They do not make use of these words; this is not their manner of stating the case; but, talk to one of them ten minutes upon the subject, and you will find that he has all these notions in his head,

what they have gained. Urged on to to the great towns, and get from the action by this double motive, yielding absentees wherewith to relieve their in power to none but the desire to pre- wants; for, as the thing stands now, serve life, it is unreasonable to suppose we are made poor for the purpose of that they will ever settle down into putting money into the pockets of the content, until they obtain that good absentee landlords and parsons of living which their forefathers had, and Ireland. Our laudlords, parsons, and a knowledge of which they all possess farmers, are fools, to be sure, to be long before they arrive at man and wo- compelled to raise in poor-rates to give man's estate. All over the country us that which these Irishmen take away there exists a dread of the consequences from us; but that is their affair: our of the annual influx of Irish labourers. affair is, to have good food and raiment Everywhere, and especially in Kent and and lodging as the fruit of our labour; Sussex, the labourers are expressing a and our landlords, parsons and farmers, determination not to have the cream of must and shall give us this. But these the year's labour swept off by these in- Irishmen come and take from us the truders. I have always contended that cream of the fruit of that labour; and the Irish labourers had a right to come this we will prevent by all the means in here; for that, in fact, they were in our power. pursuit of the bacon, the butter, the beef and the bread, and the mutton, too, drained out of their own country and brought into this; and, practising what I preached, I always employed them promiscuously with others, until a gang of them were base enough to As to the fact, there is a pretty gene. be hired by the VILLAIN par excel-ral resolution amongst the labourers of lence, to interrupt me at one of England to make a stand against the my Lectures. I have always remon- employment of Irish harvestmen this strated with the labourers about Ken- year; and I wish the Ministers to sington on the score of their hos- recollect, that, amongst all the lies and tility to these people. They have a all the fooleries and all the malignant right to come: they pursue the ab- works of last autumn; amongst all the sentees to get morsels of the ship-loads pretty workings with Goodman the inof food sent from their own country. cendiary, and the canvassing of the But, the answer of the English labour-prisoners in the jails in Wiltshire and ers is this: WE get none of their Hampshire, to find out men to confess bacon and butter and beef and flour: that they had been deluded by Cobbett; they send them here for their absentees amongst all the monstrous lies about to enjoy they may be eaten, for any- jails full of Frenchmen, and about “misthing that we know to the contrary, creant instigators" going about the poultry, eggs, and all, in London, and country in gigs and post-chaises and in the great towns in the North; but landaus; amongst all the lies of Parnone of them come to our share: we sons DAY and FARDELL, and all the derive no benefit from the ill-treatment other pretty tricks that were played off of the Irish. They ought to compel in order to delude the country, and to their landlords to relieve them out of blind even the people themselves to the the fruits of the earth on the produce of real cause of the fires; amongst all this, their labour at home; and if they have it seems to have been wholly forgotten not the sense or the courage to do this, that the rioting, and machine-breaking, they have, at any rate, no right to come and firing, all began in a fight against here and take from us the means of the Irish labourers, This Rural War paying our rent, getting our pig, getting our clothing and fuel for the winter: if they do come to England, let them go

began in the Isle of Thanet, from which the English labourers actually drove the Irish, in the begiuning of the month of

August. Their ill-will was directed question: Can you get in the harvest in against the employers of these Irish good time and order without the assist labourers, as well as against the Irish-ance of Irish people. The answer men themselves. Those of these em- would be "NO!" from thirty-nine out ployers who distinguished themselves of the forty, if not from the whole forty. to put down this attempt, to put down Is this not a proper question to put, the Irish, became marked men; and inthen? Is this not a matter to be incases where open violence was not quired into, especially by a ministry who prudent, secret means of revenge were are actually proposing to mortgage all resorted to. The Irish were expelled the houses and lands in England for the from the Isle of Thanet completely; purpose of getting rid of English the wages immediately rose, or rather labourers? the price per acre for the cutting of corn. The natives saw, at once, the good resulting from the violence that they had resorted to. When the harvest was over, they demanded higher wages for their common work than they had received before the harvest; the noncompliance produced the machinebreaking and the fires; and thus began that mode of warfare which, common sense tells us, must be revived if some measures be not adopted to prevent it.

Was there ever any-thing so monstrous in this world heard of before? Can a country be otherwise than wretched; can it come to any-thing short of anarchy and confusion, while facts like these are staring us in the face? We are here speaking of matters of fact: here is no Malthusian philosophy or any other rubbishy stuff such as comes from the brains of PETER THIMBLE, Esquire. Here are two facts: the first, that the ministry are using all the means That the labourers in Kent and in their power; that they have even the Sussex especially will return to potatoes desperate project of mortgaging the land and salt, is not to be believed by any and the houses of the whole country, man in his senses. The "shires," as in order to raise money to get the lathey call the other counties to the west-bourers away from it; and we have the ward, may lag behind them a little; but other fact, that the English labourers that the example will be generally fol- are so scarce that the English harvests lowed in a very short time no man can cannot be got in, in good time and in doubt. In the meanwhile, and while good order, without the assistance of Lord Howick is racking his mind for labourers from Ireland. What, I ask, the means of getting the labourers away can the men be made of to carry on a out of England, there are not, in several government in this manner? What parts of England, hands to get in the har-but national misery can flow from vest, without the assistance of these Irish! counsels such as these. All manner of Mr. BENNETT, who is a member for one creatures that are wasters of the public of the greatest corn-counties in Eng-wealth are received, encouraged, fosland; Lord SALISBURY, who lives in the tered, and caressed, come from what heart of another very great corn-county; country they will. The Flemish women have both of them distinctly declared, swarm over England. I have seen and so has Mr. WESTERN, and so has them in Lincolnshire, in Somersetshire, Lord STANHOPE, and so have many in Kent; and not only in the great other men of great experience in country towns, but even in the villages and affairs, that we have not one man too hamlets, straddling about in a sort of many in the country to do the work of half-masculine dress, fat as hogs. To the country. Well I do know the fact, these we may add an enormous pack of and have long asserted it. But, let the Italians and Jews, who are also to be Minister send for one sensible farmer seen in the very villages. In every who farms two hundred acres of corn- nobleman's and gentleman's house land; let him send for one farmer out of there is some one or more Swiss or every county in England, and put to outlandish devil. The nobility themthese forty men, one by one, this selves, the far greater part of them,

from their labour; and, if they be not content, there is no peace for the country. They made, by their simple movements, nobles stand aghast. They are like the waters, or the fire; while they are in their proper channel, or confined to their proper uses, all manner of good comes from them but, if once they break loose; if once their power be misapplied, all is destruction. Innumerable people said to me, last winter, that they had always thought me wrong when I said that Reform in Parliament would come, at last, from the fellows in smock-frocks and nailed shoes, but they confessed that I had been right all along. Asuk

make it their boast that they are de towns, too. In short, they are the peoscended from Normans. Even the ple of the country: every thing springs bloated up loan-mongers, the BARINGS, boast, in their pedigree, that their origin ais Dutch! So that the country people Kin England really appear to be the Sonly natives that there are in it, and, according to the notions that are afloat amongst those who rule us, they appear to be the only people that have no right to be in it. They have a right to be in it, though; and, gentlemen, that right they will show you that they bknow how to maintain. If there be too many people in the country, common sense and common decency would adictate that these riff-raff of foreigners a should be first expelled; if there still remain too many, let the Irish and Scotch be exported from their own country by sea, instead of coming here. But there are not too many, in either of those countries, of the people who lao-bour, if they have justice done them.

Now, then, it is the people, nothing short of the people, that are to be kept within the bounds of tranquillity and content. With gas-lights before our doors, and with a police-fellow within These, however, are matters to be ten yards of us, day and night, we can adwelt on more fully hereafter." Suffi- sit down in our houses very quietly, and cient unto the day is the evil thereof," go to bed without fear. Nay, we can -and the evil of this day is, the rooted read pastorals, in which the tranquillity, and well-founded discontent of the mil- the happiness, and the absence from lions of labourers of England; of Ire- care, of the farmer, are so prettily deland and of Scotland too, indeed, and scribed, and can sigh for those rural of Ireland in a still greater degree; but and tranquil scenes; but, if we would I must, upon the present occasion, let our imagination carry us to the farmconfine myself to the labourers of Eng-house, there to behold the anxious aland, respecting whose situation, the farmer and his wife going to bed, while temper of whose minds, whose manners, half-a-dozen watches are hired to see to whose disposition, whose propensities, wand whose wants, taking them all over the country, I know more than any man alive, or, perhaps, than any man that ever lived; for I have seen the far greater part of them, and it has been the greatest object of my life to endeavour to do them good and make them better off than they are. Many men have said, "Cobbett is always dinning us about these labouring people: one “would think, from what he says, that they are every thing; and what are they? You found that they were something last Autumn. My readers wil not hold language like this, I am sured but they taught the great gas lighted towns that they were something, and something a little more than those

the safety of the barns and the ricks, left with instructions, in case of need, to cut the halters of the horses and to drive them out along with the cows and the pigs into the fields; if we could see them, their heads hardly on the pillow, rising in a fright at a sudden gust of wind, or at the rumble of a distant coach or wagon; if we could see them resorting to a thousand acts which their natures condemn, in order to wheedle their workmen and servants to ¡forbear rendering them beggars in an hour: if we could bring our imaginations to give us this picture, the very mention of soldiers and of special commissions and transportings and hangings would make us sick to the very heart: we should be plunged into despair: we

น

should see that, without some efficient hearted the law provided that the remedy, our country must be ruined for whole of the rate-payers in the parish, ages; that the very hearts of the peo- little or big, should have a vote in ple must be vitiated, and that we never choosing the overseers; and, as the little should again see peace and friendship rate-payers would be more numerous and good neighbourhood in England. than the great rate-payers, they would What, then, is to be done? I repeat, generally choose men likely to have that there never will be peace in England some fellow feeling with the less fortyagain; that the farmer never will know nate part of the parishioners. Besides, security again, until the Bills of Sturges the overseer was, according to the law, Bourne be repealed; and I see not one to be a rate-payer himself, a resident, single man in the Parliament, even yet; and, nine times out of ten, a native of or, at least, I know of no such man, who the parish, knowing every poor person will propose the repeal of those bills. well from his infancy, well acquainted Those bills were, in fact, bills for tak-with their characters and their ailments, ing away the rights of the labouring having been the playmate of many of people of England. I have described them, and having, of course, that feeling them often enough, and shall not repeat with regard to them which a man in the description here. The following such an office ought to have. Sturges advertisement, which I take from a Bourne's Bills, with merciless band, Yorkshire paper, is a specimen of the swept all this away. These billa put it way in which the rich people of the in the power of the rich to choose whom parishes proceed in consequence of these they please for overseers; to make the Bills. "Wanted, a Married Man, to act overseer a merc collector of the rates; to "as Assistant Overseer for the Town- take from him all power of distribution ship of Hipperholme cum-Brighouse. of relief; to bring in a Scotchman, a "He will be required to take the Pau-negro, or a Jew, to dole out, or not to "pers in the Poor-House at per head, dole out, relief at his pleasure, or accollect the Poor's-Rates, take the cording to their instructions; and these general management of the Overseers' bills took even from the magistrate the "business, and occupy the Farm now in power to order relief even when he "the hands of the Overseers, consisting thought it necessary. In the case “of about nine acres, at a rental. The which I take from the Leeds Mercury of appointment will take place at Bottom the twenty-eighth of May, this hireling, Hall, on Wednesday, the 15th day of who may be a Jew, as I said before, is “June next, at two o'clock in the after- to lodge and feed the poor people at noon, and further particulars may be so much a-head, as dog-keepers take "known on application to Mr. Samuel dogs to keep! It is impossible to say Washington, Churchwarden, Mr. G. any-thing upon such a subject adequate "Hirst, or Mr. Samuel Avison, Over-to the horror which the thing excites in "seers of the said township."

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one's own breast, Here, too, the over

So, you see, here the regular parish-seers are a mere sham; for they shift officers, appointed according to the act of Queen Elizabeth, hire a fellow to fill this important post. He may be a Scotchman, Irishman, Swiss, Dutchman, Black-fellow, or even Jew, and it is very likely that he will be the latter, for a Jew will drive harder even than a Seotch feelosopher, and lay on the whip heavier. The law of the land provided that the overseers should be persons of the parish or township; that there should be two of them in case one should be ill, or, in case he should be hard

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from their shoulders even the trouble of collecting the rates; and this hireling is to take the "general management of the overseer's business;" so that the poor people do not know who the overseer is. This is the great curse of the country. The moment the Bills were passed; or, at least, as soon as I heard of them, which was while I was in Long Island, I said, that it would either make the people of England the basest and most degraded upon the face of the earth, the Irish not excepted, or that it

would make them break out into re-feelings that led to the fires; if they bellion; but that I was convinced it had not seen the hired overseers everywould be the latter consequence. From where the object of the people's vengethat day to this, I have been ringing my ance; if they had not seen them carted warnings in the ears of the Government, about, and driven from the parishes; if for which warnings they have showed they had not seen the rich, in their the utmost contempt. I now warn fright, hastily assemble, discharge the them again, and, if possible, with more hired overseer, and proclaim the select anxiety than at any former period. They vestry dissolved; if they had not therehave nothing to do but to repeal these upon seen peace and order restored, the two bills: they have nothing to do but labourers tranquillized, and the farmers to place the Poor-laws as they stood in once more able to go to bed in quiet: 1818; they have repealed bills before; if they had not seen all these things they can repeal bills when they please. with their own eyes, and, in many inAt any rate, they have their choice now; stances, there might be room for their repeal these bills, and peace and safety hesitating; but, having seen these to the farmer; or continue the select things, and still keeping these bills in vestries and the hired overseers, and force, one might truly say, "Neither have no peace and no security to the" would they believe, though one were farmer, and no security for country pro- to rise from the dead!" perty of any description. The Gamelaws, giving power to the owners of the game to transport poachers for seven years, without the intervention of a judge, are bad enough; they have created heart-burning enough; and the Ministry have so far listened to my advice as to bring in a bill, which I suppose they will revive, for repealing this hateful law; but this law, though it created heart-burning and vindictive feelings without end; though it caused many a breast in almost every village to burn with revenge, was a feather compared with Sturges Bourne's Bills: these affect every living creature amongst the labouring people in the country; they have altered the whole of the state of rural society in England; they have created that new and horrible feeling described by Lord STANHOPE, the winter before last, of a rooted hatred between rich and poor; a thing. that never was heard of before in England. It is not that this man is hated because he is this or that, or does so and so; but because he is rich; because he is a great rate-payer; because he is one of the employers of the hired over

seer.

If the Ministers had not seen, with their own eyes, the proof of the fatal effects of these bills; if they had not seen that the hired overseers were, at bottom, the cause of all the vindictive

It will be said, a reformed Parliament may repeal these bills if they please. Yes, and repeal them they will, because they must, if it be not done by the present Parliament; but the country cannot wait: the expression in the country is, "It is so long a coming:" we, in London, who have no stacks to burn, and no cattle to be poisoned or otherwise destroyed, and who are not surrounded each of us by a set of persons to accuse us of starving them; we can wait patiently enough for the Reform to produce its natural effects; but the farmers cannot wait: they hear no reproaches, indeed, as yet; but they know well what is passing in the minds of the labourers, and they tremble at the thought of the consequences. Reform will be of little use to them when they shall be burned out, or harassed to death with apprehension.

The

The calling out of the yeomanry is one of the most unwise things that ever was adopted by any Government on earth. A body of these were disarmed, the other day, by a body of discontented colliers, or iron-founders, in Wales. But it is not in open fights that the mischief will be done it is by those means which laugh at yeomanry, at the standing army, and at force of every description. Those terrible means it is which fill the farmer with alarm; and, if something be not done to put a stop to