There is no occasion to put our small account again in print till the
end of the year: we are not more than ten pounds ahead, since last
month.
I certainly would not have believed, six years ago, that I had so few
friends who had any trust in me; or that the British public would have
entirely declined to promote such an object as the purchase of land for
national freehold.
Next year I shall urge the operatives whom any words of mine may reach,
to begin some organization with a view to this object among themselves.
They have already combined to build co-operative mills; they would find
common land a more secure investment.
I am very anxious to support, with a view to the determination of a
standard of material in dress, the wool manufacture among the
old-fashioned cottagers of the Isle of Man; and I shall be especially
grateful to any readers of Fors who will communicate with Mr. Egbert
Rydings (Laxey, Isle of Man,) on this subject. In the island itself Mr.
Rydings tells me, the stuffs are now little worn by the better classes,
because they ‘wear too long,’—a fault which I hope there may be yet
found English housewives who will forgive. At all events, I mean the
square yard of Laxey homespun of a given weight, to be one of the
standards of value in St George’s currency.
The cheque of £25, sent to Mr. Rydings for the encouragement of some of
the older and feebler workers, is the only expenditure, beyond those
for fittings slowly proceeded with in our museum at Sheffield, to which
I shall have to call attention at the year’s end.