“We often see poor men travelling the country for work, and sometimes they come back, and it appears they have been in a wrong direction; if the postage were low they would write first, and know whether they were likely to succeed.”[195]
Mr. Henson stated as follows:—
“The Shoemakers’ Society at Nottingham tell me that 350 persons have come there for relief.... Very few of those persons would have gone upon tramp if they could have sent circular letters to a number of the largest towns in England at a penny to receive information whether a job could be got or not.”[196]
It may be observed that one of the main facts now urged in favour of Trades Unions is, that they collect and circulate the very information here spoken of as so much wanting.
There was evidence to show that the difficulty of communication aggravated—
“The remarkable pertinacity of the poor to continue in their own parish, rather than remove to another where their condition would be bettered.”[197]
It was also stated that—
“The consequence of the high rates, in preventing the working-classes from having intercourse by letter, is, that those who learned at school to write a copy have lost their ability to do so.”[198]
Mr. Henson adds that—
“There are many persons, who, when he first knew them wrote an excellent hand, but now, from their scarcely ever practising, they write very badly: one of these persons is so much out of the habit of writing that he would as soon do a day’s work, he says, as write a letter: they are so much out of the habit of writing that they lose the art altogether.”[199]