and the workmen taken as a body are fairly paid. Although the population of the township of Oldham has increased from 16,690 in 1811, to 32,381 in 1832, still the amount of poor rates levied is no more in the pound than it was at the former period; and in the years 1816 and 1817 they were nearly double the present amount. In the year ending March, 1833, the amount expended for the relief of the poor of England would be 10s. 31/4d. per head, averaging the whole of England. The amount paid to the poor of Oldham during 1832 was £3313 13s. 7d., averaging 2s. O1/2d, per head; thus showing that if the amount expended in relieving the poor is any criterion of the situation of the working classes, Oldham stands at but one-fifth proportion when put in comparison with the rest of England. Since the time of the panic in the years 1825 and 1826, a period in which many towns have been retrograding, there has been expended in public improvements, the widening and paving of streets, the erection of gas and water works, and other undertakings, upwards of £10,000."

According to a report of a survey of the state of the poor in the thirty-five townships of the cotton manufacturing district, taken in January, 1833, by the overseers and other parties, under the direction of Mr. John Fielden, M.P., there were 7545 poor persons within the borough of Oldham in very distressed circumstances, of whom 1173 were altogether destitute of employment. The aggregate of the weekly wages of those in work amounted to only .£779 8s.81/2d. The average weekly income of each of these was only ls. 10d. The average weekly expense of each in rent, deducting the cost of fuel, light, &c. was 71/2d., leaving as the average income of each per head per week for food, clothing, &c., about 1s. 1d. According to the population returns of 1831, the number of males in the borough of Oldham upwards of twenty years of age, was 11,641 ; and the number of adult males then

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