wife and three children in their cellar-home. The wife was very near
her confinement, and had not tasted food for two or three days. . .
. There are in this town some hundreds of young single women who
have been self-dependent, but who are now entirely without means.
Nearly all of these are good English girls, who have quietly fought
their own life-battle, but who now have hard work to withstand the
attacks this grim poverty is making. I am told of a case in which
one of these girls was forced to become one of that class of whom
poor Hood sang in his 'Bridge of Sighs.' She was an orphan, had no
relations here, and was tossed about from place to place till she
found her way to a brothel. Thank God, she has been rescued. Our
relief fund has been the means of relieving her from that
degradation; but cannot those who read my letter see how strong are
the temptations which their want places in the way of these poor
girls!"

On 25th April a number of city merchants, most of whom were
interested in the cotton manufacture, waited upon the Lord Mayor of
London, with a view to interest him, and through him the public at
large, in the increasing distress among the operative population in
the manufacturing districts of Lancashire. Previous to this, the
"Lancashire Lad" had made a private appeal, by letter, to the Lord
Mayor, in which he said:-

"Local means are nearly exhausted, and I am convinced that if we
have not help from without, our condition will soon be more
desperate than I or any one else who possesses human feelings can
wish it to become. To see the homes of those whom we know and
respect, though they are but working men, stripped of every bit of
furniture--to see long-cherished books and pictures sent one by one