Of these last, we may naturally expect that a few may
become so reconciled to a life of wandering minstrelsy that they may
probably never return to settled labour again. But "there's a
divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Let us
trust that the Great Creator may comfort and relieve them,
"according to their several necessities, giving them patience under
their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions."
LETTER AND SPEECHES UPON THE COTTON FAMINE
LETTERS OF A LANCASHIRE LAD ON THE COTTON FAMINE.
The following extracts are from the letters of Mr. John Whittaker,
"A Lancashire Lad," one of the first writers whose appeals through
the press drew serious attention to the great distress in Lancashire
during the Cotton Famine. There is no doubt that his letters in The
Times, and to the Lord Mayor of London, led to the Mansion House
Fund. In The Times of April 14, 1862, appeared the first of a series
of letters, pleading the cause of the distressed operatives. He
said:-
"I am living in the centre of a vast district where there are many
cotton mills, which in ordinary times afford employment to many
thousands of 'hands,' and food to many more thousands of mouths.
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