a-year must now be taken from the To be sure, I cannot help what people aristocracy and the church, or that write to me; but if the Secretary of those many millions must be taken State will send a clerk to read all my from the debt-owners. Therefore it is letters over for me, they will stand a that every effort is made to ascribe the great deal better chance than they now fires first to foreigners, next to people stand. All that come with the postage travelling in landaus and post-chaises, not paid I send back unopened, for the next to conspirators in London, and amusement of the Duke of Richmond; lastly to writings of various descrip- and if he read them all with attention, tions, particularly "cheap publications." [he will have quite enough to do. About Why, there are no cheap publications one half of them are threatening letthat I know of, except my poor Two-ters; some threatening to burn my PENNY TRASH (of which this paper house; some my barn; some to shoot is to form the eighth number, on the me; some to take me off by other 1st of next month), and this I am al-means. These frequently come postlowed to publish only once in a month. age paid, and then they immediately go As to the Register, a single number of into a basket for the maid to light the it now amounts to nearly as much as fire with. Till I began to receive these the Wiltshire allowance for a week's burning letters, I used to insure; but I food and clothing for a constantly hard-have never done it since, except in the working man. I know of no cheap case of my house at Kensington, which publication but this that goes regularly my lease compels me to insure for a forth, while the "Society for promoting certain sum of money. I discovered, Useful Knowledge;" while the church too, that, in the case of every insurance parsons, with their pamphlet societies; that I had made, I had paid nearly and while the nasty, canting, lousy twice as much to the Government in Methodists, who inveigle the pennies tax as to the insurance-office for ineven from the servant-girls; while all surance. This deemed a payment to these are pouring out their pamphlets protect me against the dispensations of by millions, and all of them preaching Providence and the ill-will of my up the doctrine that bacon, bread and neighbours. To the former, it was my beer corrupt the soul of man, and that duty to submit; of the latter I was not potatoes, salt and water are sure to afraid; and, therefore, why should I lead to eternal salvation. give up my earnings for this purpose? How, then, can the fires have been Threatening letters, indeed! I have produced by speakings and writings! and received a hundred that I could have how is a man of sense to believe that traced home to the parties with no from Dover to Penzance, from Pevensey very extraordinary pains; and I never to Carlisle, the fires have been produced made the attempt in my life. The by instigation from my speeches and post-office may be watched long enough writings. Yet I have been told, and I before any letter is met with from me; believe the fact, that the POST-and, whenever there be one, it is as OFFICES, particularly in in Sussex, likely to be found without a seal as Hampshire, and Wiltshire, have been with it; and I hereby authorise and narrowly watched, in order to discover legally empower the post-office people some correspondence between me and to open all letters going from me to the rioters and burners. If these any-body; if they afford them any watchers will but stick to their several amusement, I shall be very glad; but posts, till they find a letter written by I beg them not to retard them on their me, or by any one by my authority, way. Monstrous idea, that I should be not only about rioting and burning, but writing instigations to labouring_men about any-thing else, they will be amply to urge them to commit felony! Monpunished for their curiosity. No, no, I strous, however, as the idea is, it cerhave too much to write for the printers, tainly has been entertained. to amuse myself in this sort of way.

To conclude under this head. You

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have now had trials in Kent, Sussex, feelings of fathers for sons, brothers for Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wilt- brothers, friends for friends; and conshire, Dorsetshire, and Buckingham-sider that there can be scarcely one shire, before some one or other of the single man, amongst the labourers of Judges. In other counties, and in these Hampshire and Wiltshire especially, counties too, you have had trials for unaffected in his mind and heart by these offences, and plenty of transport- these transactions. The Morning Chroings and imprisonings at the Quarter nicle, in giving an account of the hangSessions. More than fifteen hundred ing of Cooper and Cooke, at Winchespersons, I believe, have been arraigned ter, last Saturday, concludes the account and tried; and, amidst the cries of pa-thus:-" There was not a crowd of rents, wives, and children, under all the more than 300 persons, and those terrors of separation or almost instant" chiefly boys. Some of the crowd we death, not one single fact has come out," heard say they would willingly give a in spite of rewards which are perfectly" sovereign for a reprieve. The moterrific; not one single fact has trans-"ment the drop fell most of them pired to countenance the idea of foreign "went away. The special constables actors or instigators, of instigation on were in attendance at seven o'clock, the part of conspirators in London, or" and, in fact, composed the greater of extraneous instrumentality of any part of the crowd. Close under the sort, and therefore I hope that you are "scaffold, on some doors, was written now satisfied that the acts have pro- "in chalk-'MURDER FOR MUR. ceeded purely from the minds of the " DER! BLOOD FOR BLOOD!'" labourers themselves.

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Now, this is what we never see and SECOND. That the means of terror or never hear of when malefactors are exe of punishment are not calculated to put cuted at other times. Cooper's offence an end to the fires.-It is an old saying was riding at the head of a mob, who that, if you kill a fly, twenty flies come extorted money, or broke machines, or to his burying. The newspapers tell something of that sort. Cooke's offence us, and indeed we know the fact must was, striking BINGHAM BARING with a be so, that there is scarcely a village in sledge hammer. But Baring was well the counties before mentioned, and par- enough to appear and give evidence ticularly in Hampshire and Wiltshire, against him; and it appears was seen which has not been, in a greater or less immediately after the affair walking in degree, plunged into a state of mourn the streets of Winchester; so that this ing in consequence of the late trials and was very far from being MURDER; their result. But, is mourning all? and, before the passing of EllenboWhen men suffer for well-known and rough's Act it would have been an ASlong-understood crimes, then there is SAULT, punishable not even with transno apology to be offered for them. portation, but with fine or imprisonTheir memory is grieved, their banish-ment, or both. Now mind, the labourment or death lamented; but the re-ers are not lawyers, they know nothing lations and friends acquiesce: the law of Ellenborough's Act; their estimate takes its course, and no vengeful feelings of crimes is traditionary; and it will take are excited in the survivors. You have a great deal indeed to convince them read the Birmingham petition for the and to produce perfect acquiescence in sparing of the lives of the men at Win- their mind upon the subject of this punchester; if you have not, I beg you to ishment. "Kill one fly, and twenty read it. The question, however, is not come to his burying." Accordingly what sort of feelings the surviving the very next sentence in The Chronlabourers ought to entertain upon the icle newspaper is in these words: "There subject; but what feelings they are "have been eight fires in the neighlikely to entertain; and now, then, "bourhood of Blandford since Saturday consider the effect of screaming mothers "last. This circumstance will almost and wives and children; think of the "preclude the hope of mercy being ex

"tended to the unhappy men now under whether here be not enough to con"sentence of death!" The same news- vince you, that the means of terror or paper contains an account of five fresh of punishment are not calculated to fires in the neighbourhood of Norwich; put an end to the fires? This is a and The Times newspaper of Saturday most important question for you to gives an account of several fires in consider; for, if these means fail, then Wiltshire, two of which it speaks of as there is no hope without the adoption follows. "The first fire, which I de-of some other. Beseeching you to re"scribed as illuminating the country for flect most seriously upon this point, I "miles around, was, I understand, on now proceed to the next proposition, "the premises of Mr. Rexworthy, near which is, if possible, of still more im"Wilton. His dwelling-house, out-portance.

66 houses, and corn-ricks were all burnt THIRD, that the fires, unless effec"to the ground. I had not time in my tually put a stop to, may become far

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way through here to-day to get the more extensive than they hitherto have particulars farther than that Mr. Rex-been.-King's Ministers, you know very worthy had been active in bringing little about the habits or the means of "some of the late rioters to justice. The the labouring people. I do not impute "second fire, which I said was in the this to you as a fault: your way of neighbourhood of Wimborne, was of life, your own habits and pursuits and 66 corn-ricks only. These also were the associations, have precluded you from "property of a person connected with possessing this knowledge; and, as to "the late prosecutions." This fire was obtaining it from others, few persons not near Wilton but near Heytesbury, approach you who do possess it, and and it was so great that it lighted the very rarely indeed will it happen that street at Fisherton, though at fifteen one of these will be found honest miles distance from it. I pray you to enough to tell you that you have not look at these words from The Times the power to do that which you wish to newspaper! I pray you to look well do. Power to induce it to listen to at the cause there stated for this objections to its own effectiveness, must tremendous fire. Pray read these be in the hands of those who are enwords with attention. Look also in the dued with all those rare qualities papers of to-day at a great fire near Dover. which induce wise and just judges to Remember the fire in Essex the other listen to arguments against the compeday, in the very village from which poor tence of their own jurisdiction. Hence Ewan had been taken to be hanged! it is that you do know and that you From the single village of Pewsey there can know very little about the real are, I am told, eleven persons taken and character, the disposition, the propensicondemned to be transported; and ties and the habits of the labourers ; when the carrier, from whom the story and especially about the means which came to me, came away, mothers were they possess of gratifying their vengecrying for their sons, wives for their ful feelings where, unhappily, they enhusbands, children for their fathers, tertain them. There was very little sisters for their brothers, and, in short, danger, comparatively, in the machineall was frantic lamentation. Of this breaking and the sturdy begging or village one of Lord Radnor's brothers rioting and robbery, if it must be so is the Rector, and he is also a prebend called. These would be effectually put

of Salisbury, where his elder brother a stop to by the transportings and the has been sitting on the bench with the hangings; but as to the fires, it was Special Commissioners. quite another matter, as RexWORTHY has found to his cost. Of all acts the in this world of a criminal nature, the most easy to perpetrate, the least liable to detection, the least inconvenient to the perpetrator, is that of

Without stopping to comment on these facts, and without directing your eyes towards Lincolnshire, where the fires appear to be blazing more furiously than ever, let me ask you, now,

setting fire to out-buildings and ricks. and good neighbours; they are unas suming, modest, content in their state of life; but they will not, and I thank God that they will not, live on damned potatoes while the barns are full of corn, the downs covered with sheep, and the yards full of hogs created by their labours. Above all things they are affectionate; the parents love their children, and the children the parents, with more ardour than is to be met with among the richer tribes: the constant participation in each other's hardships and toils tends to bind them more firmly to one another if you commit an act of injustice towards one, the whole village feels it individually and collectively. Even the villages themselves are connected with one another; and thus a whole county or

To convince you of the truth of this, what can you need more than perhaps the two thousand fires that have taken place, and the four or five convictions; with regard to two of which the parties convicted declared their innocence with their dying breath? As to the immediate means, I know nothing; but I believe all the stories about fire-balls and airguns to be merely ridiculous nonsense. A pipe and a match, or a bit of linen rag, as in the case of the poor orphan Goodman, in Sussex, are, I dare say, the means generally used; for, how are labouring men in general, or any of them indeed, to obtain any other means, and to keep those means by them too, without the knowledge of others?

Do, I pray you, look at the situation of this species of property; consider the district is imbued with one and the utter impossibility of watching it effec-same vengeful feeling. Is any man tually. In the case of houses, factories, or so stupid as to imagine that there is a buildings of any sort, which are usually single soul in all Pewsey, man, woman inhabited, the case is wholly different. or child, who will not remember the Here the parties must either be inmates transportation of eleven men of that or must commit the act by open vio-village? lence. It is difficult for a man even to set fire to his own house without detection. Not so in the case of farm produce and buildings; where there is no trace, no clue, nothing to lead to detection, if the perpetrator be alone and hold his tongue; and that perpetrator may be your own servant! And who are to be your servants! Why, in Hampshire and Wiltshire particularly, the father, the son, the brother, the uncle, the nephew, the cousin or the friend of some one who has been hanged, transported, or manacled, by you or by some one connected with you. The loan-monger or Jew or Scotch feelosopher brute may call the labourers of England peasantry; the insolent vagabonds who live on their labour may call them ignorant; calumniate while they starve them; talk of their want of education. They want no education; they understand their business well; they are not ignorant, they know their rights, and the wrongs that are done them; they are tender parents and dutiful loving children; they are obedient and faithful servants, and kind

It is a great mistake to suppose that the farming stock is all collected in the homesteads; if it were, it would not, that I know of, add to the security. I have a barn, for instance, now, at Barn Elm, one of the largest that I ever saw in my life. It was crammed full of corn in the summer, trodden down in the mows by oxen. Four men have been thrashing there constantly from that day to this, and they will be at it some time longer. There is no soul living in the farm-house, and there is no house within more than a quarter of a mile; the barn is at all times assailable from the bank of the Thames, which is very close, and the whole has been uninsured all the time. Now what protection had I for this between three and four hundred pounds' worth of corn, and, at one time, seven hun dred pounds worth of seeds into the bargain? Why, I had the protection of the good-will of the working people, my neighbours, who never were wronged or oppressed by me, and on whose good-will therefore I had reason to rely. To numbers of them I

have occasionally given pretty good people. I have seen thousands of stacks scoldings and angry words; but I never (in one single ride of mine) of wheat did them injury, gave them no ground and barley, as well as of hay, standing for revenge, and I can truly say that I out at from a quarter of a mile to a mile never had a moment of inquietude with distant from any house, tree, or hedge. regard to the safety of my property. What in all the world is there but a Yet there has not been one single night sense of moral right and wrong, to preduring the last three months and a half vent the destruction of property thus when the whole of this property might situated? If, upon coming up to a rick not have been destroyed, barn and thus situated, a man finds it guarded, house and all, without a possibility of he turns about and goes away, that's detecting the offender, if he had gone all. In short, to shut out the rooks alone and held his tongue; and if I from a pea-field of a hundred acres is had been generally hated in the neigh- just as easy as to preserve this species bourhood, where was I to have found of property without the good-will of the watchmen, and how was I to have pre-labourers, or, at least, in defiance of vented the watchman from setting fire their vengeful feelings. The exposition himself? of the law, as Scott Eldon called it, has taught them the danger of Ellenborough's Act, and of the softened code of George the Fourth; but it has not taught them to be content with potatoes and water.

Besides these dangers to barns and stacks, are there no dangers to fields of corn! A gentleman mentioned this to me the other day as the greatest danger of all. A piece of wheat, barley, rye, or oats, fit for the sickle or the scythe, set fire to on the windward side, would be demolished in a twinkling; and here the facility of execution, and the safety of the perpetrator are so complete! Almost every-where there are foot-paths or roads of some sort; and if there be not, and if the perpetrator be found out of the road, a trespass is his offence at the most. Here detection, except by a man's own confession, seems to be absolutely impossible. And you, the

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I pray you to observe, that to go into a rick-yard or homestead is no crime at all! It is only a trespass at the utmost, punishable to be sure without trial by jury. Suppose a man to be found in a rick-yard, or in a barn, without breaking in, with a pipe in his mouth, and matches in his pocket, he is merely a trespasser. He must actually set the fire before he incurs the guilt of committing the crime; and, in all human probability, this species of reconnoitreing always takes place. Besides, every labourer in the neighbourhood knows every one who lives in the house; and the labourers having been driven from the farm-houses, there is seldom any male in the farm-house except the master and his sons, if he have any, and a sort of a groom. These are all away from home together very frequently; so that, in fact, there is no protection at all other than the good-King's Ministers, should be informed will of the neighbourhood. that farmers are talking of this every

But how many hundreds of thousands where. I know nothing of the immeof wheat-ricks, and oat-ricks, and bar-diate means of setting fire in this way. ley-ricks, are not only built out in the Samson did it by tying brands of fire fields, but at a distance from all dwell-to the tails of young foxes. Our fellows ing-houses whatsoever! How many would, most likely, not do the thing in thousands upon thousands of ricks of so open a manner, though as yet there clover, upland grass, and saintfoin, are is, I believe, no law making it felony. built out in the middle of immense I think it is only a trespass, subjecting fields, to be given to the sheep while the party to action of damages It is a they are eating off the turnips in win-deed which, if done maliciously, and ter. These can have no earthly protec- without monstrous provocation, ought tion but that of the general good-will to be punished with death; but the and common consent of the labouring truth is, that until the hellish workings