3-065-566 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Christmas dinner given to the newsboys of Manchester, 1874. 'The trade of selling newspapers in the streets...gives employment to so many poor children...Boys and girls who were formerly sent out to beg, or perhaps to do worse, now have an opportunity of earning a few shillings a week...The proprietors of the Evening News of Manchester...have always shown a kindly interest in the welfare of their little customers...[and] invited the children to a Christmas dinner...in the spacious hall of the Royal Exchange Restaurant...The Bishop of Manchester and a great number of ladies and gentlemen were present...[as well as] the Mayor of Manchester, Mr. Alfred Watkin, and the Mayor of Salford; Mr. David Chadwick, M.P....About 400 boys and girls sat down to dinner...They were readily hushed to reverential silence when the Bishop said grace. They were then served with a substantial meal of roast beef and plum-pudding; and in the much-needed interval of rest between the beef and the pudding the Bishop made a few practical and rather humorous remarks. It was ascertained, by...a show of hands, that a large number of the children attended Sunday-school, and that a fair proportion of them knew something of two, at least, of the "three R's".' From "Illustrated London News", 1874.