ry it away or
consume it on the premises. 3. Messrs __ are giving to their hands
three days' wages (about 500 pounds a week.) Messrs __ and __ are
giving their one hundred and twenty hands, and Messrs their two
hundred and thirty hands, two days' wages a week. I may mention that
Messrs __ are providing for all their one thousand seven hundred
hands. 4. A great deal of private charity exists, one firm having
spent 1400 pounds in money, exclusive of weekly doles of bread. 5.
Messrs __ are providing all their old hands with sufficient clothing
and bedding to supply every want, so that their subscription of 50
pounds is merely nominal. 6. The ladies of the village visit and
relieve privately with money, food, or clothing, or all, if needed
urgently. In a few cases distraint has been threatened, but
generally the poor are living rent free. 7. Payment of rent is
almost unknown. The agent for several landlords assures me he could
not from his receipts pay the property-tax, but no distraints are
made. 8. The bulk of the rents are not collected, and distraints are
unknown. 9. The millowners are chiefly cottage-owners, and are
asking for no rents.'

That leads me to call your attention to the fact that, in addition
to the sacrifices they are making, the millowners are themselves to
a large extent the owners of cottages, and I believe, without
exception, they are at the present moment receiving no rent, thereby
losing a large amount of income they had a right to count upon. I
know one case which is curious as showing how great is the
difficulty of ascertaining what is really done. It is required in
the executive committee that every committee should send in an
account of the local subscriptions. We received an application from
a small district where there was one mill, occupied by some young
men who had just entered into the business. We returned a refusal,
inasmuch as there was no local subscription; but when we came to
inquire, we found that from last February, when the mill closed,
these young men had maintained the whole of their hands, that they
paid one-third of the rates of the whole district, and that they
were at that moment suffering a yearly loss of 300 pounds in the
rent of cottages for which they were not drawing a single halfpenny.
That was a case in which we thought it right in the first instance
to withhold any assistance, because there appeared to be no local
subscription, and it shows how persons at a distance