tang which once
escaped from some travelling menagerie, was re-taken at this place.
I sat until the last application had been disposed of, which was
about half-past two in the afternoon. The business had taken up
nearly four hours and a half.

I had a good deal of conversation with people who were intimately
acquainted with the town and its people; and I was informed that, in
spite of the struggle for existence which is now going on, and not
unlikely to continue for some time, there are things happening
amongst the working people there, which do not seem wise, under
existing circumstances. The people are much better informed now than
they were twenty years ago; but, still, something of the old
blindness lingers amongst them, here and there. For instance, at one
mill, in Blackburn, where the operatives were receiving 11s. a week
for two looms, the proprietor offered to give his workpeople three
looms each, with a guarantee for constant employment until the end
of next August, if they would accept one and a quarter pence less
for the weaving of each piece. This offer, if taken, would have
raised their wages to an average of 14s. 6d. a week. It was
declined, however, and they are now working, as before, only on two
looms each, with uncertainty of employment, at lls. a week. Perhaps
it is too much to expect that such things should die out all at
once. But I heard also that the bricklayers' labourers at Blackburn
struck work last week for an advance of wages from 3s. 6d. a day to
4s. a day. This seems very untimely, to say the least of it. Apart
from these things, there is, amongst all classes, a kind of cheery
faith in the return of good times, although nobody can see what they
may have to go through yet, before the clouds break. It is a fact
that there are more than forty new places ready, or nearly ready,
for starting, in and about Blackburn, when trade revives.

After dinner, I walked down Darwen Street. Stopping to look at a
music-seller's window, a rough-looking fellow, bareheaded and
without coat, came sauntering across the road from a shop opposite.
As he came near he shouted out, "Nea then Heaw go!" I turned round;
and, seeing that I was a stranger, he said, "Oh; aw thought it had
bin another chap." "Well," said I, "heaw are yo gettin' on, these
times?" "Divulish ill," replied he. "Th' little maisters are runnin'
a bit, some three, some four days. T'other are stopt o' together,
welly. . . . It's thin pikein' for