บ เ Stacey. This is all that I shall say re-means of the King and his Ministers, lative to these affairs at present, except we are now about to obtain. that I vouch for the truth of the facts As long as the Parliament remained here stated; that, when I was in unreformed, there was no hope of betHampshire the other day I went to ter days for the labourer: the farmer see the poor widow, their mother; was unable to give him a sufficiency that I found that JOSEPH's child was of wages without ruin to himself, owing? living with her; that JosEen's wife to the enormous burdens which he had was gone to live at service at Barton to bear. The reform of Parliament Farm, Bishop Stocke; and that the will and must diminish these burdens. widow was likely to keep the cottage, It was useless for men to be industrious, her cow and piece of ground, owing to sober, and frugal, while misery was the goodness of the owner, whom I still their lot, in spite of the constant understood to be MR. EDWARD TWIN- practice of these virtues. They laHAM of Witchurch; and here, in these boured in despair; and, therefore, when circumstances, you have the foundation idleness was as well rewarded as inof my most particular anxiety for the dustry, why should they labour? Things well-being of the labouring people, in- will now be changed: we shall have encluding the makers of the ploughs, and couragement to practise care a and fruthe makers of the cloths, and the gality. I am about to teach you how makers of the buildings, as well as the each of you, who has a little piece of tillers of the land, in this little bunch of ground in his hands, may greatly add to flinty parishes. his well being; but even this I do I was discouraged from doing as long as the Parliament remained unreformed. I, some years ago, wrote a little book called "COTTAGE ECONOMY," of which book thousands of copies have been sold. It teaches the brewing of beer, the making of bread, the rearing of pigs and poultry, the keeping of a cow, the curing of bacon, and, in short, everything necessary to teach a small family how to make the most of a small bit of ground, and how to live well by good pense with the everlasting pot hung over the fire to cook the soul-degrading potatoes. But even when I wrote that book, I told the reader that it would be of little use in general without a reform of the Parliament. My friends, the working people of England, whether you actually turn up the land or make the implements for doing it with; whether you cut down the corn or the wood, or make the tools necessary for the purpose, or weave or make up the clothing necessary for those who do the work: to the whole of you I now announce with feelings of great joy, that we are now about to have THAT reform of Parliament for which JOSEPH MASON carried a petition to the King, from Bullington to Brigh- management. Particularly how to diston, signed by about two hundred of the labourers of those little hard parishes, which petition the King did not receive; and I will here add my opinion that, if the King had not been advised not to receive it, but to receive it graciously, there never would have It may be asked, Will a reform of the been a riot in these little hard parishes. Parliament give the labouring mana In that petition, drawn up by JOSEPH cow or a pig; will it put bread and MASON himself, the King would have cheese into his satchell instead of inseen the true state of the labourers fernal cold potatoes; will it give him a of England. However, the past cannot bottle of beer to carry to the field inbe recalled; we cannot bring back stead of making him lie down upon his yesterday; and, though the two MA- belly to drink out of the brook; will it SONS, and many others may be, and put upon his back a Sunday coat I trust will be, brought back to their and send him to church, instead of parents, their wives, and their children, leaving him to stand lounging about let us, in the mean time, make the shivering with an unshaven face and a most of the good which, through the carcass half covered with a ragged }); a 4 smock-frock, with a filthy cotton shirt demands, and than is necessary to the beneath it as yellow as a kite's foot? happiness and honour of our country.. Will parliamentary, reform put an end There must be, you will understand, to the harnessing of men and women by a hired overseer to draw carts like beasts of burden; will it put an end to the practice of putting up labourers to auction like negroes in Carolina or Jamaica; will it put an end to the system which caused the honest labourer to be fed worse than the felons in the jails; will it put an end to the system which caused almost the whole of the young women to incur the indelible disgrace of being on the point of being mothers before they were married, owing to that degrading poverty which prevented the fathers themselves from obtaining the means of paying the parson and the clerk will parliamentary reform put an end to the foul, the beastly, the nasty practice of separating men from their wives by force, and committing to the hired overseer the bestial superintendence of their persons day and night; will parliamentary reform put an end to this which was amongst the basest acts which the Roman tyrants committed towards their slaves? The enemies of reform jeeringly ask us, whether reform would do these things for us; and I answer distinctly that IT WOULD DO THEM ALL! : : But there are two things which we ought to be upon our guard against: the first is, a notion that all these things will be done at once and immediately and the other is the notion that we can all be equally rich, and all live in the same sort of way. With regard to the first of these, it would be to show very little good sense, to suppose that such a mass of evils and abuses is wholly to be removed in a day. Lord GREY, who is the King's chief minister, and who is the real and sole author of this reform, has never had any hand in any of those measures which have caused our sufferings; but, it is impossible for him, even him, to restore things to a proper state in a day or even in a year. We want the thing done; but we want it done peaceably, and without the creating of any more suffering than strict justice suffering; there must be, distress, created amongst others, in consequence of doing bare justice to the industrious classes, REFORM will create nothing, except that it will not cause the labours of the country to be more productive: it will not (except in this comparatively trifling degree) add to the quantity of bread and meat and other things in the country. Generally speaking, it will create nothing that is good to man; but, it will cause a different distribution of every-thing that is good. There are millions, yea, inillions, who now live luxuriously in idleness, while those who do the work are, or at least have been, half starved. REFORM will take from the idlers and restore to the laborious. But, peaceable reform, that which we all desire,, will not do this all at once. From this new distribution the idlers must suffer; and, though the new distribution will be perfectly just, justice will demand from us that we make the suffering as supportable as is consistent with our own well-being and with the safety, honour, and welfare, of our country. For instance now, suppose there to be, in the ten little. hard parishes above-mentioned, some pensioner dead-weight man, sinecureholder, pluralist-parson, Ioan-monger, or any other person living upon the labour of the people; and suppose it to be strictly just, that laws should be passed that would take, from him all that he has to live on, it would not be morally just in us to demand such a law; because common humanity would forbid it. We, therefore, who have been suffering forty, nay more than forty years, for fifty, ought now to be patient for a little longer. We see land; and it would be foolish indeed to jump into the sea of confusion and anarchy to reach it, when we know, that, by quietly remaining on board, the ship would" bring us to it and land us in safety. By the unnatural, the monstrous system of debts and taxes, the riches and the food and the raiment of the country have been drawn together into great masses. say much, or, indeed, any-thing, to the "Where the carcass is, there will the far greater part of you; and it would eagles be gathered together." The peo-not have been necessary to say one ple have followed the masses of riches, word to any of you on the subject, had of food and of raiment. The million it not been for the stupid industry of and a half of human beings assembled those who have been living on your in and around London, the swarms got labours, to give you what they call together at Bath, Brighton, Chelten- education; that is to say, book-knowham, and various other places, are ledge, which they have been cramming maintained there by the money, down your throats by the means of food, and raiment, drawn from the their schools and their tracts, all having productive parts of the country. When one and the same tendency; namely, the reformed Parliament shall have di- to make you live contentedly upon pominished the taxes to their proper tatoes, while their tables were covered standard, the money, the food, and the with the best of bread and of meat, and raiment, will remain with those who some of them eating strawberries at a own and cultivate the land, and who guinea an ounce. In this work of make the clothing, and the houses, and educating, however, they have, without the tools. The swarms before men- intending it, produced a pretty prevationed will and must suffer from this lent opinion that there ought to be an restoration of goods to their right equal distribution of riches as well as owners; and as men when assembled of knowledge; and that all men ought. in great bodies make more noise than to live in the same sort of way. This, when they are thinly scattered, the out- a bare survey of the world will convince cry of the sufferers will be dreadful, and you, rever can be. If there were no especially if the suffering be pushed to rich farmers, there could be no store of its extreme all at once. Reform will corn or of meat in the country; if there be reviled as the cause of all this suf- were no gentlemen to be magistrates, fering, the revilers not considering that there could be neither peace nor prothe beggaring of one fat pensioner puts perty; if there were no legislators of a flitch of bacon on the rack of two or great integrity and knowledge, the three hundred labourers. It will be the country must be torn to pieces for want, duty of the Government to do the thing, of laws; if there were no men of great and it will be our duty to stand by that learning and experience, there could be Government in the doing of it; but, no judges to execute the laws; if there when the actual dispersion of whole were no statesmen there could be no masses of people must be the unavoid-state, and the nation would have no able consequence, it would neither be politically wise nor morally just, even if the Government had the power to effect it peacably, to do the thing all at once. Therefore, my friends, let us be patient: REFORM is merely the instrument with which to do the good; and if we have but a little patience, the whole of the good will come. Be patient, therefore, now; prove to those who have insolently called you peasantry and lower orders, that you have sense, and moderation, and humanity, and love of country, if they have none. With regard to the other topic; namely, the notion that all men ought to be equally rich and live in the same sort of way, it is not necessary for me to means of providing for its independence and safety. If all men were upon an equality in point of means, England would become what the wilds of America are, inhabited by wild men; nobody would work except just to provide food and raiment for the day; and our country would become the most beggarly upon the earth, instead of being what it formerly was (and I hope and trust will be again) the pride of its own people and the envy of the world. Besides, my friends; besides this: impossibility; besides that this in-. equality in point of riches is contrary to the order of the world and the decrees of God; besides this, I beseech you not to overlook the advantages which the labouring man has over his rich tyranny and corruption, the canting neighbour. The latter has diet and wretches, called Methodist teachers, drink and fuel and clothing and bed-appear to me to be the worst. These ding, which the former would not look are the true blasphemers; for they at with longing eyes if he knew the represent the Almighty as willing and cares and anxieties with which they even wishing the people should live in are attended. What would the lord or a half-starving state; that they should the squire, sitting in his carpetted be fed upon garbage or potatoes; and room, and half a score dishes before that this is conducive to their eternal him, give for that appetite with which salvation. Read that Bible, my friends, the ploughman eats his bread and about which these canting hypocrites cheese, curled up under the shelter of talk so much; read it; only read it, a hedge, or with which, sitting on his and you will find that, from one end to brick floor, he eats the bit of bacon and the other, the promise of good living is pudding after his return, dividing the made to those who shall do well, and last mouthful with his children! And, the threat of hunger to those who shall oh! what would either of them give, do ill. You will find the precept, that when getting into his bed of down, for those who will not work shall not eat. that sleep which the labourer enjoys You will find a long string of bitter when he tumbles down upon his bed, or curses on those who defraud the laupon a bench, too weary to pull off his bourer of his hire. You will find that clothes. We must set one thing even the ox is not to be muzzled as he against the other. The labourer knows treadeth out the corn. You will find that nothing of the curse of ambition; he the labourer, when he has discharged has nobody to grudge him his earn- his task, is not to be sent away emptyings; there is no hellish envy at work handed, but is to receive freely, from to calumniate him, pull him down, or the granary, the flock, and the winesupplant him. ~ His children, destined press of the master. And yet, in the. to tread the same path which he has face of all this, these canting Methodist trodden, he has always with him or ruffians, well crammed with meat and near him. I have always remarked ale themselves, preach to the people that the labouring people are the most that, to live upon potatoes, or to lie affectionate parents and children; and, down and die quietly with starvation, is if there were no more than this, this a mark of grace, and a sure means of sealone is more than an over-balance for curing eternal salvation. Of all the tools all the advantages that riches and high of the boroughmongers, these have been ̈ life can bestow. For my own part, the most choice. For forty years they though enjoying all the blessings that were labouring to induce the labouring constant sobriety, resolute abstinence, people of England to live upon potaand consequent uninterrupted health toes; while they, by defrauding them can give, I have often, after very of a part of the few pennies that they serious reflection upon the matter, got, were living in luxury. come to the determination that I should Far from me to inculcate content have been still happier than I have with potatoes in exchange for hard labeen, though I have been a very happy bour. Such labour merits a sufficiency man, if I had remained (with a just of bread, of meat, of beer, good fuel, and sufficient reward for my labour) a good clothing, good lodging; and if labouring man all the days of my life. the man who labours honestly and truly, But, though I thus preach content, at whatever sort of work, do not obtain far from me the villanous thought of a sufficiency of these for himself and recommending to those who labour his family too, I despise him for being truly and honestly to be content without content; I despise him for being quiet; receiving a sufficiency of food and of I despise him for lying down and raiment for their labour. And, of all starving with the hope of salvation for the detestable villains ever fostered by his reward. Such a man is a worm, INSTRUCTIONS TO LABOURERS FOR I WILL first describe this corn to you.. made to be devoured by the fowls of pot-boiling potatoes, which, as you well the air, or to be trodden on and know, makes a sort of stuff that boils squeezed to death. For many, many half away in the pot, and the remainder. years, and especially since the Union of which is only fit to grease wheels with Ireland, endeavours have been with. I am going to tell you how to making to induce the English labourers get bacon as solid and as sweet as that to live upon potatoes. Had it not been fatted upon barley-meal, and that, too, for that accursed, that soul-degrading, without going to either farmer or miller; that man-enslaving root, the people of that is to say, if you have from ten to Ireland never could have been brought twenty rods of ground, and will strictly to their present miserable state. All follow my directions. manner of means have been resorted to to bring the English to their present miserable state. I thank God Almighty the attempts have failed; and I do not know that I ever experienced more pleasure in all my life than I did upon finding that the working people in the bunch of little flinty parishes in Hampshire now get a sufficiency of bacon and bread. The whole of my journey into Hampshire, all the circumstances considered, was the pleasantest I ever took in my life. The havoc made in those parishes amongst the labourers, has been dreadful, the victims have been numerous; but those who remain have, bacon and bread and beer; and never will they again go to the fields with cold potatoes in their satchells. Mr. DEDAMS, shoemaker, of Sutton Scotney, told me that the labourers were well off and contented; that the farmers adhered faithfully to their promises, and that harmony feigned in the villages such as he had never known before. "Do they get bacon and bread," said I; and when he told me that they did, I said, "That is enough." treatise on this corn, in a book which I sell for two-and-sixpence, giving a minute account of the qualities,the culture, the harvesting, and of the various uses of this corn; but I shall here confine myself to what is necessary for a la bourer to know about it, so that he may be induced to raise, and may be enabled to raise, enough of it in his garden to fat, a pig of ten score. There are a great many sorts of this corn. They all come from countries which are hotter than England. This sort, which, my eldest son brought into Now, my friends, this. bacon being England, is a dwarf kind, and is the the standard with me, I am about to only kind that I have known to ripen give you instructions how to get more in this country; and I know that it bacon than you would be able to get will ripen in this country in any sumwithout those instructions. I am not mer; for, I had a large field of it in. conceited enough to think that I can 1828 and 1829; and last year (my tell you any-thing useful concerning lease, at my farm being out at Michael those things which you have been ac-mas, and this corn not ripening till late customed to from your infancy; but in October) I had about two acres in am going to tell you about something that you cannot know any-thing about. I am going to tell you how to get the means of fatting a pig of ten score without peas, beans, barley, or oats. God forgive you, if you think that I am going to recommend the everlasting my garden at Kensington. Within the memory of man there have not been three summers so cold as the last, one after another; and not one so cold. as the last. Yet my corn ripened perfectly well, and this, you will be sa tisfied of if you be amongst the men to |