of which the intention is to purchase, by subscription, flannel, calico,
&c. to be made up into articles of useful wearing apparel, by any
respectable women who may be thankful to fill up their intervals of
involuntary leisure by using their needles. The Clothing thus made is
sold at the cost price of the materials. A wife, therefore, who makes
her husband’s shirts, may obtain it for little more than her own labour.
That this Society supplies a gap in the District Organization is not more
plain from the consideration that out of the 144 workers, whom it has
employed, 118 have been recommended by the Visitors, than from the
position which it has assumed, as a valuable coadjutor in the industrial
training of young females. Under its auspices, many girls have been led
forward from plain to fine needle-work, and some who commenced by
experiments on aprons may now be trusted with the finish of a garment
requiring the neat performance of accomplished skill. It has also proved
of considerable service by undertaking emigrant orders. One family, in
particular, was indebted to its ready-made department to a large extent;
and thus not only enabled the Committee to dispose of a portion of their
superfluous stock, but benefitted themselves by procuring what they
wanted much cheaper and better than they could have done at the
outfitting shop. Charitable persons using its agency to furnish clothes
for the Jennings’ Buildings and Gore Lane Schools, or, indeed, for the
poor at all, have the double satisfaction of knowing that they are doing
good, not merely by their gift, but by its preparation also; while to the
ladies superintending the cutting out and execution of the work, and
conducting its weekly sale, special thanks are tendered by the Committee,
who are not unaware of the time and regularity that so intricate a duty
must demand. The sales alluded to have realized nearly £60, of which £7
13_s._ was received from the Depositors to the Clothing Fund. Owing to
the change in the Collector, some subscriptions were omitted to be sent
for last year, and the consequence has been, that the receipts under that
head are less than those on former occasions; nevertheless, the accounts
have nearly balanced themselves, and there is no reason to imagine that
they will not entirely recover by the next audit. It would be
uncourteous to close this retrospect of the Work Society, without
expressing its acknowledgments to the linen drapers of the town for their
continued disinterested and valuable assistance.
But the most resolute determination to preserve a position of
independence cannot always contend against the adverse vicissitudes of
life. Sickness visits all in turn; and though a man may struggle through
the illnesses of wife and children, what is his resource when he is
himself struck down? Must he, with a family heretofore respectably and
honestly supported—after his tools, furniture, and clothes are pawned,—be
at last consigned to what is, in fact, to him, the degradation of the
workhouse, or so pledge his future labour, under an accumulation of debt
incurred perforce, that all hope of future freedom from its load must, on
reasonable calculation, be shut out? Judged even by the maxims of the
most rigid political economist, no less than by the diviner impulse of a
just compassion, indifference in such a case were not only _a crime_,
_but a blunder_. For if by a judicious advance of money, it be possible
to procure that attendance, medicine, nourishment, and change of air,
required for the restoration of the sinking patient to his normal health,
it is clear that the productive energy, which is the immediate source of
national wealth, must be increased, by the same means that carry into
effect a paramount part of Christian obligation. It is, therefore, very
satisfactory to find that while the number of cases relieved by the
Visitors during December, 1852, are less by one third than those of the
corresponding month in 1851; even of these considerably more than half
come under the category of sickness. The analysis of the Visitors’ books
gives the following result of cases assisted in December last:—
By In age. In poverty. Out of Sickness.
employment. work.
13 32 31 36 156
This return is an abstract of the work in thirty-two Districts only, yet
in these, in one month, two hundred and sixty-eight families
participated, more or less, in the bounty of the Society.