servants. My advice would be to speak to the servants about it, and see what terms could be made for the occasion with valets who stick to their rights: but valets have the same sort of heart as other people; and they may turn out as glad as other folk to do something for Lancashire. However the valets may behave, there must still be thousands of families where the boys outgrow their garments, and their fathers get new coats before the old are worn out. Will they not make them up in parcels for some Lancashire town?
It may do some service to both the sufferers and their protectors, if contributors should quietly discountenace the sectarian spirit which shows itself so strangely in some of the centres of relief. At Blackburn, contributors are asked which sects they wish to give their gifts to! and a letter to the “Times,” from “A Churchman” assumes that there is something ridiculous and inconvenient, and improper, in young women of different religious denominations sitting in the same room to learn to sew, and earn a meal. At Ashton-under-Lyne, the Relief Committee resolved to exclude all clergymen; and religious quarrels ran so high that the sufferers were neglected by the wranglers. Such things seem scarcely credible. If there is to be singing of hymns at the work-tables, what then? Such trifling is real folly in the presence of a calamity which should make us all feel as brethren.
At Ashton, certain clergy and their flocks, of different denominations, have shown that they can work harmoniously together, if others will not work with them. They admit the hungry and downcast without inquiring what their theological profession is; and they consult and dispense relief together, without introducing topics which are unconnected with the business of the hour. The best rebuke that the bigots could receive would be an universal repudiation, on the part of all givers, of all sectarian ideas and feelings. The need, and how to meet it, is the one question for us all; and if we keep it before us in its simplicity, the bigots of all sects will understand the rebuke, and may be the better for it in all time to come.
There is yet another mode of relief; and to me it seems that none can be more important. It has an advantage in the probability of its being self-supporting; and it has a disadvantage in being dependent on local effort,—and especially the efforts of resident women. Money and something more may be given from a distance; but the aid in kind cannot be anything like the contributions that may be sent to the Sewing-schools. The appeal must therefore be made to the ladies of Manchester, and the other towns in the distressed district; and if I may be permitted to speak so strongly, I do conjure those ladies to set to work without one day’s delay, to establish Cooking-schools in their own neighbourhood. It may be that the thing will be well begun before these lines are published. If so, let my entreaties be read as thanks and congratulation. If not, I would ask them whether any way was ever more plain before women anxious to do good; or whether there was ever a more urgent need that it should be followed. Thus far, I understand the case to be this.
In the “Manchester Guardian” there appeared, lately, a letter from the chairman of one of the Relief Committees, declaring the strong need there was of a provision of cooked food, for certain cases of distress. The subject was taken up by some one who evidently understands the economy of good cookery, and is aware of the ignorant wastefulness which prevails among the factorywomen, and which sorely aggravates their poverty. This writer, “E. L.,” suggests that a house should be taken in Manchester, and supplied with stoves, fuel, and other requisites; and that the relief food, and other food, should be prepared by young women, under good instruction. They would have the same advantages of safety and occupation as in the Sewing-schools, and would be learning the art which it is above all important for them to understand. They would have their meals in return for their labour, and might essentially assist their families by improving their diet. It would cost less to have the relief food cooked at the schools, than to dispose of it as the poor people now do. They prefer having money; and then they spend it in getting new bread, warm from the oven, or watery potatoes, or something that has even less good nourishment in it. They loathe the regular dole of meal, which they do not know how to make pleasant; and they are apt to change it away for some relishing morsel which has a flavour of old days in it. With the very best management, the allowance is too small to do more than keep life in; and the best way to prevent the people from wasting away in hunger is to give them cooked food, or teach them to prepare it for themselves.
The thing has been done before on a smaller scale, and proved to be easily self-supporting, when once fairly established. There have been such kitchens attached to the National and other schools; and the results which have been published show how eagerly the cheap diets they provide are bought up.
In case of this being done at Manchester, as the editor of the “Guardian” earnestly advises, aid from a distance must be chiefly in money to supply implements, fuel, and provisions; but there is some help that might be given in kind. A hundredweight of rice would be a good present: and broken rice is extremely cheap, and just as good for nourishment and palateableness as the best-looking. Red rice is cheap, too. A barrel of sweet Indian meal is another good present; and a package of sugar and a cask of American or Irish beef or pork; and salt and dried fish, and barrels of potatoes, and many other imported articles, besides the gifts that might flow in from neighbouring market gardens and butchers’-shops.
I remember an experiment made by a benevolent friend of mine at a time when it was necessary to the support of a whole town, that the greatest number of persons should be fed at the smallest cost; and the result of my friend’s experience was, that the cheapest food,—really good and agreeable food,—was a compound of Indian meal and rice, well flavoured with condiments. The people liked it, and they especially liked
