"dition," and they are to "pray imagine that the distress, as it is "for a GRANT OF MONEY called, is confined to the district in "FROM THE GOVERN- which he himself lives. The stu"MENT," and are to pray for pid creature does not appear to NOTHING ELSE! One cannot see that the distress is as general help laughing at this! What a as the air we breathe; that it is set of brazen vagabonds it must in every part of the kingdom, in have been that invented such a every branch of business, amongst scheme as this, and that had the persons of every description, the audacity to suppose that it would well-gorged tax-eaters excepted. extort money from the Govern- The printers are in distress; the ment! What fools these "opera- builders, the carpenters, the tives "must have been to have been bricklayers, the painters; of played off in this manner by a set which there are now more than of insolent vagabonds, who want- fifteen thousand out of employed to plunder the whole kingdom ment in the Wen, though to this for the sake of sparing their own Wen comes a very large part of purses. It is clear as day-light, the incomes and the earnings of that nothing could be got by the the whole kingdom. Amongst people by any measure of this the merchants and ship-owners sort. If any money could have the distress rages in every seabeen got from the Government, port, and that to a degree perit would have been got for the fectly terrific. The Customlandlords, out of whose estates the House is a scene that gives you a maintenance of the poor must good idea of a declining country. come in one shape or other, unless As to manufacturers and their in cases where the poor, like those work-people, the distress prevails in Ireland in 1822, can be com- throughout every branch, from the pelled to lie down and die by northermost manufacturing town whole parishes under the extreme in Scotland to Frome in Somerunction. setshire in one direction, and to When this foolish fellow, Tay- Norwich in another direction. lor, and others like him, are talk-Though the last quarter of a ing about grants from the Govern-year (between Easter and Midment, they seem to be wholly igno- summer), is naturally one of the rant of the situation of the coun- least pressure upon the poor, the try. Every one of them seems to Poor-rates in the city of Norwich

rose one-fifth in amount during out of work; and he ought to

that quarter. The Scotch land- have known, too, and the Scotch lords, and sappy-headed Taylor, landlords ought to have known it, of the Manchester Guardian, do that the landlords in the West not seem to know-the one of have not had the impudence, and, them that there are manufactures at the same time, the folly, to enany where but in Scotland, and deavour to extort money from the the other that there are any ex-Government, in order to maintain cept in and round Manchester. their poor. No, faith! there is noThey may, indeed, have heard of body that has impudence to this those in Nottinghamshire and extent, except the domineering Leicestershire;

but Somerset- vagabonds of Lancashire and shire is so far off! Yet fellows Scotland. There is no doubt that so sapient as the man-of-honour the landlords in Gloucestershire, Editor at Manchester, ought to Somersetshire, and Wiltshire, know that, within a circumfer- would shift the burthen off their ence of about ninety miles, em- own shoulders to the shoulders of bracing parts of Somersetshire, the whole nation if they could. I Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire, must confess, however, that I there are, at the very least, a hun-merely suppose this, and that I do dred thousand men employed in not know the fact; but, however making the cloth which is worn disposed they may be to do it, they by almost all the gentlemen and have, at any rate, not had the imricher classes in England. This pudence openly to propose it. pretender to gentlemanship ought The landowners in manufacturing to have known, that these cloth districts derive great benefit from manufacturers have been ruined, the existence of the manufactures. even to a greater extent than the The more the manufactures incotton manufacturers, though, ob-crease, the more the adjoining serve, the articles of their manu- lands increase in value. I have facture are comparatively scarcely seen land in Lancashire, letting an object of export. This Mentor for six, eight, or ten pounds the of the Preston Sir Andrew Ague- statute acre; which same land, if cheek ought to have known that situated in divers parts of Sussex more than one-half of the work- or Hampshire, would not let for people of the clothiers in the more than thirty shillings an acre, West have actually been thrown at the most. All this great addi

tional value is given by the neigh- any power arising from the will bouring factories; and is not this of man. It cannot do this thing; land to bear an additional charge it cannot relieve the distresses by of Poor-rates when these facto- grants of money. It ought not if ries happen to fail? "Oh, no, it could, but it could not if it "(says this gentleman' Taylor,) would; and so the "gentleman" a contribution from the public Taylor and the Scotch landlords "funds is less objectionable," than may spare all their tricks and cona system of assessments in aid, as trivances upon that subject. Why he calls it; that is to say, that for not grant some money to the poor the Lancashire landlords to make creatures that are now half-starv the rest of the nation pay their ing in London? There are, as I Poor-rates, is less objectionable, said before, upwards of fifteen than for they themselves to pay thousand journeymen now wholly their Poor-rates. But, again I ask, out of employment. Probably where is the Government to stop, there will be fifty thousand out of if it once begin making grants of employment, within the bills of money for the feeding of the poor? mortality, before the next month Where is it to stop? The land- of March. In all human probalords of Lancashire and of Scot- bility this will be the case; and, if land will hardly say, that those of Norfolk and of Somersetshire and Gloucestershire ought not to have a bit of a grant as well as they. They will hardly say this; that the whole nation must be re-sible to relieve the distresses of lieved, there must be grants for the country by grants from the every part of the nation, and taxes, is surpassed by only one money must be raised upon every other folly; namely, that of supcreature to relieve every crea-posing that these distresses can be relieved, or even mitigated,

ture.

grants of money are to be made out of the taxes, surely such a grant will be made for the Wen as well as for any other place. so The folly of supposing it pos

This, therefore, is manifest on a general scale, by SUBnonsense. It is what cannot be SCRIPTIONS or other contridone, even by this government, butions of that sort; and, if the uncontrolled as its power is, un- Ministers find it inconvenient to checked as it is by any known be pestered with these applicapower upon earth; that is to say, tions for grants of money out of

the public taxes, they certainly | thus advised, instead of being adhave brought the evil upon them-vised to subscribe a pitiful sum, selves by advising the King to not amounting to, perhaps, one subscribe, and by setting subscrip- hundredth part of what will be tions on foot themselves. This expended during the present year was a tacit declaration that the on parks and palaces; if His Madistressed manufacturers ought jesty had been thus advised, both not, or could not, rely upon the the rich and the poor would have poor-rates! This was a very dan-been looking to the law of the gerous notion to inculcate. This land; would have felt steady con

it not almost beastly to pretend to Lancashire to bear it in mind), believe, that they will not deduct there is law to compel even Mafrom the parish allowance, which gistrates to do their duty; or, to they already make, an amount punish them for their neglect of equal to the subscription which such duty.

they have to distribute? Away,

then, with all the nonsense about subscriptions and grants! The law has provided an ample source of relief; and to that source, all persons in distress ought to apply. -It is possible, indeed, that the Magistrate will be so daring, and so inhuman, as to refuse to do his duty; but, while this is, I hope, next to impossible, there is justice for the Magistrate, if he refuse to do his duty; but of this matter I shall say more, in my second Number of the Poor Man's Friend, which I intend to make a complete treatise, on the subject of the rights of the poor.

WM. COBBETT.

P.S. From something I have heard, since. I began to write this, I think that the subscription which would be most likely to cause the poor to be properly relieved, would be a subscription to raise a few pounds, in order to send some intelligent person into the Northern Counties, just to see a little what the Overseers and Magistrates do, when they are applied to for relief; for (and I wish every man in

TO MR. LAWLESS.

Kensington, 10th August, 1826.

DEAR SIR,

the article inserted in your paper, As to my late complaint about which article was dated at PRESTON, and pointed out, in your paper, as "very curious," I had complete right to express my anger in the strongest manner; and, in a much stronger manner that the article was taken from a than I did. What was it to me, London paper, if that really were the case? That circumstance was not mentioned in your paper, which gave the article as coming from Preston direct. But, no matter; it was given as authentic; nothing was said to call its correctness in your readers to suppose, that you question; no observation to induce had any doubt of the truth of its facts, or of the soundness of its opinions, and the justice of its sentiments. To judge of the conduct of another, in a case like this, one must be in the place of that other; as near as possible into that place or, at least, must bring ourselves by our imagination. Imagine yourself, then, at the end of a contest like that which I carried on at Preston; imagine yourself reading in the Register an artful tissue