witchod (wet-shod), an' as ill as he con be." "Who's witchod?" asked
the chairman. "My husban' is," replied the woman; "an' he connot
ston it just neaw, yo mun let HIM have a pair iv yo con." "Give her
two pairs of clogs," said the chairman. Another woman took her clog
off, and held it up, saying,

"Look at that. We're o' walkin' o'th floor; an' smoor't wi' cowds."
One decent-looking old body, with a starved face, applied. The
chairman said, "Why, what's your son doing now? Has he catched no
rabbits lately?" "Nay, aw dunnot know 'at he does. Aw get nought;
an' it's ME at wants summat, Mr Eccles," replied the old woman, in a
tremulous tone, with the water rising in her eyes. "Well, come; we
mustn't punish th' owd woman for her son," said one of the
guardians. Various forms of the feebleness of age appeared before
the Board that day. "What's your son John getting, Mary?" said the
chairman to one old woman. "Whor?" replied she. "What's your son
John getting?" The old woman put her hand up to her ear, and
answered,

"Aw'm rayther deaf. What say'n yo?" It turned out that her son was
taken ill, and they were relieved. In the course of inquiries I
found that the working people of Blackburn, as elsewhere in
Lancashire, nickname their workshops as well as themselves. The
chairman asked a girl where she worked at last, and the girl
replied, "At th' 'Puff-an'-dart.'" "And what made you leave there?"
"Whau, they were woven up." One poor, pale fellow, a widower, said
he had "worched" a bit at "Bang-the-nation," till he was taken ill,
and then they had "shopped his place," that is, they had given his
work to somebody else. Another, when asked where he had been
working, replied, "At Se'nacre Bruck (Seven-acre Brook), wheer th'