asserts that the poor-rate was, taking the average, twice as high as in 1839, and that the number of persons requiring relief has trebled, even quintupled, since that time; that a multitude of applicants belong to a class which had never before solicited relief; that the working-class commands more than two-thirds less of the means of subsistence than from 1834-1836; that the consumption of meat had been decidedly less, in some places twenty per cent., in others reaching sixty per cent. less; that even handicraftsmen, smiths, bricklayers, and others, who usually have full employment in the most depressed periods, now suffered greatly from want of work and reduction of wages; and that, even now, in January, 1843, wages are still steadily falling.  And these are the reports of manufacturers!  The starving workmen, whose mills were idle, whose employers could give them no work, stood in the streets in all directions, begged singly or in crowds, besieged the sidewalks in armies, and appealed to the passers-by for help; they begged, not cringing like ordinary beggars, but threatening by their numbers, their gestures, and their words.  Such was the state of things in all the industrial districts, from Leicester to Leeds, and from Manchester to Birmingham.  Here and there disturbances arose, as in the Staffordshire potteries, in July.  The most frightful excitement prevailed among the workers until the general insurrection broke out throughout the manufacturing districts in August.  When I came to Manchester in November, 1842, there were crowds of unemployed working-men at every street corner, and many mills were still standing idle.  In the following months these unwilling corner loafers gradually vanished, and the factories came into activity once more.

To what extent want and suffering prevail among these unemployed during such a crisis, I need not describe.  The poor-rates are insufficient, vastly insufficient; the philanthropy of the rich is a rain-drop in the ocean, lost in the moment of falling, beggary can support but few among the crowds.  If the small dealers did not sell to the working-people on credit at such times as long as possible—­paying themselves liberally afterwards, it must be confessed—­and if the working-people did not help each other, every crisis would remove a multitude of the surplus through death by starvation.  Since, however, the most depressed period is brief, lasting, at worst, but one, two, or two and a half years, most of them emerge from it with their lives after dire privations.  But indirectly by disease, etc., every crisis finds a multitude of victims, as we shall see.  First, however, let us turn to another cause of abasement to which the English worker is exposed, a cause permanently active in forcing the whole class downwards.

IRISH IMMIGRATION.