24 FEBRUARY 1855, Page 2

The iron hand of Winter presses upon us more severely

than it has for many a year ; and unless the pressure be relieved, it seems likely that the " difficulty " now felt by trade and labour will be- oonie disaster. The navigable rivers are frozen ; cotton-laden ships have been kept off by adverse winds ; land is closed against in- dustry that depends directly upon the soil ; frost renders many constructive trades, such as building, impossible; and commerce, already shaken by the overtrading in the great extra-European markets, and shaded by the apprehensions of war, is suspended by a season that puts down alike the business and the pleasures of coming Spring. The poor suffer fearfully, not only with means denied, hunger, and cold, but from circumstances which are only inconvenient to other classes. The ordinary duties of household life become painful to a frame nipped with hunger, and to hands aching with cold. The vicious take advantage of the season to mingle with the distressed : " bread riots" have disturbed Liverpool, and have been imitated at the Eastern end of London ; where a flag in- scribed " Bread or Blood " imparted a revolting air of melodramatic quackery to the pretended rebellion of hunger. Policemen have cleared the streets of the rioters ; the workhouse officers and charities are labouring to keep down the growth of destitute mobs; but any increase to the suspension of work threatens to necessitate measures on a much greater scale.