ABSTRACT

The committee had for a considerable time, on the approach of winter, anxiously endeavoured to get the various boards of guardians to raise the allowance of recipients during the winter to an average of two shillings per head per week, and had them-- selves made very liberal grants to the local relief committees. To these exertions and this liberality, together with the mental occupation afforded to adults and juveniles in the schools, was probably owing the almost total exemption from the famine fever and other epidemics, which had been very generally feared as likely to break out in the winter season. But the danger was now past, and the returning mildness of the spring invited, and the growing ennui of the adult schools showed the necessity for, more active employment to preserve the morale of the operatives; whilst the prospect of the future dictated prudence in regard to expendi-- ture, so that the funds might not be exhausted, prior to a renewal of the cotton supply, sufficient for the ordinary work of the operatives.