Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/89

. 10, 1863.] of strict people about living so far within their income had for once completely given way.

“Never mind!” some of our best citizens have said, in their various ways; “this is such a year as we may hope never to see again; and our little family and personal plans must give way. It would really be wrong to refuse to give in order that we may lay by. We will send every shilling we can muster; and we will see whether there is anything besides money that we can spare.” And then appear the packages of clothing and blankets, of which so many reach Manchester from all parts. In such a season, people do not care who knows their circumstances, if consultation among neighbours can help the collection of funds: and thus, to observant persons, ways of living are disclosed very instructively, and not a few individuals, and some clasessclasses [sic] may learn how other classes live.

As far as I have ever been able to learn, the closest economy of all is practised by gentry of small means. The little fixed income is parcelled out with minute care; and a margin is left for accidents, or for laying by something, however trifling. These are the houses in which two fires, in the kitchen and the parlour, must suffice in mid-winter, and the coals be skilfully put on, so as to burn to most advantage. The tea-caddy is filled at certain intervals, and the supply must be made to last. If a dish is by chance spoiled in the cooking, that dish is subtracted from the dinner. The charity purse is sacred. One-tenth of the little income goes into it; and the income is reckoned as that much short of what it is. This winter, the beer at dinner, or the sugar at breakfast and tea is given up that there may be something for Lancashire; and the old shawl or cloak is made to serve one more season, because Lancashire must be helped, and it would be wrong to go to the charity-purse for this extra call. The difficulty in this class of homes has been greater than usual for the last few years,—greater than many heads of households knew how to deal with,—from the increased costliness of female dress. I will not enlarge on this now; and I refer to it only for the effect it produces in stinting the hitherto frugal table, and lowering the before scanty fire. If the daughters could dress as they did twenty years ago, the grey-headed parents might have their glass of wine after dinner, and a fire in their bed-room on bitter winter nights, and a little sociability in the evenings, without thinking twice whether they can afford tea, toast, and cake, to an old acquaintance. From such abodes as these help is somehow spared for Lancashire at this moment.

On the other hand, the most profuse ways of living are supposed to be in great folks’ mansions and in farm-houses. The old-fashioned farm-house is, indeed, the very type of plenty.

As to great London houses, there is generally speaking a profusion of comfort and luxury, and therefore of expenditure—but this depends much on the management. A multitude of Englishmen have no doubt wished within the last few weeks that the surplus food in the great mansions of the aristocracy could be transported to Lancashire; and there must be, on the whole, a good deal of waste, both in the process of cookery and in the quantity provided, according to the quondam ways of such houses. But it is not always so. There are great houses, both in town and country, where an astonishing economy prevails. The servants have board wages; and every scrap in the larder is eaten up by the family. In country houses this has a more remarkable appearance, because old associations lead one to expect plenty there. But, whether it is that gentlemen have become their own farmers, and ladies their own dairy keepers, or whether a new generation of housekeepers has come into office, more stingy than the old, I cannot say; but the life of the country house is sometimes very unlike the old notion of it. The Groby Park luncheon in “Orley Farm” may easily have been taken from the life; and one may spend a month in such a mansion at midsummer without seeing a proper old-fashioned dessert of strawberries and cream; or at Christmas without ever having one’s fill of custard or syllabub.

In the true provincial farm-house, meantime, the genuine rural profusion still exists,—only a little modified by regard to modern ways. One may not be compelled to sit down to a loaded table every two or three hours; but when one does sit down (which is still four or five times a day), the table is a bountiful one. The hostess is not thinking, as the great lady or her housekeeper may be, of the dairy sales of the week. The farmer’s wife first supplies her own house without stint, and then sells the rest. There is no gardener there to diminish the dessert by slow degrees that he may have the more fruit to sell; but the farm-gardens and orchard overflow all the year round, and no cockney guests, with the London frenzy for fruit, could make much impression on the supply. All through the house, the plenty is the same. There are roaring wood-fires in every room; a pile of blankets on every bed; wine always in view; ale always at call; horses for any number of riders, and amusement and hospitality overflowing in every corner of the house and land. From such abodes there might be a good deal spared for Lancashire; and I believe there is. Of the gifts of game and other eatables received at Manchester, it is probable that the bulk arrives from farm-houses, where it is natural for people to give what they have, and what they see their friends enjoy. Nothing is more likely than that the farmer and his sons, when they come home with a full game-bag, say that it is a pity those poor Lancashire people, in their pinch, have not some of these good things; and hence perhaps the perplexity of the Relief CommittesCommittees [sic] about what to do with pheasants and hares, if game may not be sold without a licence.

There is yet another class which could spare no little food to the hungry, with clear benefit to themselves; and that is the order of workpeople, who are habitually extravagant in regard to their table. My readers must be aware, I should think, that there is no more lavish expenditure on food in this country than among the particular artisan class, which, in our great manufacturing towns,