ABSTRACT
ON 29th April, 1862, a meeting of gentlemen residents, called by Thomas Goads by, Esq., mayor of Manchester, was held in the Town Hall of that city, to consider the propriety of forming a relief committee. The general opinion expressed at the meeting was that there was no necessity for any other than existing agen-- cies to deal with the distress, and a majority decided against taking any action. The view of the gentlemen present appears to have been confined to Manchester, including Salford, which, from its cosmopolitan character, must always suffer less in commercial crises than the surrounding towns, where the bulk of the popula-- tion is dependent upon the cotton manufacture. In Easter week a great fair is annually held on Camp Field, in the west end of Manchester, which is attended by all the holiday-makers of the district, for many miles around. Theatrical booths, wild beast shows, exhibitions of giants and dwarfs, tents for equestrian and acro-- batic performances, &c., &c., then fill the space upon which, in the early annals of Britain, the soldiers of the Roman empire were once encamped ; the stalls of itinerant confectioners and toy dealers occupy half the width of the main streets in the vicinity, and the throng of visitors at night is frequently so great that a nim-- ble acrobat would find no difficulty in running for half a mile upon the shoulders of the people. The corporation of Manchester derives
considerable revenue from these street tenants of a week, and one of the arguments for doing nothing used at the above-named meeting was that " Knott Mill fair" had been very successful ; and another was that the rents of cottages owned by the speaker were being very well paid. Persons removed to a distance, either by space or time, are often better judges of events than those who are on the spot, or who are engaged in the transactions under review. The country was already alive to the troubles of Lancashire. The newspaper press was urging all influential persons to immediate exertion. The Lord Mayor of London had a fortnight before announced his willingness to receive subscriptions, and money was pouring into the Mansion House fund ; whilst a meeting of influen-- tial gentlemen, in the centre of the distressed district itself, decided, after due consideration, to do nothing. And the majority of the meeting were earnest and conscientious in the decision to which they came ; their conclusion implied no want of sympathy in real suffering, but simply a belief that the distress was not so great as it was represented to be ; that the agencies already at work were sufficient for the occasion ; and that certainly no outside help was needed for Manchester. The editor of The Telegraph newspaper, laudably anxious for a thorough knowledge of the state of affairs, and anxious also to learn how his powerful pen could be made most useful for help, is said to have found the spirit of independence in Manchester Town Hall so strong that he, as an outsider, was scarcely received with courtesy; nevertheless he appealed to his numerous readers on behalf of the suffering poor, and afterwards made the central executive his debtor, by remittances of £6,302.12s. 6d. But there were men in Manchester who saw farther than the majority of the meeting ; and who, as the dark cloud continued to gather, resolved to make another effort.
