and idleness-
-a calamity which has converted that which was the source of our
greatest wealth into the deepest abyss of impoverishment--a calamity
which has impoverished the wealthy, which has reduced men of easy
fortunes to the greatest straits, which has brought distress upon
those who have hitherto been somewhat above the world by the
exercise of frugal industry, and which has reduced honest and
struggling poverty to a state of absolute and humiliating
destitution. Gentlemen, it is to meet this calamity that we are met
together this day, to add our means and our assistance to those
efforts which have been so nobly made throughout the country
generally, and, I am bound to say, in this county also, as I shall
prove to you before I conclude my remarks. Gentlemen, I know how
impossible it is by any figures to convey an idea of the extent of
the destitution which now prevails, and I know also how impatient
large assemblies are of any extensive use of figures, or even of
figures at all; but at the same time, it is impossible for me to lay
before you the whole state of the case, in opening this resolution,
and asking you to resolve with regard to the extent of the distress
which now prevails, without trespassing on your attention by a few,
and they shall be a very few, figures, which shall show the extent,
if not the pressure, throughout this district, of the present
distress. And, gentlemen, I think I shall best give you an idea of
the amount of distress and destitution which prevails, by very
shortly comparing the state of things which existed in the districts
to which I refer in the month of September 1861, as compared with
the month of September 1862, and with that again only about two
weeks ago, which is the latest information we have--up to the 22d of
last month.

I find then, gentlemen, that in a district comprising, in round
numbers, two million inhabitants--for that is about the number in
that district--in the fourth week of September 1861, there were
forty-three thousand five hundred persons receiving parochial
relief; in the fourth week of September 1862, there were one hundred
and sixty-three thousand four hundred and ninety-eight persons
receiving parochial relief; and in the short space which elapsed
between the last week of September and the third week of November
the number of one hundred and sixty-three thousand four hundred and
ninety-eight had increased to two hundred and fifty-nine thousand
three hun