Any one well acquainted with Lancashire, will know how widespread the study of music is among its working population.

Even the inhabitants of our large towns know something more about this now than they knew a few months ago.

I believe there is no part of England in which the practice of sacred music is so widely and lovingly pursued amongst the working people as in the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
There is no part of England where, until lately, there have been so many poor men's pianos, which have been purchased by a long course of careful savings from the workman's wages.

These, of course, have mostly been sold during the hard times to keep life in the owner and his family.

The great works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart have solaced the toil of thousands of the poorest working people of Lancashire.