ttacks this grim poverty is making. I am told of a case in which
one of these girls was forced to become one of that class of whom
poor Hood sang in his 'Bridge of Sighs.' She was an orphan, had no
relations here, and was tossed about from place to place till she
found her way to a brothel. Thank God, she has been rescued. Our
relief fund has been the means of relieving her from that
degradation; but cannot those who read my letter see how strong are
the temptations which their want places in the way of these poor
girls!"

On 25th April a number of city merchants, most of whom were
interested in the cotton manufacture, waited upon the Lord Mayor of
London, with a view to interest him, and through him the public at
large, in the increasing distress among the operative population in
the manufacturing districts of Lancashire. Previous to this, the
"Lancashire Lad" had made a private appeal, by letter, to the Lord
Mayor, in which he said:-

"Local means are nearly exhausted, and I am convinced that if we
have not help from without, our condition will soon be more
desperate than I or any one else who possesses human feelings can
wish it to become. To see the homes of those whom we know and
respect, though they are but working men, stripped of every bit of
furniture--to see long-cherished books and pictures sent one by one
to the pawn-shop, that food may be had--and to see that food almost
loathsome in kind, and insufficient in quantity,--are hard, very
hard things to bear. But those are not the worst things. In many of
our cottage homes there is now nothing left by the pawning of which
a few pence may be raised, and the mothers and sisters of we
'Lancashire lads' have turned out to beg, and ofttimes knock at the
doors of houses in which there is as much destitution as there is in
our own; while the fathers and the lads themselves think they are
very fortunate if they can earn a shilling or two by street-sweeping
or stone breaking. . . . Will you not do for us what you have done
for others--become the recipient of whatever moneys those who are
inclined to help us may send to you?"

The Lord Mayor, having listened to the deputation, read them the
personal appeal, and, "before separating, the deputation engaged to
form themselves into a provisional committee, to correspond with any
local one which circumstances might render it desirable to set on
foot in some central part of the distressed districts." Immediately
afterward