Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine by Edwin Waugh
page 49 of 202 (24%)
page 49 of 202 (24%)
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living, almost entirely, upon relief, either from the parish or from
the Relief Committee. There was only one house where no relief was needed. As we passed by, the doors were nearly all open, and the interiors all presented the same monotonous phase of destitution. They looked as if they had been sacked by bum-bailiffs. The topmost house was the only place where I saw a fire. A family of eight lived there. They were Irish people. The wife, a tall, cheerful woman, sat suckling her child, and giving a helping hand now and then to her husband's work. He was a little, pale fellow, with only one arm, and he had an impediment in his speech. He had taken to making cheap boxes of thin, rough deal, afterwards covered with paper. With the help of his wife he could make one in a day, and he got ninepence profit out of it--when the box was sold. He was working at one when we went in, and he twirled it proudly about with his one arm, and stammered out a long explanation about the way it had been made; and then he got upon the lid, and sprang about a little, to let us see how much it would bear. As the brave little tattered man stood there upon the box-lid, springing, and sputtering, and waving his one arm, his wife looked up at him with a smile, as if she thought him "the greatest wight on ground." There was a little curly-headed child standing by, quietly taking in all that was going on. I laid my hand upon her head; and asked her what her name was. She popped her thumb into her mouth, and looked shyly about from one to another, but never a word could I get her to say. "That's Lizzy," said the woman; "she is a little visitor belongin' to one o' the neighbours. They are badly off, and she often comes in. Sure, our childer is very fond of her, an' so she is of them. She is fine company wid ourselves, but always very shy wid strangers. Come now, Lizzy, darlin'; tell us your name, love, won't you, now?" But it was no use; we couldn't get her to speak. In the next cottage where we |
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