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 poor folk just neaw. But th'
shopkeepers an' th' ale-heawses are in for it as ill as ony mak.
There'll be crashin' amung some on 'em afore lung." After this, I
spent a few minutes in the market-place, which was "slacker" than
usual, as might be expected, for, as the Scotch proverb says,
"Sillerless folk gang fast through the market." Later on, I went up
to Bank Top, on the eastern edge of the town, where many factory
operatives reside. Of course, there is not any special quarter where
they are clustered in such a manner as to show their condition as a
whole. They are scattered all round the town, living as near as
possible to the mills in which they are employed. Here I talked with
some of the small shopkeepers, and found them all more or less
troubled with the same complaint. One owner of a provision shop said
to me, "Wi'n a deeal o' brass owin'; but it's mostly owin' by folk
at'll pay sometime. An' then, th' part on 'em are doin' a bit yo
known; an' they bring'n their trifle o' ready brass to us; an' so
we're trailin' on. But folk han to trust us a bit for their stuff,
dunnot yo see,--or else it would be 'Wo-up!' soon." I heard of one
beerhouse, the owner of which had only drawn ls. 6d. during a whole
week. His children were all factory operatives, and all out of work.