For three years past trade has been getting worse and worse, and the
price of provisions higher and higher. This disparity between the amount
of the earnings of the working classes and the price of their food,
occasioned, in more cases than could well be imagined, disease and death.
Whole families went through a gradual starvation. They only wanted a
Dante to record their sufferings. And yet even his words would fall short
of the awful truth; they could only present an outline of the tremendous
facts of the destitution that surrounded thousands upon thousands in the
terrible years of 1839, 1840, and 1841. Even philanthropists who had
studied the subject were forced to own themselves perplexed in their
endeavour to ascertain the real causes of the misery; the whole matter
was of so complicated a nature that it became next to impossible to
understand it thoroughly. It need excite no surprise, then, to learn
that a bad feeling between working men and the upper classes became very
strong in this season of privation. The indigence and sufferings of the
operatives induced a suspicion in the minds of many of them that their
legislators, their magistrates, their employers, and even the ministers
of religion, were, in general, their oppressors and enemies; and were
in league for their prostration and enthralment. The most deplorable
and enduring evil that arose out of the period of commercial depression
to which I refer, was this feeling of alienation between the different
classes of society. It is so impossible to describe, or even faintly
to picture, the state of distress which prevailed in the town at that
time, that I will not attempt it; and yet I think again that surely,
in a Christian land, it was not known even so feebly as words could
tell it, or the more happy and fortunate would have thronged with their
sympathy and their aid. In many instances the sufferers wept first and
then they cursed. Their vindictive feelings exhibited themselves in
rabid politics. And when I hear, as I have heard, of the sufferings and
privations of the poor, of provision shops, where ha’porths of tea,
sugar, butter, and even flour, were sold to accommodate the indigent—of
parents sitting in their clothes by the fireside during the whole night
for seven weeks together, in order that their only bed and bedding might
be reserved for the use of their large family—of others sleeping upon
the cold hearthstone for weeks in succession, without adequate means of
providing themselves with food or fuel—and this in the depth of winter—of
others being compelled to fast for days together, uncheered by any hope
of better fortune, living, moreover, or rather starving, in a crowded
garret, or damp cellar, and gradually sinking under the pressure of want
and despair, into a premature grave; and when this has been confirmed by
the evidence of their careworn looks, their excited feelings, and their
desolate homes—can I wonder that many of them, in such times of misery
and destitution, spoke and acted with ferocious precipitation?
An idea was now springing up among the operatives, that originated with
the Chartists, but which came at last to be cherished as a darling child
by many and many a one. They could not believe that Government knew of
their misery: they rather chose to think it possible that men could
voluntarily assume the office of legislators for a nation who were
ignorant of its real state; as who should make domestic rules for the
pretty behaviour of children without caring to know that those children
had been kept for days without food. Besides, the starving multitudes
had heard that the very existence of their distress had been denied in
Parliament; and though they felt this strange and inexplicable, yet the
idea that their misery had still to be revealed in all its depths, and
that then some remedy would be found, soothed their aching hearts, and
kept down their rising fury.
So a petition was framed, and signed by thousands in the bright spring
days of 1839, imploring Parliament to hear witnesses who could testify to
the unparalleled destitution of the manufacturing districts. Nottingham,
Sheffield, Glasgow, Manchester, and many other towns were busy appointing
delegates to convey this petition, who might speak, not merely of what
they had seen, and had heard, but from what they had borne and suffered.
Life-worn, gaunt, anxious, hunger-stamped men were those delegates.
One of them was John Barton. He would have been ashamed to own the
flutter of spirits his appointment gave him. There was the childish
delight of seeing London—that went a little way, and but a little way.
There was the vain idea of speaking out his notions before so many grand
folk—that went a little further; and last, there was the really pure
gladness of heart arising from the idea that he was one of those chosen
to be instruments in making known the distresses of the people, and
consequently in procuring them some grand relief, by means of which they
should never suffer want or care any more. He hoped largely, but vaguely,
of the results of his expedition. An argosy of the precious hopes
of many otherwise despairing creatures was that petition to be heard
concerning their sufferings.
The night before the morning on which the Manchester delegates were
to leave for London, Barton might be said to hold a levée, so many
neighbours came dropping in. Job Legh had early established himself and
his pipe by John Barton’s fire, not saying much, but puffing away, and
imagining himself of use in adjusting the smoothing-irons that hung
before the fire, ready for Mary when she should want them. As for Mary,
her employment was the same as that of Beau Tibbs’ wife, “just washing
her father’s two shirts,” in the pantry back-kitchen; for she was anxious
about his appearance in London. (The coat had been redeemed, though the
silk handkerchief was forfeited.) The door stood open, as usual, between
the house-place and the back-kitchen, so she gave her greeting to their
friends as they entered.
“So, John, yo’re bound for London, are yo?” said one.
“Ay, I suppose, I mun go,” answered John, yielding to necessity as it
were.
“Well, there’s many a thing I’d like yo to speak on to the Parliament
people. Thou’lt not spare ’em, John, I hope. Tell ’em our minds; how
we’re thinking we’n been clemmed long enough, and we donnot see whatten
good they’n been doing, if they can’t give us what we’re all crying for
sin’ the day we were born.”
“Ay, ay! I’ll tell ’em that, and much more to it, when it gets to my
turn; but thou knows there’s many will have their word afore me.”
“Well, thou’ll speak at last. Bless thee, lad, do ask ’em to make th’
masters to break th’ machines. There’s never been good times sin’
spinning-jennies came up.”
“Machines is th’ ruin of poor folk,” chimed in several voices.
“For my part,” said a shivering, half-clad man, who crept near the
fire, as if ague-stricken, “I would like thee to tell ’em to pass th’
Short-hours Bill. Flesh and blood gets wearied wi’ so much work; why
should factory hands work so much longer nor other trades? Just ask ’em
that, Barton, will ye?”
Barton was saved the necessity of answering, by the entrance of Mrs.
Davenport, the poor widow he had been so kind to; she looked half-fed,
and eager, but was decently clad. In her hand she brought a little
newspaper parcel, which she took to Mary, who opened it, and then called
out, dangling a shirt-collar from her soapy fingers:
“See, father, what a dandy you’ll be in London! Mrs. Davenport has
brought you this; made new cut, all after the fashion. Thank you for
thinking on him.”
“Eh, Mary!” said Mrs. Davenport, in a low voice, “whatten’s all I can do,
to what he’s done for me and mine? But, Mary, sure I can help ye, for
you’ll be busy wi’ this journey.”
“Just help me wring these out, and then I’ll take ’em to the mangle.”
So Mrs. Davenport became a listener to the conversation; and after awhile
joined in.
“I’m sure, John Barton, if yo are taking messages to the Parliament
folk, yo’ll not object to telling ’em what a sore trial it is, this law
o’ theirs, keeping childer fra’ factory work, whether they be weakly
or strong. There’s our Ben; why, porridge seems to go no way wi’ him,
he eats so much; and I han gotten no money to send him t’ school, as I
would like; and there he is, rampaging about the streets a’ day, getting
hungrier and hungrier, and picking up a’ manner o’ bad ways; and th’
inspector won’t let him in to work in th’ factory, because he’s not right
age; though he’s twice as strong as Sankey’s little ritling of a lad, as
works till he cries for his legs aching so, though he is right age, and
better.”
“I’ve one plan I wish to tell John Barton,” said a pompous,
careful-speaking man, “and I should like him for to lay it afore
the Honourable House. My mother comed out o’ Oxfordshire, and were
under-laundry-maid in Sir Francis Dashwood’s family; and when we were
little ones, she’d tell us stories of their grandeur; and one thing
she named were that Sir Francis wore two shirts a day. Now he were all
as one as a Parliament man; and many on ’em, I han no doubt, are like
extravagant. Just tell ’em, John, do, that they’d be doing the Lancashire
weavers a great kindness, if they’d ha’ their shirts a’ made o’ calico;
’twould make trade brisk, that would, wi’ the power o’ shirts they wear.”
Job Legh now put in his word. Taking the pipe out of his mouth, and
addressing the last speaker, he said:
“I’ll tell ye what, Bill, and no offence, mind ye; there’s but hundreds
of them Parliament folk as wear so many shirts to their back; but there’s
thousands and thousands o’ poor weavers as han only gotten one shirt i’
the world; ay, and don’t know where t’ get another when that rag’s done,
though they’re turning out miles o’ calico every day; and many a mile
o’t is lying in warehouses, stopping up trade for want o’ purchasers. Yo
take my advice, John Barton, and ask Parliament to set trade free, so as
workmen can earn a decent wage, and buy their two, ay and three, shirts a
year; that would make weaving brisk.”
He put his pipe in his mouth again, and redoubled his puffing, to make up
for lost time.
“I’m afeard, neighbours,” said John Barton, “I’ve not much chance o’
telling ’em all yo say: what I think on, is just speaking out about the
distress that they say is nought. When they hear o’ children born on
wet flags, without a rag t’ cover ’em or a bit o’ food for th’ mother:
when they hear of folk lying down to die i’ th’ streets, or hiding their
want i’ some hole o’ a cellar till death come to set ’em free; and when
they hear o’ all this plague, pestilence, and famine, they’ll surely
do somewhat wiser for us than we can guess at now. Howe’er, I han no
objection, if so be there’s an opening, to speak up for what yo say;
anyhow, I’ll do my best, and yo see now, if better times don’t come after
Parliament knows all.”