ask, were these twenty-nine stead of remaining, as formerly, churches stuck up, not a mile to be, in great part, consumed in from each other; what were twen- these twenty-nine parishes. ty-nine churches made FOR, if The stars, in my map, mark the the population had been no greater spots where manor houses, or gentlemen's mansions, formerly stood, than it is now? But, in fact, you plainly see all and stood, too, only about sixty the traces of a great ancient po-years ago. Every parish had its pulation. The churches are almost manor house, in the first place; all large, and built in the best and then there were, down this manner. Many of them are very Valley, twenty-one others; so fine edifices; very costly in the that, in this distance of about building; and, in the cases where thirty miles, there stood FIFTY the body of the church has been| MANSION HOUSES. Where altered in the repairing of it, so as are they now? I believe, there to make it smaller, the tower, are but EIGHT, that are at all which every where defies the hos-worthy of the name of mansion tility of time, shows you what the houses; and even these are but church must formerly have been. poorly kept up, and, except in two This is the case in several in-or three instances, are of no benestances; and there are two or fit to the labouring people; they three of these villages which must employ but few persons; and, in formerly have been market-towns, short, do not half supply the place and particularly PEWSEY and UP-of any eight of the old mansions. AVON (4 and 13). There are now All these mansions, all these parno less than nine of the parishes, sonages, aye, and their goods and out of the twenty-nine, that have furniture, together with the clocks, either no parsonage-houses, or the brass-kettles, the brewing-veshave such as are in such a state sels, the good bedding and good that a Parson will not, or cannot, clothes and good furniture, and live in them. Three of them are the stock, in pigs, or in money, of without any parsonage-houses at the inferior classes, in this series all, and the rest are become poor, of once populous and gay villages mean, falling-down places. This and hamlets; all these have been, latter is the case at UPAVON, which by the accursed system of taxing was formerly a very considerable and funding and paper-money, by place. Nothing can more clearly the well-known exactions of the show than this, that all, as far as state, and by the not less real, buildings and population are con- though less generally understood, cerned, has been long upon the extortions of the monopolies arising decline and decay. Dilapidation out of paper-money; all these after dilapidation have, at last, al- have been, by these accursed most effaced even the parsonage-means, conveyed away, out of this houses, and that too in defiance of the law, ecclesiastical as well as civil. The land remains; and the crops and the sheep come as abundantly as ever; but they are now sent almost wholly away, in

Valley, to the haunts of the taxeaters and the monopolizers. There are many of the mansion houses, the ruins of which you yet behold. At MILTON (3 in my map) there are two mansion houses, the walls

and the roofs of which yet remain, dilapidated, and, in some cases, but which are falling gradually to wholly demolished, nine out of pieces, and the garden walls are twenty-nine even of the parsonage crumbling down. At ENFORD (15 houses. I told SNIP, at the time in my map) BENNETT, the Mem-(1821), that paper-money could ber for the county, had a large create no valuable thing. I begged mansion house, the stables of which SNIP to bear this in mind. I beare yet standing. In several sought all my readers, and particu→ places, I saw, still remaining, in-larly Mr. MATHIAS ATWOOD (one dubitable traces of an ancient ma- of the Members for Lowther-town), nor house, namely, a dove-cote, not to believe, that paper-money or pigeon-house. The poor pigeons ever did, or ever could, CREATĚ have kept possession of their heri- any thing of any value. I besought tage, from generation to genera-him to look well into the matter, tion, and, so have the rooks, in and assured him, that he would their several rookeries, while the find, that, though paper-money paper-system has swept away, or, could CREATE nothing of value, rather, swallowed up, the owners it was able to TRANSFER every of the dove-cotes and of the lofty thing of value; able to strip a trees, about forty families of which little gentry; able to dilapidate owners have been ousted in this even parsonage houses; able to one Valley, and have become rob gentlemen of their estates, and dead-weight creatures, tax-gather-labourers of their Sunday-coats ers, barrack-fellows, thief-takers, and their barrels of beer; able to or, perhaps, paupers or thieves. snatch the dinner from the board. Senator SNIP congratulated, of the reaper or the mower, and some years ago, that preciously to convey it to the barrack-table honourable" Collective Wisdom," of the Hessian or Hanoverian of which he is a most worthy grenadier; able to take away the Member; SNIP congratulated it wool, that ought to give warmth on the success of the late war in to the bodies of those who rear creating capital! SNIP is, you the sheep, and put it on the backs must know, a great feelosofer and of those who carry arms to keep a not less great feenanceer. SNIP the poor, half-famished shepherds cited, as a proof of the great and in order! glorious effects of paper-money, I have never been able clearly the new and fine houses in London, to comprehend what the beastly the new streets and squares, the Scotch feelosofers mean by their new roads, new canals and bridges."national wealth;" but, as far SNIP was not, I dare say, aware, as I can understand them, this is that this same paper-money had their meaning: that national destroyed forty mansion houses in this Vale of Avon, and had taken away all the goods, all the substance, of the little gentry and of the labouring class. SNIP was not, I dare say, aware, that this same paper-money had, in this one Vale of only thirty miles long,

wealth means, that which is left of the products of the country over and above what is consumed, or used, by those whose labour causes the products to be. This being the notion, it fellows, of course, that the fewer poor devils you can screw the products out of,

66

na

the richer the nation is. This is,
too, the notion of BURDETT, as
expressed in his silly and most
nasty, musty aristocratic speech
of last session. What, then, is
to be done with this over-produce?
Who is to have it? Is it to go to
pensioners, placemen, tax-gather-
ers, dead-weight people, soldiers,
gendarmerie, police-people, and,
in short, to whole millions who do
no work at all? Is this a cause
of national wealth"? Is a
nation made rich by taking the
food and clothing from those who
create them, and giving them to
those who do nothing of any use?
Aye, but, this over-produce may
be given to manufacturers, and to
those who supply the food-raisers
with what they want besides food.
Oh! but this is merely an ex-and, these are not to be secured
change of one valuable thing for
another valuable thing; it is an
exchange of labour in Wiltshire
for labour in Lancashire; and,
upon the whole, here is no over
production. If the produce be
exported, it is the same thing: it
is an exchange of one sort of la-
bour for another. But, our course
is, that there is not an exchange;
that those who labour, no matter
in what way, have a large part of
the fruit of their labour taken
away, and receive nothing in ex-
change. If the over-produce of
this Valley of Avon were given,
by the farmers, to the weavers in
Lancashire, to the iron and steel
chaps of Warwickshire, and to What a twist a head must
other makers or sellers of useful have before it can come to the
things, there would come an conclusion, that the nation gains
abundance of all these useful in wealth by the government
things into this valley from Lan-
cashire and other parts; but if,
as is the case, the over-produce
goes to the fundholders, the dead-
weight, the soldiers, the lord and

lady and master and miss pen-
sioners and sinecure people; if
the over-produce go to them, as a
very great part of it does, no-
thing, not even the parings of one's
nails, can come back to the valley
in exchange. And, can this ope-.
ration, then, add to the
tional wealth"? It adds to the
"wealth" of those who carry on
the affairs of state; it fills their
pockets, those of their relatives
and dependants; it fattens all
tax-eaters; but, it can give nɔ
wealth to the "nation," which
means, the whole of the people..
National Wealth means,
the
Commonwealth, or Commonweal;
and these mean, the general good,
or happiness, of the people, and
the safety and honour of the state;

by robbing those who labour, in
order to support a large part of
the community in idleness. DE-
VIZES is the market-town to which
the corn goes from the greater
part of this Valley. If, when a
wagon-load of wheat goes off in
the morning, the wagon came
back at night loaded with cloth,
salt, or something or other, equal
in value to the wheat, except what
might be necessary to leave with
the shopkeeper as his profit;
then, indeed, the people might
see the wagon go off without tears
in their eyes. But, now, they see-
it go to carry away, and to bring
next to nothing in return.

being able to cause the work to be done by those who have hardly any share in the fruit of the labour! What a twist such a head must have! The Scotch fceloso

fers, who seem all to have been, put forth to teach labouring peoby nature, formed for negro- ple how to avoid having children. drivers, have an insuperable ob- Now, look at this Valley of Avon. jection to all those establishments Here the people raise nearly and customs, which occasion ho- twenty times as much food and lidays. They call them a great clothing as they consume. They hinderance, a great bar to indus-raise five times as much, even actry, a great drawback from "na-cording to my scale of living. tional wealth." I wish each of They have been doing this for these unfeeling fellows had a many, many years. They have spade put into his hand for ten been doing it for several generadays, only ten days, and that he tions, Where, then, is their NAwere compelled to dig only just TURAL TENDENCY to inas much as one of the common crease beyond the means of suslabourers at Fulham. The me- tenance for them? Beyond, intaphysical gentleman would, Ideed, the means of that sustenance believe, soon discover the use of which a system like this will leave holidays! But, why should men, them. Say that, Sawneys, and F why should any men, work hard? agree with you. Far beyond the Why, I ask, should they work in- means that the taxing and monocessantly, if working part of the polizing system will leave in their days of the week be sufficient hands: that is very true; for it Why should the people at MIL- leaves them nothing but the scale of TON, for instance, work inces- the poor-book: they must cease to santly, when they now raise breed at all, or they must exceed, food and clothing and fuel and this mark; but, the earth, give every necessary to maintain well them their fair share of its profive times their number? Why ducts, will always give sustenance should they not have some holi-in sufficiency to those who apply days And, pray, say, thou con- to it by skilful and diligent labour. ceited Scotch feelosofer, how the The villages down this Valley "national wealth" can be increased, by making these people work incessantly, that they may raise food and clothing, to go to feed and clothe people who do not work at all.

of Avon, and, indeed, it was the same in almost every part of this county, and in the North and West of Hampshire also, used to have great employment for the women and children in the cardThe state of this Valley seems ing and spinning of wool for the to illustrate the infamous and really making of broad-cloth. This was diabolical assertion of MALTHUS, a very general employment for which is, that the human kind the women and girls; but, it is have a NATURAL TEND-now wholly gone; and this has ENCY to increase beyond the made a vast change in the conmeans of sustenance for them.dition of the people, and in the Hence all the schemes of this state of property and of manners and the other Scotch writers for what they call checking population. Hence all the beastly, the nasty, the abominable writings,

and of morals. In 1816, I wrote and published a LETTER TO THE LUDDITES, the object of which was to combat their hostility to the

use of machinery. The arguments without them this rich and beauI there made use of were general. tiful Valley becomes worth noI took the matter in the abstract. thing except to wild animals and The principles were all correct their pursuers. The labourers enough; but their application are men and boys. Women and cannot be universal; and, we girls occasionally; but the men have a case here before us, at and the boys are as necessary as this moment, which, in my opi- the light of day, or as the air and nion, shows, that the mechanic the water. Now, if beastly MAL❤ inventions, pushed to the extent THUS, or any of his nasty disci❤ that they have been, have been ples, can discover a mode of hav productive of great calamity to ing men and boys without having this country, and that they will women and girls, then, certainly, be productive of still greater ca- the machine must be a good thing; lamity; unless, indeed, it be their but, if this Valley must absolutely brilliant destiny to be the imme- have the women and the girls, then diate cause of putting an end to the machine, by leaving them the present system. with nothing to do, is a mischievous thing; and a producer of most dreadful misery. What, with re

plaint now? Why, that the sin gle man does not receive the same, or any thing like the same, wages as the married man. Aye,

The greater part of manufactures consist of clothing and bedding. Now, if by using a ma-gard to the poor, is the great comchine, we can get our coat with less labour than we got it before, the machine is a desirable thing. But, then, mind, we must have the machine at home and we our-it is the wife and girls that are selves must have the profit of it; for, if the machine be elsewhere; if it be worked by other hands; if other persons have the profit of it; and if, in consequence of the existence of the machine, we have hands at home, who have nothing to do, and whom we must keep, then the machine is an injury to us, however advantageous it may be to those who use it, and whatever traffic it may occasion with foreign States.

the burden; and, to be sure, a burden they must be, under a system of taxation like the present, and with no work to do. Therefore, whatever may be saved in labour by the machine is no benefit, but an injury to the mass of the people. For, in fact, all that the women and children earned was so much clear addition to what the family earns now, The greatest part of the clothing in the United States of America Such is the case with regard to is made by the farm women and this cloth-making. The machines girls. They do almost the whole are at Upton-Level, Warminster, of it; and all that they do is done Bradford, Westbury, and Trow-at home. To be sure, they might bridge, and here are some of the buy cheap; but they must buy for hands in the Valley of Avon. less than nothing, if it would not This Valley raises food and cloth- answer their purpose to make the ing; but, in order to raise them, things. it must have labourers. These are absolutely necessary; for,

The survey of this Valley is, I think, the finest answer in the