CHAPTER XXII.
PANIC IN LANCASHIRE.
he Russians were within gunshot of Manchester! A profound sensation was caused in that city about eight o'clock on the evening of September 6th, by an announcement made by the Evening News—which still appeared in fitful editions—that a Cossack patrol had been seen on the road between Macclesfield and Alderley, and that it was evident, from the manner of the Russian advance, that they meant to attack the city almost immediately.
The utmost alarm was caused, and the streets were everywhere crowded by anxious, starving throngs, eager to ascertain fuller details, but unable to gather anything further beyond the wild conjectures of idle gossip.
The great city which, on the outbreak of war, was one of the most prosperous in the world, was now but a sorry semblance of its former self. Heated, excited, turbulent, its streets echoed with the heartrending wails of despairing crowds, its factories were idle, its shops closed, and its people were succumbing to the horrible, lingering death which is the result of starvation.
Wealth availed them naught. Long ago the last loaf had been devoured, the last sack of flour had been divided, and the rich living in the suburbs now felt the pinch of hunger quite as acutely as factory operatives, who lounged, hands in pockets, about the streets. Manchester, like most other towns in England, had come to the end of her supplies, and death and disease now decimated the more populous districts, while those who had left the city and tramped north had fared no better, and hundreds dropped and died by the roadside.
The situation in Lancashire was terrible. At Liverpool a few vessels were arriving from America, under escort of British cruisers, bringing supplies, but these were mostly purchased at enormously high rates, and sent to London by way of Manchester and Sheffield, railway communication by that route being still open. This fact becoming known in Manchester caused the greatest indignation, and the people, rendered desperate by hunger, succeeded on several occasions in stopping the trains, and appropriating the food they carried. The situation in Manchester was one of constant excitement, and fear that the enemy should repeat the success they had achieved at Birmingham. The hundreds of thousands of hungry ones who flocked Manchester streets and the grimy thoroughfares of Stockport, Ashton, Oldham, Bolton, and other great towns in the vicinity, feared that they, like the people of Birmingham, would be put to the sword by the ruthless invaders.