a low
buzz of merriment inside the house, there were many travellers went
by. They came, nearly all of them, from the Manchester side;
sometimes three or four in company, and sometimes a lonely
straggler. Some of them had poor-looking little bundles in their
hands; and, with a few exceptions, their dress, their weary gait,
and dispirited looks led me to think that many of them were
unemployed factory operatives, who had been wandering away to beg
where they would not be known. I have met so many shame-faced,
melancholy people in that condition during the last few months,
that, perhaps, I may have somewhat over judged the number of these
that belongs to that class. But, in two or three cases, little
snatches of conversation, uttered by them as they went by, plainly
told that, so far as the speakers went, it was so; and, at last, a
little thing befell, which, I am sure, represented the condition of
many a thousand more in Lancashire just now. Three young women
stopped on the footpath in front of the inn, close to the place
where we stood, and began to talk together in a very free, open way,
quite careless of being overheard. One of them was a stout, handsome
young woman, about twenty-three. Her dress was of light printed
stuff, clean and good. Her round, ruddy arms, her clear blond
complexion, and the bright expression of her full open countenance,
all indicated health and good-nature. I guessed from her
conversation, as well as from her general appearance, that she was a
factory operative in full employ--though that is such a rare thing
in these parts now. The other two looked very poor and downhearted.
One was a short, thick-set girl, seemingly not twenty years of age;
her face was sad, and she had very little to say. The other was a
thin, dark-haired, cadaverous woman, above thirty years of age, as I
supposed; her shrunk visage was the picture of want, and her frank,
child-like talk showed great simplicity of character. The weather
had been wet for some days previous; and the clothing of the two
looked thin, and shower-stained. It had evidently been worn a good
while; and the colours were faded. Each of them wore a shivery bit
of shawl, in which their hands were folded, as if to keep them warm.
The handsome lass, who seemed to be in good employ, knew them both;
but she showed an especial kindness towards the eldest of them.
As these two stood talking to their friend, we did not take much
notice of what they were saying until two other young women came
slowly from townwards, looking poor, and tired, and ill, like the
first. These last comers instantly recognised two of those who stood
talking together in front of the inn, and one of them said to the
other, "Eh, sitho; there's Sarah an' Martha here! . . . Eh, lasses;
han yo bin a-beggin' too?" "Ay, lass; we han;" replied the thin,
dark complexioned woman; "Ay, lass; we han. Aw've just bin tellin'
Ann, here. Aw never did sich a thing i' my life afore--never! But
it's th' first time and th' last for me,--it is that! Aw'll go
whoam; an' aw'll dee theer, afore aw'll go a-beggin' ony moor, aw
will for sure! Mon, it's sich a nasty, dirty job; aw'd as soon clem!
. . . See yo, lasses; we set off this mornin'--Martha an' me, we set
eawt this mornin' to go to Gorton Tank, becose we yerd that it wur
sich a good place. But one doesn't know wheer to go these times; an'
one doesn't like to go a-beggin' among folk at they known. Well,
when we coom to Gorton we geet twopence-hawpenny theer; an' that wur
o'. Neaw, there's plenty moor beggin' besides us. Well, at after
that twopence-hawpenny, we geet twopence moor, an' that's o' at we'n
getten. But, eh, lasses, when aw coom to do it, aw hadn't th' heart
to as for nought; aw hadn't for sure. . . . Martha an' me's walked
aboon ten mile iv we'n walked a yard; an' we geet weet through th'
first thing; an' aw wur ill when we set off, an' so wur Martha, too;
aw know hoo wur, though hoo says nought. Well; we coom back through
t' teawn; an' we were both on us fair stagged up. Aw never were so
done o'er i' my life, wi' one thing an' another. So we co'de a-
seein' Ann here; an' hoo made us a rare good baggin'--th' lass did.
See yo; aw wur fit to drop o'th flags afore aw geet that saup o'
warm tay into mo--aw wur for sure! An' neaw, hoo's come'd a gate wi'
us hitherto, an' hoo would have us to have a glass o' warm ale a-
piece at yon heawse lower deawn a bit; an' aw dar say it'll do mo
good, aw getten sich a cowd; but, eh dear, it's made mo as mazy as a
tup; an' neaw, hoo wants us to have another afore we starten off
whoam. But it's no use; we mun' be gooin' on. Aw'm noan used to it,
an' aw connot ston it. Aw'm as wake as a kittlin' this minute."
Ann, who had befriended them in this manner, was the handsome young
woman who seemed to be in work; and now, the poor woman who had been
telling the story, laid her hand upon her friend's shoulder and
said, "Ann, thae's behaved very weel to us o' roads; an' neaw, lass,
go thi ways whoam, an' dunnut fret abeawt us, mon. Aw feel better
neaw, aw do for sure. We's be reet enough to-morn, lass. Mon,
there's awlus some way shap't. That tay's done me a deeol o' good. .
. . Go thi ways whoam, Ann; neaw do; or else aw shan't be yezzy
abeawt tho!" But Ann, who was wiping her eyes with her apron,
replied, "Naw, naw; aw will not go yet, Sarah!" . . . And then she
began to cry, "Eh, lasses; aw dunnot like to see yo o' this shap--aw
dunnot for sure! Besides, yo'n bin far enough today. Come back wi'
me. Aw connot find reawm for both on yo; but thee come back wi' me,
Sarah. Aw'll find thee a good bed: an' thae'rt welcome to a share
o' what there is--as welcome as th' fleawers i May--thae knows that.
Thae'rt th' owdest o' th' two; an thae'rt noan fit to trawnce up an'
deawn o' this shap. Come back to eawr heawse; an' Martha'll go
forrud to Stopput, (Stockport,)--winnot tho, Martha! . . . Thae
knows, Martha," continued she, "thae knows, Martha, thae munnot
think nought at me axin' Sarah, an' noan o' thee. Yo should both on
yo go back iv aw'd reawm,--but aw haven't. Beside, thae'rt younger
an' strunger than hoo is." " Eh, God bless tho, lass," replied
Martha, "aw know o' abeawt it. Aw'd rayther Sarah would stop, for
hoo'll be ill. Aw can go forrud by mysel', weel enough. It's noan so
fur, neaw." But, here, Sarah, the eldest of the three, laid her hand
once more upon the shoulder of her friend, and said in an earnest
tone, "Ann! it will not do, my lass! Go aw MUN! I never wur away fro
whoam o' neet i my life,--never! Aw connot do it, mon! Beside, thae
knows, aw've laft yon lad, an' never a wick soul wi' him! He'd fret
hissel' to deoth this neet, mon, if aw didn't go whoam! Aw couldn't
sleep a wink for thinkin' abeawt him! Th' child would be fit to
start eawt o'th heawse i'th deead time o'th neet a-seechin' mo,--aw
know he would! . . . Aw mun go, mon: God bless tho, Ann; aw'm
obleeged to thee o' th' same. But, thae knows heaw it is. Aw mun
goo!"
Here the omnibus came up, and I rode back to Manchester. The whole
conversation took up very little more time than it will take to read
it; but I thought it worth recording, as characteristic of the
people now suffering in Lancashire from no fault of their own. I
know the people well. The greatest number of them would starve
themselves to that degree that they would not be of much more
physical use in this world, before they would condescend to beg. But
starving to death is hard work. What will winter bring to them when
severe weather begins to tell upon constitutions lowered in tone by
a starvation diet--a diet so different to what they have been used
to when in work? What will the 1s. 6d. a-head weekly do for them in
that hard time? If something more than this is not done for them,
when more food, clothing, and fire are necessary to everybody,
calamities may arise which will cost England a hundred times more
than a sufficient relief--a relief worthy of those who are
suffering, and of the nation they belong to--would have cost. In the
meantime the cold wings of winter already begin to overshadow the
land; and every day lost involves the lives, or the future
usefulness, of thousands of our best population.
CHAPTER XXIII.
WANDERING MINSTRELS; OR, WAILS OF THE WORKLESS POOR.
"For whom the heart of man shuts out,
Straightway the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
With silence, 'mid the world's loud din.
And one of his great charities
Is music; and it doth not scorn
To close the lids upon the eyes
Of the weary and forlorn."
--JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL.
There is one feature of the distress in Lancashire which was seen
strikingly upon the streets of our large towns during some months of
1862. I allude to the wandering minstrelsy of the unemployed. Swarms
of strange, shy, sad-looking singers and instrumental performers, in
the work-worn clothing of factory operatives, went about the busy
city, pleading for help in touching wails of simple song--like so
many wild birds driven by hard weather to the haunts of man. There
is something instructive, as well as affecting, in this feature of
the troubled time. These wanderers are only a kind of representative
overflow of a vast number whom our streets will never see. Any one
well acquainted with Lancashire, will know how widespread the study
of music is among its working population. Even the inhabitants of
our large towns know something more about this now than they knew a
few months ago. I believe there is no part of England in which the
practice of sacred music is so widely and lovingly pursued amongst
the working people as in the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
There is no part of England where, until lately, there have been so
many poor men's pianos, which have been purchased by a long course
of careful savings from the workman's wages. These, of course, have
mostly been sold during the hard times to keep life in the owner and
his family. The great works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart
have solaced the toil of thousands of the poorest working people of
Lancashire. Anybody accustomed to wander among the moorlands of the
country will remember how common it is to hear the people practising
sacred music in their lonely cottages. It is not uncommon to meet
working men wandering over the wild hills, "where whip and heather
grow," with their musical instruments, to take part in some village
oratorio many miles away. "That reminds me," as tale-tellers say, of
an incident among the hills, which was interesting, though far from
singular in my experience.
Up in the forest of Rosendale, between Derply Moor and the wild bill
called Swinshaw, there is a little lone valley, a green cup in the
mountains, called "Dean." The inhabitants of this valley are so
notable for their love of music, that they are known all through the
vales of Rosendale as "Th' Deighn Layrocks," or "The Larks of Dean."
In the twilight of a glorious Sunday evening, in the height of
summer, I was roaming over the heathery waste of Swinshaw, towards
Dean, in company with a musical friend of mine, who lived in the
neighbouring clough, when we saw a little crowd of people coming
down a moorland slope, far away in front of us. As they drew nearer,
we found that many of them had musical instruments, and when we met,
my friend recognised them as working people living in the district,
and mostly well known to him. He inquired where they had been; and
they told him that they had "bin to a bit ov a sing deawn i'th
Deighn." "Well," said he, "can't we have a tune here?" "Sure, yo
con, wi' o' th' plezzur i'th world," replied he who acted as
spokesman; and a low buzz of delighted consent ran through the rest
of the company. They then ranged themselves in a circle around their
conductor, and they played and sang several fine pieces of psalmody
upon the heather-scented mountain top. As those solemn strains
floated over the wild landscape, startling the moorfowl untimely in
his nest, I could not help thinking of the hunted Covenanters of
Scotland. The all-together of that scene upon the mountains,
"between the gloaming and the mirk," made an impression upon me
which I shall not easily forget. Long after we parted from them we
could hear their voices, softening in sound as the distance grew,
chanting on their way down the echoing glen, and the effect was
wonderfully fine. This little incident upon the top of Swinshaw is
representative of things which often occur in the country parts of
Lancashire, showing how widespread the love of music is among the
working classes there. Even in great manufacturing towns, it is very
common, when passing cotton mills at work, to hear some fine psalm
tune streaming in chorus from female voices, and mingling with the
spoom of thousands of spindles. The "Larks of Dean," like the rest
of Lancashire operatives, must have suffered in this melancholy
time; but I hope that the humble musicians of our county will never
have occasion to hang their harps upon the willows.
Now, when fortune has laid such a load of sorrow upon the working
people of Lancashire, it is a sad thing to see so many workless
minstrels of humble life "chanting their artless notes in simple
guise" upon the streets of great towns, amongst a kind of life they
are little used to. There is something very touching, too, in their
manner and appearance. They may be ill-shod and footsore; they may
be hungry, and sick at heart, and forlorn in countenance, but they
are almost always clean and wholesome-looking in person. They come
singing in twos and threes, and sometimes in more numerous bands, as
if to keep one another in countenance. Sometimes they come in a
large family all together, the females with their hymn-books, and
the men with their different musical instruments,--bits of pet
salvage from the wrecks of cottage homes. The women have sometimes
children in their arms, or led by the hand; and they sometimes carry
music-books for the men. I have seen them, too, with little
handkerchiefs of rude provender for the day. As I said before, they
are almost invariably clean in person, and their clothing is almost
always sound and seemly in appearance, however poor and scanty.
Amongst these poor wanderers there is none of the reckless personal
negligence and filth of hopeless reprobacy; neither is there a
shadow of the professional ostentation of poverty amongst them.
Their faces are sad, and their manners very often singularly shame-
faced and awkward; and any careful observer would see at a glance
that these people were altogether unused to the craft of the trained
minstrel of the streets. Their clear, healthy complexion, though
often touched with pallor, their simple, unimportunate demeanour,
and the general rusticity of their appearance, shows them to be
"Suppliants who would blush
To wear a tatter'd garb, however coarse;
Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth;
Who ask with painful shyness, and refused,
Because deserving, silently retire."
The females, especially the younger ones, generally walk behind,
blushing and hiding themselves as much as possible. I have seen the
men sometimes walk backwards, with their faces towards those who
were advancing, as if ashamed of what they were doing. And thus they
went wailing through the busy streets, whilst the listening crowd
looks on them pityingly and wonderingly, as if they were so many
hungry shepherds from the mountains of Calabria. This flood of
strange minstrels partly drowned the slang melodies and the
monotonous strains of ordinary street musicians for a while. The
professional gleeman "paled his ineffectual fire" before these
mournful songsters. I think there never was so much sacred music
heard upon the streets of Manchester before. With the exception of a
favourite glee now and then, their music consisted chiefly of fine
psalm tunes--often plaintive old strains, known and welcome to all,
because they awaken tender and elevating remembrances of life.
"Burton," "French," "Kilmarnock," "Luther's Hymn," the grand "Old
Hundred," and many other fine tunes of similar character, have
floated daily in the air of our city, for months together. I am sure
that this choice does not arise from the minstrels themselves having
craft enough to select "a mournful muse, soft pity to infuse." It is
the kind of music which has been the practice and pleasure of their
lives, and it is a fortuitous thing that now, in addition to its
natural plaintiveness, the sad necessity of the times lends a tender
accompaniment to their simplest melody. I doubt very much whether
Leech's minor tunes were ever heard upon our streets till lately.
Leech was a working man, born near the hills, in Lancashire; and his
anthems and psalm tunes are great favourites among the musical
population, especially in the country districts. Leech's harp was
tuned by the genius of sorrow. Several times lately I have heard the
tender complaining notes of his psalmody upon the streets of the
city. About three months ago I heard one of his most pathetic tunes
sung in the market-place by an old man and two young women. The old
man's dress had the peculiar hue and fray of factory work upon it,
and he had a pair of clogs upon his stockingless feet. They were
singing one of Leech's finest minor tunes to Wesley's hymn:-
"And am I born to die,
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?
A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought;
The dreary country of the dead
Where all things are forgot."
It is a tune often sung by country people in Lancashire at funerals;
and, if I remember right, the same melody is cut upon Leech's
gravestone in the old Wesleyan Chapel-yard, at Rochdale. I saw a
company of minstrels of the same class going through Brown Street,
the other day, playing and singing,
"In darkest shades, if Thou appear,
My dawning is begun."
The company consisted of an old man, two young men, and three young
women. Two of the women had children in their arms. After I had
listened to them a little while, thinking the time and the words a
little appropriate to their condition, I beckoned to one of the
young men, who came "sidling" slowly up to me. I asked him where
they came from, and he said, "Ash'n." In answer to another question,
he said, "We're o' one family. Me an' yon tother's wed. That's his
wife wi' th' chylt in her arms, an' hur wi' th' plod shawl on's
mine." I asked if the old man was his father. "Ay," replied he,
"we're o' here, nobbut two. My mother's ill i' bed, an' one o' my
sisters is lookin' after her." " Well, an' heaw han yo getten on?"
said I. "Oh, we'n done weel; but we's come no moor," replied he.
Another day, there was an instrumental band of these operatives
playing sacred music close to the Exchange lamp. Amongst the crowd
around, I met with a friend of mine. He told me that the players
were from Staleybridge. They played some fine old tunes, by desire,
and, among the rest, they played one called "Warrington. "When they
had played it several times over, my friend turned to me and said,
"That tune was composed by a Rev. Mr Harrison, who was once minister
of Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, in Manchester; and, one day, an
old weaver, who had come down from the hills, many miles, staff in
hand, knocked at the minister's door, and asked if there was 'a
gentleman co'de' Harrison lived theer?' 'Yes.' 'Could aw see him?'
'Yes.' When the minister came to the door, the old weaver looked
hard at him, for a minute, and said, 'Are yo th' mon 'at composed
that tune co'de Worrington?' 'Yes,' replied the minister, 'I believe
I am.' 'Well,' said the old weaver, 'give me your hond! It's a good
un!' He then shook hands with him heartily again, and saying, 'Well,
good day to yo,' he went his way home again, before the old minister
could fairly collect his scattered thoughts."
I do not know how it is that these workless minstrels are gradually
becoming rarer upon the streets than they were a few months ago.
Perhaps it is because the unemployed are more liberally relieved now
than they were at first. I know that now many who have concealed
their starving condition are ferreted out and relieved as far as
possible. Many of these street wanderers have gone home again
disgusted, to pinch out the hard time in proud obscurity; and there
are some, no doubt, who have wandered away to other parts of
England. Of these last, we may naturally expect that a few may
become so reconciled to a life of wandering minstrelsy that they may
probably never return to settled labour again. But "there's a
divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Let us
trust that the Great Creator may comfort and relieve them,
"according to their several necessities, giving them patience under
their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions."
LETTER AND SPEECHES UPON THE COTTON FAMINE
LETTERS OF A LANCASHIRE LAD ON THE COTTON FAMINE.
The following extracts are from the letters of Mr. John Whittaker,
"A Lancashire Lad," one of the first writers whose appeals through
the press drew serious attention to the great distress in Lancashire
during the Cotton Famine. There is no doubt that his letters in The
Times, and to the Lord Mayor of London, led to the Mansion House
Fund. In The Times of April 14, 1862, appeared the first of a series
of letters, pleading the cause of the distressed operatives. He
said:-
"I am living in the centre of a vast district where there are many
cotton mills, which in ordinary times afford employment to many
thousands of 'hands,' and food to many more thousands of mouths.
With rare exceptions, quietness reigns at all those mills. . . . It
may be that our material atmosphere is somewhat brighter than it
was, but our social atmosphere is much darker and denser. Hard times
have come; and we have had them sufficiently long to know what they
mean. We have fathers sitting in the house at mid-day, silent and
glum, while children look wistfully about, and sometimes whimper for
bread which they cannot have. We have the same fathers who, before
hard times came, were proud men, who would have thought 'beggar' the
most opprobrious epithet you could have hit them with; but who now
are made humble by the sight of wife and children almost starving,
and who go before 'relief committees,' and submit to be questioned
about their wants with a patience and humility which it is painful,
almost schocking, to witness, And some others of these fathers turn
out in the morning with long besoms as street-sweepers, while others
again go to breaking stones in the town's yard or open road-side,
where they are unprotected from the keen east winds, which add a
little more to the burden of misery which they have to bear just
now. But, harder even than this, our factory-women and girls have
had to turn out; and, plodding a weary way from door to door, beg a
bit of bread or a stray copper, that they may eke out the scanty
supply at home. Only the other day, while taking a long stroll in
the country lying about the town in which I live, I met a few of
these factory-girls, and was stopped by their not very beggar-like
question of 'Con yo help us a bit?' They were just such as my own
sisters; and as I saw and heard them, I was almost choked as I
fancied my sisters come to such a pass as that. 'Con yo help us a
bit?' asked these factory girls.