About six years ago, the river
Douglas broke into one of the Ince mines, and nearly two hundred
people were drowned thereby. These were almost all buried on one
day, and it was a very distressing scene. Everywhere in Wigan one
may meet with the widows and orphans of men who have been killed in
the mines; and there are no few men more or less disabled by
colliery accidents, and, therefore, dependent either upon the
kindness of their employers, or upon the labour of their families in
the cotton factories. This last failing them, the result may be
easily guessed. The widows and orphans of coal miners almost always
fall back upon factory labour for a living; and, in the present
state of things, this class of people forms a very helpless element
of the general distress. These things I learnt during my brief visit
to the town a few days ago. Hereafter, I shall try to acquaint
myself more deeply and widely with the relations of life amongst the
working people there.
I had not seen Wigan during many years before that fine August
afternoon. In the Main Street and Market Place there is no striking
outward sign of distress, and yet here, as in other Lancashire
towns, any careful eye may see that there is a visible increase of
mendicant stragglers, whose awkward plaintiveness, whose helpless
restraint and hesitancy of manner, and whose general appearance,
tell at once that they belong to the operative classes now suffering
in Lancashire.
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