3-011-506 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cotton Famine: waiting-room at the district provident institution, Manchester, 1862. View of '...the antechamber to the kitchen...Here the distribution [of soup to unemployed Lancashire textiles workers] commences at eight o'clock, and a number of the Friends personally superintend the operation. A large proportion of tickets in exchange for which it is given are purchased by the various relief societies of the town for gratuitous distribution, as part of their relief, in addition to bread and meat. The arrangements are very complete. At present 1000 gallons [of soup] a day can be made, and that quantity could be largely increased at a small outlay. The actual quantity delivered last week was 17,246 quarts, and the previous week 16,884. In addition to the amount sunk every week, the soup-committee have made considerable grants in soup-tickets to the Provident Society, the City Mission, Ragged School, and other public bodies'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.