AMONG THE BLACKBURN OPERATIVES
"Poor Tom's a-cold. Who gives anything to poor Tom?"
--King Lear.

Blackburn is one of the towns which has suffered more than the rest
in the present crisis, and yet a stranger to the place would not see
anything in its outward appearance indicative of this adverse nip of
the times. But to any one familiar with the town in its prosperity,
the first glance shows that there is now something different on foot
there, as it did to me on Friday last. The morning was wet and raw,
a state of weather in which Blackburn does not wear an Arcadian
aspect, when trade is good. Looking round from the front of the
railway station, the first thing which struck me was the great
number of tall chimneys which were smokeless, and the unusual
clearness of the air. Compared with the appearance of the town when
in full activity, there is now a look of doleful holiday, an
unnatural fast-day quietness about everything. There were few carts
astir, and not so many people in the streets as usual, although so
many are out of work there. Several, in the garb of factory
operatives, were leaning upon the bridge, and others were trailing
along in twos and threes, looking listless and cold; but nobody
seemed in a hurry. Very little of the old briskness was visible.
When the mills are in full work, the streets are busy with heavy
loads of twist and cloth; and the workpeople hurry in blithe crowds
to and from the factories, full of life and glee, for factory labour
is not so hurtful to healthy life as it was thirty years ago, nor as
some people think it now, who don't know much about it. There were