Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine by Edwin Waugh
page 47 of 202 (23%)
page 47 of 202 (23%)
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bread as she went away. He mentioned other instances of the same
humane feeling; and he said, "After what I have seen of them here, I say, 'Let me fall into the hands of the poor.'" "They who, half-fed, feed the breadless, in the travail of distress; They who, taking from a little, give to those who still have less; They who, needy, yet can pity when they look on greater need; These are Charity's disciples,--these are Mercy's sons indeed." We returned to the middle of the town just as the shopkeepers in Friargate were beginning to take their shutters down. I had another engagement at half-past nine. A member of the Trinity Ward Relief Committee, who is master of the Catholic school in that ward, had offered to go with me to visit some distressed people who were under his care in that part of the town. We left Friargate at the appointed time. As we came along there was a crowd in front of Messrs Wards', the fishmongers. A fine sturgeon had just been brought in. It had been caught in the Ribble that morning. We went in to look at the royal fish. It was six feet long, and weighed above a hundred pounds. I don't know that I ever saw a sturgeon before. But we had other fish to fry; and so we went on. The first place we called at was a cellar in Nile Street. "Here," said my companion, "let us have a look at old John." A gray-headed little man, of seventy, lived down in this one room, sunken from the street. He had been married forty years, and if I remember aright, he lost his wife about four years ago. Since that time, he had lived in this cellar, all alone, washing and cooking for himself. But I think the last would not trouble him much, for "they have no need for fine cooks who have only one potato to their dinner." When a lad, he had been apprenticed to a bobbin turner. Afterwards he |
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