rinted from the Manchester Examiner and Times of 1862)

CHAPTER I.

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
few people at the shop windows, and fewer inside. I went into some
of the shops to buy trifling things of different kinds, making
inquiries about the state of trade meanwhile, and, wherever I went,
I met with the same gloomy answers. They were doing nothing, taking
nothing; and they didn't know how things would end. They had the
usual expenses going on, with increasing rates, and a fearfully
lessened income, still growing less. And yet they durst not
complain; but had to contribute towards the relief of their starving
neighbours, sometimes even when they themselves ought to be
receiving relief, if their true condition was known. I heard of
several shopkeepers who had not taken more across their counters for
weeks past than would pay their rents, and so