IOO 



MINISTRY AT WARRINGTON. [Chap. IV. 



" I never knew such a winter and spring and summer, even 

 in the bad times at Stand, and trust I never may again. Most of 

 the mills stopped ; one since November, another since January, 

 others for two or three months, and the rest half-time. Only 

 three mills are now going, and those but partially. Fustian- 

 cutting not one-twelfth work; pin-making, ditto. Inundated 

 with many thousands of starving Irish of the worst class,* 

 determined not to work ; food terribly high ; fever much worse 

 than the cholera. We have had more than twice the usual 

 number of deaths ; f large wooden sheds erected [for the sick] • 

 and have now got so accustomed to see people with starving 

 faces that one hardly thinks of it. You may trace them 

 gradually getting thinner and thinner, and more and more 

 sickly • things gradually pawned ; credit gradually used up ; 

 hard-hearted relieving officer, and altogether a mass of misery. 

 At the same time the file-cutters, etc., in good wages, and 

 drinking hard as usual ; the starving people often getting drunk 

 when they can, just as before. We have had a soup-kitchen 

 with regular visitation, dividing the town into districts. For a 

 fortnight I did not sit down in my study. The rich people, 

 for once, found the wretched ones out in their courts and 

 hovels, and I cannot describe to you the stenches we meet. 

 To go into the bed-room of an Irish lodging-house, with one 

 or two ill of fever, and no windows open, walls and floor and 

 everywhere reeking with filth ! I have gone everywhere that 

 duty called me, fearlessly and safely, thanks to our Father's 

 protection. I have worked hard, and, having saved up a bit 

 of money for times of pressure at Stand,]: have been able to 

 do some good. Susan has been more than a helper — a leader 



* Irish of another description also visited Warrington. He wrote in 

 July that his friend Mr. Robson was giving out post-office orders, one 

 Sunday, to 104 Irish harvestmen. 



t He wrote to another friend in June : ' 'The Union surgeon has died 

 of typhus fever, and four other officers are down with it. . . . We have set 

 up a starving schoolmaster in a Ragged School, and must try to raise him 

 Js. or 8s. a week." 



X He wrote to a friend, who asked him (not in vain) for a loan of^io, 

 that he was spending much more than his income, which, at that time, was 

 £80 less than he had at Stand. 



