pay him till after the harvest,, without selling the cow, and then what are the poor dear children to do?nd ye doy 502 90 15.11 higes w

to Barm Well, I don't know how it is, but I have had a misgiving in my mind all day, that something bad was going to happen.

MRS. Brach. Never mind, child; God will be our protector."

ppmodal vento † Enter DICK...it wolle rov don'Į

BETO) Oh, Richard, I'm glad you're come; for I'm so low-spirited. Drek. What about? Don't repent, do you? Jedi 210% 15 207 BET. How can you ask me that? But there's that old beast, Sir Gripe, has just sent for mother about the sn't að samnos sir winl DICK. Sent for her! Why, he has sent for me too, and Fm going up to him. BET. For you! As sure as death there's something brewing, and I did'nt feel my heart sinking for nothing.

DICK Taking her hand] Come, come, don't be foolish. What do you cry for? Be quiet, now; and I'll go up to the old fellow, and call as I come back. Sx bar que [Erit. yptof MINI

SCENE VI.-Farmer STILES's Parlour: SQUIre Thimble, STIERS"rand" LAST, the Shoemaker of the Village, བན་ག་ར་ ཟླ་ elitem at vɛwa Ljáb

!SQUTum. But, farmer, don't you see what a brood, what a litter, what a farrow, what a swarm, this couple will bring to eat up the country?

STILES: Why, Sir, I dare say they will have plenty, but God never sends mouths without sending meat.

SQU. Turm. Not for them, not for them!
LAST. Whom does he send it for, then?

ادر

SQU THIM. For those who can afford to pay for it. zona vadban i 2 ead LAST. But, if they pay for it out of the money that they get from titles and taxes, God does not send it for them, but they take it by force from those who work; and it does seem strange indeed, Sir, that you should seem to rejoice in their increase, while you are so anxious to put a stop to the breeding of those who do the work.

STILES. Yes, Sir, as neighbour Last says, it is all as one as if I were to put a stop to the breeding of my cart-mares, and bread nothing but nags and pleasure ponies.

trit bas

SQU. THIM. [Aside.] Oh! the devil these fellows have been reading Cobbett's pernicious Trash.

LAST Aye, neighbour, all as one as if you, not having corn enough to keep your nags and cart-horses too, were to knock the cart-horses on the head. STILES, And pretty crops I should have then. ›

LAST. And pretty payment Sir Gripe would get from you at Michaelmas and Lady-Day.

t

SQU. THIM. But, Mr. Last, do you not know that there is, in nature, a tendency, in every country, for the people to increase faster than the food that they usually live on?

LAST. I do not only not know that fact, but I know that, besides its being contrary to reason and experience, it is next to blasphemy to assert it. But, Sir, if there be, in nature, this tendency, how comes it that it never was discovered before and that never, until about twenty-seven years ago, when that Scotch fellow, Malthus, wrote his book, no man in England ever dreamed of our having too many people? 100 of to chosim vai tok real SOU. THIM. The evil has not existed until of late years dem indi tal LAST. But, if it be in nature, why did it not exist before a decad 203 SOU. THIN Why, I suppose, that there used to be more moral restraint, more prudence, as to marriage and having children. e, tou i tr

LAST. How could that be, when you say that the want of moral restraint arises from want of education, and when we have now fifty times as much of that nonsense as we had when I was a boy? Fodor 919 mine Jadi yeb lle

SQU. THIи. But you will allow that there is a great want of employmsuk LAST. Yes.

Squ. THIм. Then you allow that there are too many labourers. STILES. No, no, Sir, too little money in our hands to pay them duly for their labour. Plenty of work that ought to be done, but not enough money to pay for it, use via and zotdi 3pc

SQU. THIM. That comes to the same thing for, if you have not money tá pay them all, there are too many of them.

LAST. By no means. Suppose Stiles, here, have 100% in his drawer, ready to pay for hoeing that he intends to have done, and suppose a thief to come and steal the money, Stiles must leave the ground unhoed, and it must be over-run with weeds, and the crop be one half what it would have been, if his money had not been stolen.

SQU. THIM. You are supposing a case that can rarely happen. LAST. Not at all; for money taken away by the parson and the tax-gatherer, is taken away from Stiles as effectually as if taken away by thieves.

SQU. THIM. What, Sir; do you call the parson and the tax-gatherer thieves! LAST. Oh, no! but money taken away from Stiles, is money deducted from his means of paying labourers, no matter by whom, or under what pretence the money is so taken.

SOU. THIM. You must know, however, at any rate, that the people of this country have greatly increased in number.

LAST. I neither know nor believe it; for I see churches, built hundreds of years ago, with scarcely any parishioners; I see many of them quite tumbled down; and I know that they never would have been built, if there had not been people to go to them.

SQU. THIM. [Aside.] These fellows have all been reading Cobbett, and as my friends, TREVOR and WILMOT, say, nothing can stand, neither Church nor State, if that wicked fellow be not put to silence. [To them. You think, then, that the more the merrier, and the more paupers you breed, the better it will be for you, and that, instead of checking premature marriages, you ought (as, indeed, you do) to offer a premium for breeding children, as we do for breeding sheep or planting trees?

LAST, There needs no premium; for, whether married or not, country girls will have children; but since you talk of paupers and of a premium for breeding, pray what are those who are on the pension and sinecure lists, men, women, and children } and, as to the premiums for breeding, what do you call the money that is given to poor parsons and to half-pay officers and their widows and children? Are not these premiums for breeding, and pre miums, too, paid out of taxes raised in part on these very labourers? And what are the military academies and asylums but premiums to the rich and the soldiers to induce them to breed? You find no fault of these premiums for the breeding of idlers, and are alarmed only at the increase of those who work? butt að sú ions. Wilger 39 up w

“་་k་ °⪜

SQU. THIM. I am alarmed at the increase of the paupers, who already eat up the country.singt så til we in je b7 2060 4

LAST. Not they indeed: it is your idlers that eat up the country: It is they that make the working-people so poor that they are obliged to come to the parish or starve, 195 196 179 Jupe # sosi

Sap Tam Obliged to come and demand other people's property to live on! LAST. It is not other people's property it is their own property they inherit a right, both by nature and by law, to subsistence out of the land, in

105

1881 YAM HTES

exchange for their labour, and if they be unable to labour, or can get no laBour, they have the right Without the labourist of nige noos

godi 10 sd sei 919dsdis mia eds of 2A194 978d 11 Joh 7931ed 73 799 and odw as a 101 7915 Enter Mas STULES with on letterai ei 919ds tonliq to st [Stroll Taradol Welly out. J AK: treadgood morning, gentlemen. [They go ing] he invites me to the Halp I thought he would not let me remain here long. [Reads.] "My dear Thimble, the pleasure of your enlightened dis"course is always so great, that it with the most acute pain that I quitted "you this morning." Oh, O!This is something like Justice. Pray do me the honour to come up here, and to bring with you your last admirable Gremedyo against that great national scourge, the procreation of the human species. As they keep early hours at the farm, you will, most likely, have dined before this will reach you if you have not, you need not be in a "hurry; for, as population treads close upon the heels of subsistence, T "take care to keep a short supply here." Well, well; I'll get a bit of something here, and then I will go up.

-ed a 1097 y 17102 197 m [asia],

Yox.M ....jud :busd-boid gawoh sia uwob sind.MACTIL 1979 bim 19 000 12 SCENE 1. Mrs. Birth's Cottage Dick and BETSEY.Y lo ano don m'I Ber. Didn't you meet mothers eliot bevisssb woll [shia)..8M DICK. NO: she went by the lane, I suppose, and I came across the fields. rogue want with you follow DICK. What do you think, now? What do think that the skin-flint old TICO rascal wanted me to do?

CODICK. Yes, and he told me he would sace in the king's

guards, and have me made an officer, if I Ber. Tonight poofed

SCENE II-4 Room in Gripe Hall, cobwebs on the ceiling, a dirty floor Flao yirins table, and two old chairs, on one of which Sir Gripe is sitting allSTRAG Amongst those that have lived with, there is no dhe mother gut of a score that would not, for a handful of guineas, be the bawd in the seducing of therowo daughter and if this woman, who owes me a year's went, and whom I can strip to-morrow of every rag that she has holds but against me, it will be bad luck indeed. This is the most beautiful girrever set my eyes on! and am not her tord? is she not my property And shall this fellow, who is also my slaveji take her from me qwin be better for them both too for. ni baul on 10 suo constateria of wal yd bas simba y diodagh led or

28TH MAY, 1831.

501

1989 70 odal of aldenu sd yedi ti bas bodel rieds 101 99 they would soon begin to starve, and then to fight like dog and cat But better or better not, I'll have her. As to the sin, either there is a hell or there is not; if not, there is in this country no loss of character for a man who has forty thousand a year; and if there be a hell, it is already my lot, so that I'll if there be a hand have my enjoyment in spite of the Devil; and now for a on estivai ed [pai -aib bonsidgilas Toy to guess Baldai 1896 M" [.sbos] gaol sred BAREBONE, baggiup I-eds die stuas Jaom, sd iw swedt Joerg oa ayawls ei servo " BARE The Widow BIRCH is come, Sir Gripe. Odniarom aids woy SI G. Show her in, Exit Barebone.] If I can't prevail upon the mother to stop the marriage, I must get the girl away to-night some-how or other and get her to London too. There's nothing like that old Mother CARBUNCLE the bawd, or Mother LYNX, the mad-house keeper, will receive her, and I can follow in a day or two. But, soft! here comes the mamma Llugog. Es 70 yud gaidiamos to tid & toy II'IlloEnter MRS. BIRCH 9948 ore of a d u og lliw I ass based MRS. BIRCH. Your servant, Sir Gripe, [curtsies,] I'm very sorry my rent is behind-hand: but....

SIR G. Oh, never mind, never mind the rent, Mrs. Birch; sit down, sit down; I'm not one of your proud fellows, we're all flesh and blood. 02 MRS. BIRCH. [Aside.] How deceived folks are in him! [To him:] I can stand,

Sir, thank 180728 909 I bas que Isl sdt.vd Josy ode: on o no sit down, sit down, Mrs. Birch &

SIR G. Birch: I'm glad to see you looking so are won daids go well; I BIRCH. Purely well, I thank you, Sir.

MRS. five girls, Sir, and though I say it, as good children they be as any in the parish, and, thanks be to God, not a day's sickness have we had in the ho house since their poor father died, and that was three years ago ago last Friday as ever was; and they be so dutiful to me, and comes so kindly to see me every Sunday, when they can be spared; and they do so love one another; and they all seem to do their best to make up for the loss of their poor father, who, poor soul, used, when he came home from his work, to have four or five of them upon his knees at once. Oh, Sir, never was there such a father, and never such a....but.... but.... it pleased God to.... [wipes her eyes] pray, Sir, be so good as to excuse.no and Ivd-boog llaw ad SIR G. [Looking like Satan. Never mind, never mind, Mrs. Birch. Any of them married, Mrs. Birch?

MRS. BIRCH. No, Sir, not....no adsurdos Jinti si OOS A

SIR G. That's right, that's right: don't let them marry till they're thirty: only brings ruin and misery and starvation and poaching and thieving and treadmills and transportings and hangings, That's right, Mrs. Birch; that's right, keep them single till they be thirty, and then they will do well. If any of them were to marry young, I should be very angry with you; and..-03 qija na I ow MRS BIRCH (Aside.] What shall I do is si air basbal soul bad.ad lliw SIR G. And should, in short, order my Steward, Mr. Sour, to. con mas bue MRS, BIRCH, I beg your pardon, Sir Gripe, but my daughter Betsey is going to be....

800:

I88IYAM ra

** Mad. "Bizen! have courted 36 "Si, and they have been such Constant lovers, and the banns have been out for these three weeks, and..

STR OTo tell you the truth, Phave heard of this, Mrs. Birch, and I'sent for you to talk to you about it. You are a sensible woman, Mrs. BIRCH, and I have a great regard for you and your family, and wish well particularly to this young woman; and, therefore, ...

MRS. BIRCH. Thank you, Sir, God will bless you for it, and I'm sure they'll both prove deserving of your goodness; for Richard Hazle is as good a young man as any in the whole county; and he has lived with farmer Stiles ever since he was eight years old; and they do so love one another; and Mrs. Stiles says that they are the handsomest couple that....

V. SIR G. Well, well; never mind now. You are a

you know that this love, as they call it, is all nonsense, a sensible woman, and

comes in at the door, this love flies out of the window.

poverty

husband

nd, my poor husb

MRS. BIRCH. Not always, Sir; for I am sure that I and

were poor enough, and....

SIR G. Well, well; but, now, don't you think it would be better to put off

this marriage for a year or two, till...

MRS. BIRCH. Lor, Sir, it would break poor Betsey's heart!

SIR G. Oh, no! Women's hearts are tougher than you think for. [Aside. I know that pretty well.

MRS. BIRCH. Not Betsey's, Sir: poor thing, she'd go crazy, and so would Richard too.

SIR G. Now, I tell you what I'll do, Mrs. Birch I'll make your daughter my housekeeper in London, and I'll make Hazle my bailiff here, and give each of them twenty pounds a year and their board.

>

MRS. BIRCH. Lor, Sir!

SIR G. Will you propose it to them?

MRS. BIRCH. Pray don't ask me to do it, Sir.

SIR G. Why, you can propose it, at any rate..

MRS. BIRCH. No, indeed, Sir, I cannot. They would hate me for it; and how am I to endure the hatred of my child?

SIR G. [Angrily.] Better than you can endure to starve, as you will, if you don't do what I tell you to do.

MRS. BIRCH. By the blessing of God, Sir, I have not starved yet, and hope I shall not. SIR G. And what is God to do do for you, you perverse fo MRS. Binch. He says, "Cursed be he that oppresseth the widow and the

STR. G. And you, being the interpreter, apply that curse to me, eh! You impudent hag!

Mus. BIRCH. No, indeed, Sir; but..." SIR G. Hold your tongue! go along; and call upon God to save your rags, when MR. SCUT comes, to-morrow morning, to bundle you into the road, MRS. BIRCH. I will call upon God, Sir, and he will be my help in the time of need.

SIR G. Now, then, I know what I have to do. [rings the Bell

Sin G. Show him intost this half fool, THIMBLE; he'll have his qualms

the best room, and say I will be with Bild directly. [Exit Barebone] I can't of conscience, if it be only out of vanity and conceit; if it be only to show.