TO THE WORKING CLASSES OF PRESTON.
Burghclere, Hampshire, 22d August, 1826.
My excellent friends,
1. Amongst all the new, the strange, the unnatural, the monstrous things that mark the present times, or, rather, that have grown out of the present system of governing this country, there is, in my opinion, hardly any thing more monstrous, or even so monstrous, as the language that is now become fashionable, relative to the condition and the treatment of that part of the community which are usually denominated the POOR; by which word I mean to designate the persons who, from age, infirmity, helplessness, or from want of the means of gaining anything by labour, become destitute of a sufficiency of food or of raiment, and are in danger of perishing if they be not relieved. Such are the persons that we mean when we talk of THE POOR; and, I repeat, that amongst all the monstrous things of these monstrous days, nothing is, in my opinion, so monstrous as the language which we now constantly hear relative to the condition and treatment of this part of the community.
2. Nothing can be more common than to read, in the newspapers, descriptions the most horrible of the sufferings of the Poor, in various parts of England, but particularly in the North. It is related of them, that they eat horse-flesh, grains, and have been detected in eating out of pig-troughs. In short, they are represented as being far worse fed and worse lodged than the greater part of the pigs. These statements of the newspapers may be false, or, at least, only partially true; but, at a public meeting of rate-payers, at Manchester, on the 17th of August, Mr. Baxter, the Chairman, said, that some of the POOR had been starved to death, and that tens of thousands were upon the point of starving; and, at the same meeting, Mr. Potter gave a detail, which showed that Mr. Baxter’s general description was true. Other accounts, very nearly official, and, at any rate, being of unquestionable authenticity, concur so fully with the statements made at the Manchester Meeting, that it is impossible not to believe, that a great number of thousands of persons are now on the point of perishing for want of food, and that many have actually perished from that cause; and that this has taken place, and is taking place, IN ENGLAND.
3. There is, then, no doubt of the existence of the disgraceful and horrid facts; but that which is as horrid as are the facts themselves, and even more horrid than those facts, is the cool and unresentful language and manner in which the facts are usually spoken of. Those who write about the misery and starvation in Lancashire and Yorkshire, never appear to think that any body is to blame, even when the poor die with hunger. The Ministers ascribe the calamity to “over-trading;” the cotton and cloth and other master-manufacturers ascribe it to “a want of paper-money,” or to the Corn-Bill; others ascribe the calamity to the taxes. These last are right; but what have these things to do with the treatment of the poor? What have these things to do with the horrid facts relative to the condition and starvation of English people? It is very true, that the enormous taxes which we pay on account of loans made to carry on the late unjust wars, on account of a great standing army in time of peace, on account of pensions, sinecures and grants, and on account of a Church, which, besides, swallows up so large a part of the produce of the land and the labour; it is very true, that these enormous taxes, co-operating with the paper-money and its innumerable monopolies; it is very true, that these enormous taxes, thus associated, have produced the ruin in trade, manufactures and commerce, and have, of course, produced the low wages and the want of employment; this is very true; but it is not less true, that, be wages or employment as they may, the poor are not to perish with hunger, or with cold, while the rest of the community have food and raiment more than the latter want for their own sustenance. The LAW OF ENGLAND says, that there shall be no person to suffer from want of food and raiment. It has placed officers in every parish to see that no person suffer from this sort of want; and lest these officers should not do their duty, it commands all the magistrates to hear the complaints of the poor, and to compel the officers to do their duty. The LAW OF ENGLAND has provided ample means of relief for the poor; for, it has authorized the officers, or overseers, to get from the rich inhabitants of the parish as much money as is wanted for the purpose, without any limit as to amount; and, in order that the overseers may have no excuse of inability to make people pay, the law has armed them with powers of a nature the most efficacious and the most efficient and most prompt in their operation. In short, the language of the LAW, to the overseer, is this: “Take care that no person suffer from hunger, or from cold; and that you may be sure not to fail of the means of obeying this my command, I give you, as far as shall be necessary for this purpose, full power over all the lands, all the houses, all the goods, and all the cattle, in your parish.” To the Justices of the Peace the LAW says: “Lest the overseer should neglect his duty; lest, in spite of my command to him, any one should suffer from hunger or cold, I command you to be ready to hear the complaint of every sufferer from such neglect; I command you to summon the offending overseer, and to compel him to do his duty.”
4. Such being the language of the LAW, is it not a monstrous state of things, when we hear it commonly and coolly stated, that many thousands of persons in England are upon the point of starvation; that thousands will die of hunger and cold next winter; that many have already died of hunger; and when we hear all this, unaccompanied with one word of complaint against any overseer, or any justice of the peace! Is not this state of things perfectly monstrous? A state of things in which it appears to be taken for granted, that the LAW is nothing, when it is intended to operate as a protection to the poor! Law is always law: if one part of the law may be, with impunity, set at defiance, why not another and every other part of the law? If the law which provides for the succour of the poor, for the preservation of their lives, may be, with impunity, set at defiance, why should there not be impunity for setting at defiance the law which provides for the security of the property and the lives of the rich? If you, in Lancashire, were to read, in an account of a meeting in Hampshire, that, here, the farmers and gentlemen were constantly and openly robbed; that the poor were daily breaking into their houses, and knocking their brains out; and that it was expected that great part of them would be killed very soon: if you, in Lancashire were to hear this said of the state of Hampshire, what would you say? Say! Why, you would say, to be sure, “Where is the LAW; where are the constables, the justices, the juries, the judges, the sheriffs, and the hangmen? Where can that Hampshire be? It, surely, never can be in Old England. It must be some savage country, where such enormities can be committed, and where even those, who talk and who lament the evils, never utter one word in the way of blame of the perpetrators.” And if you were called upon to pay taxes, or to make subscriptions in money, to furnish the means of protection to the unfortunate rich people in Hampshire, would you not say, and with good reason, “No: what should we do this for? The people of Hampshire have the SAME LAW that we have; they are under the same Government; let them duly enforce that law; and then they will stand in no need of money from us to provide for their protection.”
5. This is what common sense says would be your language in such a case; and does not common sense say, that the people of Hampshire, and of every other part of England, will thus think, when they are told of the sufferings, and the starvation, in Lancashire and Yorkshire! The report of the Manchester ley-payers, which took place on the 17th of August, reached me in a friend’s house in this little village; and when another friend, who was present, read, in the speeches of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Potter, that tens of thousands of Lancashire people were on the point of starvation, and that many had already actually died from starvation; and when he perceived, that even those gentlemen uttered not a word of complaint against either overseer or justices of the peace, he exclaimed: “What! are there no poor-laws in Lancashire? Where, amidst all this starvation, is the overseer? Where is the justice of the peace? Surely that Lancashire can never be in England?”
6. The observations of this gentleman are those which occur to every man of sense; when he hears the horrid accounts of the sufferings in the manufacturing districts; for, though we are all well aware, that the burden of the poor-rates presses, at this time, with peculiar weight on the land-owners and occupiers, and on owners and occupiers of other real property, in those districts, we are equally well aware, that those owners and occupiers have derived great benefits from that vast population that now presses upon them. There is land in the parish in which I am now writing, and belonging to the farm in the house of which I am, which land would not let for 20s. a statute acre; while land, not so good, would let, in any part of Lancashire, near to the manufactories, at 60s. or 80s. a statute acre. The same may be said with regard to houses. And, pray, are the owners and occupiers, who have gained so largely by the manufacturing works being near their lands and houses; are they, now, to complain, if the vicinage of these same works causes a charge of rates there, heavier than exists here? Are the owners and occupiers of Lancashire to enjoy an age of advantages from the labours of the spinners and the weavers; and are they, when a reverse comes, to bear none of the disadvantages? Are they to make no sacrifices, in order to save from perishing those industrious and ever-toiling creatures, by the labours of whom their land and houses have been augmented in value, three, five, or perhaps tenfold? None but the most unjust of mankind can answer these questions in the affirmative.
7. But as greediness is never at a loss for excuses for the hard-heartedness that it is always ready to practise, it is said, that the whole of the rents of the land and the houses would not suffice for the purpose; that is to say, that if the poor rates were to be made so high as to leave the tenant no means of paying rent, even then some of the poor must go without a sufficiency of food. I have no doubt that, in particular instances, this would be the case. But for cases like this the LAW has amply provided; for, in every case of this sort, adjoining parishes may be made to assist the hard pressed parish; and if the pressure becomes severe on these adjoining parishes, those next adjoining them may be made to assist; and thus the call upon adjoining parishes maybe extended till it reach all over the county. So good, so benignant, so wise, so foreseeing, and so effectual, is this, the very best of all our good old laws! This law or rather code of laws, distinguishes England from all the other countries in the world, except the United States of America, where, while hundreds of other English statutes have been abolished, this law has always remained in full force, this great law of mercy and humanity, which says, that no human being that treads English ground shall perish for want of food and raiment. For such poor persons as are unable to work, the law provides food and clothing; and it commands that work shall be provided for such as are able to work, and cannot otherwise get employment. This law was passed more than two hundred years ago. Many attempts have been made to chip it away, and some have been made to destroy it altogether; but it still exists, and every man who does not wish to see general desolation take place, will do his best to cause it to be duly and conscientiously executed.
8. Having now, my friends of Preston, stated what the law is, and also the reasons for its honest enforcement in the particular case immediately before us, I will next endeavour to show you that it is founded in the law of nature, and that, were it not for the provisions of this law, people would, according to the opinions of the greatest lawyers, have a right to take food and raiment sufficient to preserve them from perishing; and that such taking would be neither felony nor larceny. This is a matter of the greatest importance; it is a most momentous question; for if it be settled in the affirmative—if it be settled that it is not felony, nor larceny, to take other men’s goods without their assent, and even against their will, when such taking is absolutely necessary to the preservation of life, how great, how imperative, is the duty of affording, if possible, that relief which will prevent such necessity! In other words, how imperative it is on all overseers and justices to obey the law with alacrity; and how weak are those persons who look to “grants” and “subscriptions,” to supply the place of the execution of this, the most important of all the laws that constitute the basis of English society! And if this question be settled in the affirmative; if we find the most learned of lawyers and most wise of men, maintaining the affirmative of this proposition; if we find them maintaining, that it is neither felony nor larceny to take food, in case of extreme necessity, though without the assent, and even against the will of the owner, what are we to think of those (and they are not few in number nor weak in power) who, animated with the savage soul of the Scotch feelosophers, would wholly abolish the poor-laws, or, at least, render them of little effect, and thereby constantly keep thousands exposed to this dire necessity!
9. In order to do justice to this great subject; in order to treat it with perfect fairness, and in a manner becoming of me and of you, I must take the authorities on both sides. There are some great lawyers who have contended that the starving man is still guilty of felony or larceny, if he take food to satisfy his hunger; but there are a greater number of other, and still greater, lawyers, who maintain the contrary. The general doctrine of those who maintain the right to take, is founded on the law of nature; and it is a saying as old as the hills, a saying in every language in the world, that “self-preservation is the first law of nature.” The law of nature teaches every creature to prefer the preservation of its own life to all other things. But, in order to have a fair view of the matter before us, we ought to inquire how it came to pass, that the laws were ever made to punish men as criminals, for taking the victuals, drink, or clothing, that they might stand in need of. We must recollect, then, that there was a time when no such laws existed; when men, like the wild animals in the fields, took what they were able to take, if they wanted it. In this state of things, all the land and all the produce belonged to all the people in common. Thus were men situated, when they lived under what is called the law of nature; when every one provided, as he could, for his self-preservation.
10. At length this state of things became changed: men entered into society; they made laws to restrain individuals from following, in certain cases, the dictates of their own will; they protected the weak against the strong; the laws secured men in possession of lands, houses, and goods, that were called THEIRS; the words MINE and THINE, which mean my own and thy own, were invented to designate what we now call a property in things. The law necessarily made it criminal in one man to take away, or to injure, the property of another man. It was, you will observe, even in this state of nature, always a crime to do certain things against our neighbour. To kill him, to wound him, to slander him, to expose him to suffer from the want of food or raiment, or shelter. These, and many others, were crimes in the eye of the law of nature; but, to take share of a man’s victuals or clothing; to go and insist upon sharing a part of any of the good things that he happened to have in his possession, could be no crime, because there was no property in anything, except in man’s body itself. Now, civil society was formed for the benefit of the whole. The whole gave up their natural rights, in order that every one might, for the future, enjoy his life in greater security. This civil society was intended to change the state of man for the better. Before this state of civil society, the starving, the hungry, the naked man, had a right to go and provide himself with necessaries wherever he could find them. There would be sure to be some such necessitous persons in a state of civil society. Therefore, when civil society was established, it is impossible to believe that it had not in view some provision for these destitute persons. It would be monstrous to suppose the contrary. The contrary supposition would argue, that fraud was committed upon the mass of the people in forming this civil society; for, as the sparks fly upwards, so will there always be destitute persons to some extent or other, in every community, and such there are to now a considerable extent, even in the United States of America; therefore, the formation of the civil society must have been fraudulent or tyrannical upon any other supposition than that it made provision, in some way or other, for destitute persons; that is to say, for persons unable, from some cause or other, to provide for themselves the food and raiment sufficient to preserve them from perishing. Indeed, a provision for the destitute seems essential to the lawfulness of civil society; and this appears to have been the opinion of Blackstone, when, in the first Book and first Chapter of his Commentaries on the Laws of England, he says, “the law not only regards life and member, and protects every man in the enjoyment of them, but also furnishes him with every thing necessary for their support. For there is no man so indigent or wretched, but he may demand a supply sufficient for all the necessaries of life from the more opulent part of the community, by means of the several statutes enacted for the relief of the poor; a humane provision dictated by the principles of society.”
11. No man will contend, that the main body of the people in any country upon earth, and of course in England, would have consented to abandon the rights of nature; to give up their right to enjoy all things in common; no man will believe, that the main body of the people would ever have given their assent to the establishing of a state of things which should make all the lands, and all the trees, and all the goods and cattle of every sort, private property; which should have shut out a large part of the people from having such property, and which should, at the same time, not have provided the means of preventing those of them, who might fall into indigence, from being actually starved to death! It is impossible to believe this. Men never gave their assent to enter into society on terms like these. One part of the condition upon which men entered into society was, that care should be taken that no human being should perish from want. When they agreed to enter into that state of things, which would necessarily cause some men to be rich and some men to be poor; when they gave up that right, which God had given them, to live as well as they could, and to take the means wherever they found them, the condition clearly was, the “principle of society;” clearly was, as Blackstone defines it, that the indigent and wretched should have a right to “demand from the rich a supply sufficient for all the necessities of life.”
12. If the society did not take care to act upon this principle; if it neglected to secure the legal means, of preserving the life of the indigent and wretched; then the society itself, in so far as that wretched person was concerned, ceased to have a legal existence. It had, as far as related to him, forfeited its character of legality. It had no longer any claim to his submission to its laws. His rights of nature returned: as far as related to him, the law of Nature revived in all its force: that state of things in which all men enjoyed all things in common was revived with regard to him; and he took, and he had a right to take, food and raiment, or, as Blackstone expresses it, “a supply sufficient for all the necessities of life.” For, if it be true, as laid down by this English lawyer, that the principles of society; if it be true, that the very principles, or foundations of society dictate, that the destitute person shall have a legal demand for a supply from the rich, sufficient for all the necessities of life; if this be true, and true it certainly is, it follows of course that the principles, that is, the base, or foundation, of society, is subverted, is gone; and that society is, in fact, no longer what it was intended to be, when the indigent, when the person in a state of extreme necessity, cannot, at once, obtain from the rich such sufficient supply: in short, we need go no further than this passage of Blackstone, to show, that civil society is subverted, and that there is, in fact, nothing legitimate in it, when the destitute and wretched have no certain and legal resource.
13. But this is so important a matter, and there have been such monstrous doctrines and projects put forth by Malthus, by the Edinburgh Reviewers, by Lawyer Scarlett, by Lawyer Nolan, by Sturges Bourne, and by an innumerable swarm of persons who have been giving before the House of Commons what they call “evidence:” there have been such monstrous doctrines and projects put forward by these and other persons; and there seems to be such a lurking desire to carry the hostility to the working classes still further, that I think it necessary in order to show, that these English poor-laws, which have been so much calumniated by so many greedy proprietors of land; I think it necessary to show, that these poor-laws are the things which men of property, above all others, ought to wish to see maintained, seeing that, according to the opinions of the greatest and the wisest of men, they must suffer most in consequence of the abolition of those laws; because, by the abolition of those laws, the right given by the laws of nature would revive, and the destitute would take, where they now simply demand (as Blackstone expresses it) in the name of the law. There has been some difference of opinion, as to the question, whether it be theft or no theft; or, rather, whether it be a criminal act, or not a criminal act, for a person, in a case of extreme necessity from want of food, to take food without the assent and even against the will, of the owner. We have, amongst our great lawyers, Sir Matthew Hale and Sir William Blackstone, who contend (though as we shall see, with much feebleness, hesitation, and reservation,) that it is theft, notwithstanding the extremity of the want; but there are many, and much higher authorities, foreign as well as English, on the other side. Before, however, I proceed to the hearing of these authorities, let me take a short view of the origin of the poor laws in England; for that view will convince us, that, though the present law was passed but a little more than two hundred years ago, there had been something to effect the same purpose ever since England had been called England.
14. According to the Common Law of England, as recorded in the Mirrour of Justices, a book which was written before the Norman Conquest; a book in as high reputation, as a law-book, as any one in England; according to this book, Chapter 1st, Section 3d, which treats of the “First constitutions made by the antient kings;” According to this work, provision was made for the sustenance of the poor. The words are these: “It was ordained, that the poor should be sustained by parsons, by rectors of the church, and by the parishioners, so that none of them die for want of sustenance.” Several hundred years later, the canons of the church show, that when the church had become rich, it took upon itself the whole of the care and expense attending the relieving of the poor. These canons, in setting forth the manner in which the tithes should be disposed of, say, “Let the priests set apart the first share for the building and ornaments of the church; let them distribute the second to the poor and strangers, with their own hands, in mercy and humility; and let them reserve the third part for themselves.” This passage is taken from the canons of Elfric, canon 24th. At a later period, when the tithes had, in some places, been appropriated to convents, acts of Parliament were passed, compelling the impropriators to leave, in the hands of their vicar, a sufficiency for the maintenance of the poor. There were two or three acts of this sort passed, one particularly in the twelfth year of Richard the Second, chapter 7th. So that here we have the most ancient book on the Common Law; we have the canons of the church at a later period; we have acts of Parliament at a time when the power and glory of England were at their very highest point; we have all these to tell us, that in England, from the very time that the country took the name, there was always a legal and secure provision for the poor, so that no person, however aged, infirm, unfortunate, or destitute, should suffer from want.
15. But, my friends, a time came when the provision made by the Common Law, by the Canons of the Church, and by the Acts of the Parliament coming in aid of those canons; a time arrived, when all these were rendered null by what is called the Protestant Reformation. This “Reformation,” As it is called, sweeped away the convents, gave a large part of the tithes to greedy courtiers, put parsons with wives and children into the livings, and left the poor without any resource whatsoever. This terrible event, which deprived England of the last of her possessions on the continent of Europe, reduced the people of England to the most horrible misery; from the happiest and best fed and best clad people in the world, it made them the most miserable, the most wretched and ragged of creatures. At last it was seen that, in spite of the most horrible tyranny that ever was exercised in the world, in spite of the racks and the gibbets and the martial law of Queen Elizabeth, those who had amassed to themselves the property out of which the poor had been formerly fed, were compelled to pass a law to raise money, by way of tax, for relieving the necessities of the poor. They had passed many acts before the FORTY-THIRD year of the reign of this Queen Elizabeth; but these acts were all found to be ineffectual, till, at last, in the forty-third year of the reign: of this tyrannical Queen, and in the year of our Lord 1601, that famous act was passed, which has been in force until this day; and which, as I said before, is still in force, notwithstanding all the various attempts of folly and cruelty to get rid of it.
16. Thus, then, the present poor-laws are no new thing. They are no gift to the working people. You hear the greedy landowners everlastingly complaining against this law of Queen Elizabeth. They pretend that it was an unfortunate law. They affect to regard it as a great INNOVATION, seeing that no such law existed before; but, as I have shown, a better law existed before, having the same object in view. I have shown, that the “Reformation,” as it is called, had sweeped away that which had been secured to the poor by the Common Law, by the Canons of the Church, and by ancient Acts of Parliament. There was nothing new, then, in the way of benevolence towards the people, in this celebrated Act of Parliament of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and the landowners would act wisely by holding their tongues upon the subject; or, if they be too noisy, one may look into their GRANTS, and see if we cannot find something THERE to keep out the present parochial assessments.
17. Having now seen the origin of the present poor-laws, and the justice of their due execution, let us return to those authorities of which I was speaking but now, and an examination into which will show the extreme danger of listening to those projectors who would abolish the poor-laws; that is to say, who would sweep away that provision which was established in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, from a conviction that it was absolutely necessary to preserve the peace of the country and the lives of the people. I observed before that there has been some difference of opinion amongst lawyers as to the question, whether it be, or be not, theft, to take without his consent and against his will, the victuals of another, in order to prevent the taker from starving. Sir Matthew Hale and Sir William Blackstone say that it is theft. I am now going to quote the several authorities on both sides, and it will be necessary for me to indicate the works which I quote from by the words, letters, and figures which are usually made use of in quoting from these works. Some part of what I shall quote will be in Latin: but I shall put nothing in that language of which I will not give you the translation. I beg you to read these quotations with the greatest attention; for you will find, at the end of your reading, that you have obtained great knowledge upon the subject, and knowledge, too, which will not soon depart from your minds.
18. I begin with Sir Matthew Hale, (a Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench in the reign of Charles the Second,) who, in his Pleas of the Crown, Chap. IX., has the following passage, which I put in distinct paragraphs, and mark A, B, and C.
19. A. “Some of the casuists, and particularly Covarruvius, Tom. I. De furti et rapinæ restitutione, § 3, 4, p. 473; and Grotius, de jure belli, ac pacis; lib. II. cap. 2. § 6, tell us, that in case of extreme necessity, either of hunger or clothing, the civil distributions of property cease, and by a kind of tacit condition the first community doth return, and upon this those common assertions are grounded: ‘Quicquid necessitas cogit, defendit.’ [Whatever necessity calls for, it justifies.] ‘Necessitas est lex temporis et loci.’ [Necessity is the law of time and place.] ‘In casu extremæ necessitatis omnia sunt communia.’ [In case of extreme necessity, all things are in common;] and, therefore, in such case theft is no theft, or at least not punishable as theft; and some even of our own lawyers have asserted the same; and very bad use hath been made of this concession by some of the Jesuitical casuists of France, who have thereupon advised apprentices and servants to rob their masters, where they have been indeed themselves in want of necessaries, of clothes or victuals; whereof, they tell them, they themselves are the competent judges; and by this means let loose, as much as they can, by their doctrine of probability, all the ligaments of property and civil society.”
20. B. “I do, therefore, take it, that, where persons live under the same civil government, as here in England, that rule, at least by the laws of England, is false; and, therefore, if a person being under necessity for want of victuals, or clothes, shall, upon that account, clandestinely, and ‘animo furandi,’ [with intent to steal,] steal another man’s goods, it is felony, and a crime, by the laws of England, punishable with death; although, the judge before whom the trial is, in this case (as in other cases of extremity) be by the laws of England intrusted with a power to reprieve the offender, before or after judgment, in order to the obtaining the King’s mercy. For, 1st, Men’s properties would be under a strange insecurity, being laid open to other men’s necessities, whereof no man can possibly judge, but the party himself. And, 2nd, Because by the laws of this kingdom [here he refers to the 43 Eliz. cap. 2] sufficient provision is made for the supply of such necessities by collections for the poor, and by the power of the civil magistrate. Consonant hereunto seems to be the law even among the Jews; if we may believe the wisest of kings. Proverbs vi. 30, 31. ‘Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry, but if he be found, he shall restore seven-fold, he shall give all the substance of his house.’ It is true, death among them was not the penalty of theft, yet his necessity gave him no exception from the ordinary punishment inflicted by their law upon that offence.”
21. C. “Indeed this rule, ‘in casu extremæ necessitatis omnia sunt communia,’ does hold, in some measure, in some particular cases, where, by the tacit consent of nations, or of some particular countries or societies, it hath obtained. First, among the Jews, it was lawful in case of hunger to pull ears of standing corn, and eat, (Matt. xii. 1;) and for one to pass through a vineyard, or olive-yard, to gather and eat without carrying away. Deut. xxiii. 24, 25. Second, By the Rhodian law, and the common-maritime custom, if the common provision for the ship’s company fail, the master may, under certain temperaments, break open the private chests of the mariners or passengers, and make a distribution of that particular and private provision for the preservation of the ship’s company.” Vide Consolato del Mare, cap. 256. Le Customes de la Mere, p. 77.
22. Sir William Blackstone agrees, in substance, with Hale; but he is, as we shall presently see, much more eager to establish his doctrine; and, we shall see besides, that he has not scrupled to be guilty of misquoting, and of very shamefully garbling, the Scripture, in order to establish his point. We shall find him flatly contradicting the laws of England; but, he might have spared the Holy Scriptures, which, however, he has not done.
23. To return to Hale, you see he is compelled to begin with acknowledging that there are great authorities against him; and he could not say that Grotius was not one of the most virtuous as well as one of the most learned of mankind. Hale does not know very well what to do with those old sayings about the justification which hard necessity gives: he does not know what to do with the maxim, that, “in case of extreme necessity all things are owned in common.” He is exceedingly puzzled with these ancient authorities, and flies off into prattle rather than argument, and tells us a story about “jesuitical” casuists in France, who advised apprentices and servants to rob their masters, and that they thus “let loose the ligaments of property and civil society.” I fancy that it would require a pretty large portion of that sort of faith which induced this Protestant judge to send witches and wizards to the gallows; a pretty large portion of this sort of faith, to make us believe, that the “casuists of France,” who, doubtless, had servants of their own, would teach servants to rob their masters! In short, this prattle of the judge seems to have been nothing more than one of those Protestant effusions which were too much in fashion at the time when he wrote.
24. He begins his second paragraph, or paragraph B., by saying, that he “takes it” to be so and so; and then comes another qualified expression; he talks of civil government “as here in England.” Then he says, that the rule of Grotius and others, against which he has been contending, “he takes to be false, at least,” says he, “by the laws of England.” After he has made all these qualifications, he then proceeds to say that such taking is theft; that it is felony; and it is a crime which the laws of England punish with death! But, as if stricken with remorse at putting the frightful words upon paper; as if feeling shame for the law and for England itself, he instantly begins to tell us, that the judge who presides at the trial is intrusted, “by the laws of England,” with power to reprieve the offender, in order to the obtaining of the King’s mercy! Thus he softens it down. He will have it to be LAW to put a man to death in such a case; but he is ashamed to leave his readers to believe, that an English judge and an English king WOULD OBEY THIS LAW!
25. Let us now hear the reasons which he gives for this which he pretends to be law. His first reason is, that there would be no security for property, if it were laid open to the necessities of the indigent, of which necessities no man but the takers themselves could be the judge. He talks of a “strange insecurity;” but, upon my word, no insecurity could be half so strange as this assertion of his own. Blackstone has just the same argument. “Nobody,” says he, “would be a judge of the wants of the taker, but the taker himself;” and Blackstone, copying the very words of Hale, talks of the “strange insecurity” arising from this cause. Now, then, suppose a man to come into my house, and to take away a bit of bacon. Suppose me to pursue him and seize him. He would tell me that he was starving for want of food. I hope that the bare statement would induce me, or any man in the world that I do call or ever have called my friend, to let him go without further inquiry; but, if I chose to push the matter further, there would be the magistrate. If he chose to commit the man, would there not be a jury and a judge to receive evidence and to ascertain whether the extreme necessity existed or not?
26. Aye, says Judge Hale; but I have another reason, a devilish deal better than this, “and that is, the act of the 43d year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth!” Aye, my old boy, that is a thumping reason! “Sufficient provision is made for the supply of such necessities by collections for the poor, and by the power of the civil magistrate.” Aye, aye! that is the reason; and, Mr. Sir Matthew Hale, there is no other reason, say what you will about the matter. There stand the overseer and the civil magistrate to take care that such necessities be provided for; and if they did not stand there for that purpose, the law of nature would be revived in behalf of the suffering creature.
27. Hale, not content however with this act of Queen Elizabeth, and still hankering after this hard doctrine, furbishes up a bit of Scripture, and calls Solomon the wisest of kings on account of these two verses which he has taken. Hale observes, indeed, that the Jews did not put thieves to death; but, to restore seven-fold was the ordinary punishment, inflicted by their law, for theft; and here, says he, we see, that the extreme necessity gave no exemption. This was a piece of such flagrant sophistry on the part of Hale, that he could not find in his heart to send it forth to the world without a qualifying observation; but even this qualifying observation left the sophistry still so shameful, that his editor, Mr. Emlyn, who published the work under authority of the House of Commons, did not think it consistent with his reputation to suffer this passage to go forth unaccompanied with the following remark: “But their (the Jews’) ordinary punishment being entirely pecuniary, could affect him only when he was found in a condition to answer it; and therefore the same reasons which could justify that, can, by no means, be extended to a corporal, much less to a capital punishment.” Certainly: and this is the fair interpretation of these two verses of the Proverbs. Puffendorf, one of the greatest authorities that the world knows anything of, observes, upon the argument built upon this text of Scripture, “It may be objected, that, in Proverbs, chap. vi. verses 30, 31, he is called a thief, and pronounced obnoxious to the penalty of theft, who steals to satisfy his hunger; but whoever closely views and considers that text will find that the thief there censured is neither in such extreme necessity as we are now supposing, nor seems to have fallen into his needy condition merely by ill fortune, without his own idleness or default: for the context implies, that he had a house and goods sufficient to make seven-fold restitution; which he might have either sold or pawned; a chapman or creditor being easily to be met with in times of plenty and peace; for we have no grounds to think that the fact there mentioned is supposed to be committed, either in time of war, or upon account of the extraordinary price of provisions.”
28. Besides this, I think it is clear that these two verses of the Proverbs do not apply to one and the same person; for in the first verse it is said, that men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry. How, then, are we to reconcile this with morality? Are we not to despise a thief? It is clear that the word thief does not apply to the first case; but to the second case only; and that the distinction was here made for the express purpose of preventing the man who took food to relieve his hunger from being confounded with the thief. Upon any other interpretation, it makes the passage contain nonsense and immorality; and, indeed, Grotius says that the latter text does not apply to the person mentioned in the former. The latter text could not mean a man taking food from necessity. It is impossible that it can mean that; because the man who was starving for want of food could not have seven-fold; could not have any substance in his house. But what are we to think of Judge Blackstone, who, in his Book IV., chap. 2, really garbles these texts of Scripture. He clearly saw the effect of the expression, “MEN DO NOT DESPISE;” he saw what an awkward figure these words made, coming before the words “A THIEF;” he saw that, with these words in the text, he could never succeed in making his readers believe that a man ought to be hanged for taking food to save his life. He clearly saw that he could not make men believe that God had said this, unless he could, somehow or other, get rid of those words about NOT DESPISING the thief that took victuals when he was hungry. Being, therefore, very much pestered and annoyed by these words about NOT DESPISING, what does he do but fairly leave them out! And not only leave them out, but leave out a part of both the verses, keeping in that part of each that suited him, and no more; nay, further, leaving out one word, and putting in another, giving a sense to the whole which he knew well never was intended. He states the passage to be this: “If a thief steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry, he shall restore seven-fold, and shall give all the substance of his house.” No broomstick that ever was handled would have been too heavy or too rough for the shoulders of this dirty-souled man. Hale, with all his desire to make out a case in favour of severity, has given us the words fairly: but this shuffling fellow; this smooth-spoken and mean wretch, who is himself thief enough, God knows, if stealing other men’s thoughts and words constitute theft; this intolerably mean reptile has, in the first place, left out the words “men do not despise:” then he has left out the words at the beginning of the next text, “but if he be found.” Then in place of the “he,” which comes before the words “shall give” he puts the word “and;” and thus he makes the whole apply to the poor creature that takes to satisfy his soul when he is hungry! He leaves out every mitigating word of the Scripture; and, in his reference, he represents the passage to be in one verse! Perhaps, even in the history of the conduct of crown-lawyers, there is not to be found mention of an act so coolly bloody-minded as this. It has often been said of this Blackstone, that he not only lied himself, but made others lie; he has here made, as far as he was able, a liar of King Solomon himself: he has wilfully garbled the Holy Scripture; and that, too, for the manifest purpose of justifying cruelty in courts and judges; for the manifest purpose of justifying the most savage oppression of the poor.
29. After all, Hale has not the courage to send forth this doctrine of his, without allowing that the case of extreme necessity does, “in some measure,” and “in particular cases,” and, “by the tacit or silent consent of nations,” hold good! What a crowd of qualifications is here! With what reluctance he confesses that which all the world knows to be true, that the disciples of Jesus Christ pulled off, without leave, the ears of standing corn, and ate them “being an hungered.” And here are two things to observe upon. In the first place this corn was not what we call corn here in England, or else it would have been very droll sort of stuff to crop off and eat. It was what the Americans call Indian corn, what the French call Turkish corn; and what is called corn (as being far surpassing all other in excellence) in the Eastern countries where the Scriptures were written. About four or five ears of this corn, of which you strip all the husk off in a minute, are enough for a man’s breakfast or dinner; and by about the middle of August this corn is just as wholesome and as efficient as bread. So that, this was something to take and eat without the owner’s leave; it was something of value; and observe, that the Pharisees, though so strongly disposed to find fault with everything that was done by Jesus Christ and his disciples, did not find fault of their taking the corn to eat; did not call them thieves; did not propose to punish them for theft; but found fault of them only for having plucked the corn on the Sabbath-day! To pluck the corn was to do work, and these severe critics found fault of this working on the Sabbath-day. Then, out comes another fact, which Hale might have noticed if he had chosen it; namely, that our Saviour reminds the Pharisees that “David and his companions, being an hungered, entered into the House of God, and did eat the show-bread, to eat which was unlawful in any-body but the priests.” Thus, that which would have been sacrilege under any other circumstances; that which would have been one of the most horrible of crimes against the law of God, became no crime at all when committed by a person pressed by hunger.
30. Nor has Judge Hale fairly interpreted the two verses of Deuteronomy. He represents the matter thus: that, if you be passing through a vineyard or an olive-yard you may gather and eat, without being deemed a thief. This interpretation would make an Englishman believe that the Scripture allowed of this taking and eating, only where there was a lawful foot-way through the vineyard. This is a very gross misrepresentation of the matter; for if you look at the two texts, you will find, that they say that, “when thou comest into;” that is to say, when thou enterest or goest into, “thy neighbour’s vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure, but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel;” that is to say, that you should not go and make wine in his vineyard and carry it away. Then in case of the corn, precisely the same law is laid down. You may pluck with your hand; but not use the hook or a sickle. Nothing can be plainer than this: no distinction can be wiser, nor more just. Hale saw the force of it; and therefore, as these texts made very strongly against him, he does not give them at full length, but gives us a misrepresenting abbreviation.
31. He had, however, too much regard for his reputation to conclude without acknowledging the right of seizing on the provisions of others at sea. He allows that private chests may be broken open to prevent men from dying with hunger at sea. He does not stop to tell us why men’s lives are more precious on sea than on land. He does not attempt to reconcile these liberties given by the Scripture, and by the maritime laws, with his own hard doctrine. In short, he brings us to this at last: that he will not acknowledge, that it is not theft to take another man’s goods, without his consent, under any circumstances; but, while he will not acknowledge this, he plainly leaves us to conclude, that no English judge and no English king will ever punish a poor creature that takes victuals to save himself from perishing; and he plainly leaves us to conclude, that it is the poor-laws of England; that it is their existence and their due execution, which deprive everybody in England of the right to take food and raiment in case of extreme necessity.
32. Here I agree with him most cordially; and it is because I agree with him in this, that I deprecate the abominable projects of those who would annihilate the poor-laws, seeing that it is those very poor-laws which give, under all circumstances, really legal security to property. Without them, cases must frequently arise, which would, according to the law of nature, according to the law of God, and as we shall see before we have done, according to the law of England, bring us into a state, or, at least, bring particular persons into a state, which as far as related to them, would cause the law of nature to revive, and to make all things to be owned in common. To adhere, then, to these poor-laws; to cause them to be duly executed, to prevent every encroachment upon them, to preserve them as the apple of our eye, are the duty of every Englishman, as far as he has capacity so to do.
33. I have, my friends, cited, as yet, authorities only on one side of this great subject, which it was my wish to discuss in this one Number. I find that to be impossible without leaving undone much more than half my work. I am extremely anxious to cause this matter to be well understood, not only by the working classes, but by the owners of the land and the magistrates. I deem it to be of the greatest possible importance; and, while writing on it, I address myself to you, because I most sincerely declare that I have a greater respect for you than for any other body of persons that I know any thing of. The next Number will conclude the discussion of the subject. The whole will lie in a very small compass. Sixpence only will be the cost of it. It will creep about, by degrees, over the whole of this kingdom. All the authorities, all the arguments, will be brought into this small compass; and I do flatter myself that many months will not pass over our heads, before all but misers and madmen will be ashamed to talk of abolishing the poor-rates and of supporting the needy by grants and subscriptions.
I am,
Your faithful friend and
Most obedient servant,
Wm. Cobbett.
NUMBER II.
Bollitree Castle, Herefordshire, 22d Sept. 1826.
My Excellent Friends,
34. In the last Number, paragraph 33, I told you, that I would, in the present Number, conclude the discussion of the great question of theft, or no theft, in a case of taking another’s goods without his consent, or against his will, the taker being pressed by extreme necessity. I laid before you; in the last Number, Judge Hale’s doctrine upon the subject; and I there mentioned the foul conduct of Blackstone, the author of the “Commentaries on the Laws of England.” I will not treat this unprincipled lawyer, this shocking court sycophant; I will not treat him as he has treated King Solomon and the Holy Scriptures; I will not garble, misquote, and belie him, as he garbled, misquoted, and belied them; I will give the whole of the passage to which I allude, and which my readers may find in the Fourth Book of his Commentaries. I request you to read it with great attention; and to compare it, very carefully, with the passage that I have quoted from Sir Matthew Hale, which you will find in paragraphs from 19 to 21 inclusive. The passage from Blackstone is as follows:
35. “There is yet another case of necessity, which has occasioned great speculation among the writers upon general law; viz., whether a man in extreme want of food or clothing may justify stealing either, to relieve his present necessities. And this both Grotius and Puffendorf, together with many other of the foreign jurists, hold in the affirmative; maintaining by many ingenious, humane, and plausible reasons, that in such cases the community of goods by a kind of tacit concession of society is revived. And some even of our own lawyers have held the same; though it seems to be an unwarranted doctrine, borrowed from the notions of some civilians: at least it is now antiquated, the law of England admitting no such excuse at present. And this its doctrine is agreeable not only to the sentiments of many of the wisest ancients, particularly Cicero, who holds that ‘suum cuique incommodum ferendum est, potius quam de alterius commodis detrahendum;’ but also to the Jewish law, as certified by King Solomon himself: ‘If a thief steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry, he shall restore seven-fold, and shall give all the substance of his house:’ which was the ordinary punishment for theft in that kingdom. And this is founded upon the highest reason: for men’s properties would be under a strange insecurity, if liable to be invaded according to the wants of others; of which wants no man can possibly be an adequate judge, but the party himself who pleads them. In this country especially, there would be a peculiar impropriety in admitting so dubious an excuse; for by our laws such a sufficient provision is made for the poor by the power of the civil magistrate, that it is impossible that the most needy stranger should ever be reduced to the necessity of thieving to support nature. This case of a stranger is, by the way, the strongest instance put by Baron Puffendorf, and whereon he builds his principal arguments; which, however they may hold upon the continent, where the parsimonious industry of the natives orders every one to work or starve, yet must lose all their weight and efficacy in England, where charity is reduced to a system, and interwoven in our very constitution. Therefore, our laws ought by no means to be taxed with being unmerciful, for denying this privilege to the necessitous; especially when we consider, that the king, on the representation of his ministers of justice, hath a power to soften the law, and to extend mercy in cases of peculiar hardship. An advantage which is wanting in many states, particularly those which are democratical: and these have in its stead introduced and adopted, in the body of the law itself, a multitude of circumstances tending to alleviate its rigour. But the founders of our constitution thought it better to vest in the crown the power of pardoning peculiar objects of compassion, than to countenance and establish theft by one general undistinguishing law.”
36. First of all, I beg you to observe, that this passage is merely a flagrant act of theft, committed upon Judge Hale; next, you perceive, that which I noticed in paragraph 28, a most base and impudent garbling of the Scriptures. Next, you see, that Blackstone, like Hale, comes, at last, to the poor-laws; and tells us that to take other men’s goods without leave, is theft, because “charity is here reduced to a system, and interwoven in our very constitution.” That is to say, to relieve the necessitous; to prevent their suffering from want; completely to render starvation impossible, makes a part of our very constitution. “THEREFORE, our laws ought by no means to be taxed with being unmerciful for denying this privilege to the necessitous.” Pray mark the word therefore. You see, our laws, he says, are not to be taxed with being unmerciful in deeming the necessitous taker a thief. And why are they not to be deemed unmerciful? BECAUSE the laws provide effectual relief for the necessitous. It follows, then, of course, even according to Blackstone himself, that if the Constitution had not provided this effectual relief for the necessitous, then the laws would have been unmerciful in deeming the necessitous taker a thief.
37. But now let us hear what that Grotius and that Puffendorf say; let us hear what these great writers on the law of nature and of nations say upon this subject. Blackstone has mentioned the names of them both; but he has not thought proper to notice their arguments, much less has he attempted to answer them. They are two of the most celebrated men that ever wrote; and their writings are referred to as high authority, with regard to all the subjects of which they have treated. The following is a passage from Grotius, on War and Peace, Book II., chap. 2.
38. “Let us see, further, what common right there appertains to men in those things which have already become the property of individuals. Some persons, perchance, may consider it strange to question this, as proprietorship seems to have absorbed all that right which arose out of a state of things in common. But it is not so. For, it is to be considered, what was the intention of those who first introduced private property, which we may suppose to have been such, as to deviate as little as possible from natural equity. For if even written laws are to be construed in that sense, as far as it is practicable, much more so are customs, which are not fettered by the chains of writers.—Hence it follows, first, that, in case of extreme necessity, the pristine right of using things revives, as much as if they had remained in common; because, in all human laws, as well as in the law of private property, this case of extreme necessity appears to have been excepted.—So, if the means of sustenance, as in case of a sea-voyage, should chance to fail, that which any individual may have, should be shared in common. And thus, a fire having broken out, I am justified in destroying the house of my neighbour, in order to preserve my own house; and I may cut in two the ropes or cords amongst which any ship is driven, if it cannot be otherwise disentangled. All which exceptions are not made in the written law, but are presumed.—For the opinion has been acknowledged amongst Divines, that, if any one, in such case of necessity, take from another person what is requisite for the preservation of his life, he does not commit a theft. The meaning of which definition is not, as many contend, that the proprietor of the thing be bound to give to the needy upon the principle of charity; but, that all things distinctly vested in proprietors ought to be regarded as such with a certain benign acknowledgment of the primitive right. For if the original distributors of things were questioned, as to what they thought about this matter, they would reply what I have said. Necessity, says Father Seneca, the great excuse for human weakness, breaks every law; that is to say, human law, or law made after the manner of man.”
39. “But cautions ought to be had, for fear this license should be abused: of which the principal is, to try, in every way, whether the necessity can be avoided by any other means; for instance, by making application to the magistrate, or even by trying whether the use of the thing can, by entreaties, be obtained from the proprietor. Plato permits water to be fetched from the well of a neighbour upon this condition alone, that the person asking for such permission shall dig in his own well in search of water as far as the chalk: and Solon, that he shall dig in his own well as far as forty cubits. Upon which Plutarch adds, that he judged that necessity was to be relieved, not laziness to be encouraged.”
40. Such is the doctrine of this celebrated civilian. Let us now hear Puffendorf; and you will please to bear in mind, that both these writers are of the greatest authority upon all subjects connected with the laws of nature and of nations. We read in their works the result of an age of study: they have been two of the great guides of mankind ever since they wrote: and, we are not to throw them aside, in order to listen exclusively to Parson Hay, to Hulton of Hulton, or to Nicholas Grimshaw. They tell us what they, and what other wise men, deemed to be right; and, as we shall by and by see, the laws of England, so justly boasted of by our ancestors, hold precisely the same language with these celebrated men. After the following passage from Puffendorf, I shall show you what our own lawyers say upon the subject; but I request you to read the following passage with the greatest attention.
41. “Let us inquire, in the next place, whether the necessity of preserving our life can give us any right over other men’s goods, so as to make it allowable for us to seize on them for our relief, either secretly, or by open force, against the owner’s consent. For the more clear and solid determination of which point, we think it necessary to hint in short on the causes upon which distinct properties were first introduced in the world; designing to examine them more at large in their proper place. Now the main reasons on which properties are founded, we take to be these two; that the feuds and quarrels might be appeased which arose in the primitive communion of things, and that men might be put under a kind of necessity of being industrious, every one being to get his maintenance by his own application and labour. This division, therefore, of goods, was not made, that every person should sit idly brooding over the share of wealth he had got, without assisting or serving his fellows; but that any one might dispose of his things how he pleased; and if he thought fit to communicate them to others, he might, at least, be thus furnished with an opportunity of laying obligations on the rest of mankind. Hence, when properties were once established, men obtained a power, not only of exercising commerce to their mutual advantage and gain, but likewise of dispensing more largely in the works of humanity and beneficence; whence their diligence had procured them a greater share of goods than others: whereas before, when all things lay in common, men could lend one another no assistance but what was supplied by their corporeal ability, and could be charitable of nothing but of their strength. Further, such is the force of property, that the proprietor hath a right of delivering his goods with his own hands; even such as he is obliged to give to others. Whence it follows, that when one man has anything owing from another, he is not presently to seize on it at a venture, but ought to apply himself to the owner, desiring to receive it from his disposal. Yet in case the other party refuse thus to make good his obligation, the power and privilege of property doth not reach so far as that the things may not be taken away without the owner’s consent, either by the authority of the magistrate in civil communities, or in a state of nature, by violence and hostile force. And though in regard to bare Natural Right, for a man to relieve another in extremity with his goods, for which he himself hath not so much occasion, be a duty obliging only imperfectly, and not in the manner of a debt, since it arises wholly from the virtue of humanity; yet there seems to be no reason why, by the additional force of a civil ordinance, it may not be turned into a strict and perfect obligation. And this Seldon observes to have been done among the Jews; who, upon a man’s refusing to give such alms as were proper for him, could force him to it by an action at law. It is no wonder, therefore, that they should forbid their poor, on any account, to seize on the goods of others, enjoining them to take only what private persons, or the public officers, or stewards of alms, should give them on their petition. Whence the stealing of what was another’s, though upon extreme necessity, passed in that state for theft or rapine. But now supposing under another government the like good provision is not made for persons in want, supposing likewise that the covetous temper of men of substance cannot be prevailed on to give relief, and that the needy creature is not able, either by his work or service, or by making sale of anything that he possesses, to assist his present necessity, must he, therefore, perish with famine? Or can any human institution bind me with such a force that, in case another man neglects his duty towards me, I must rather die, than recede a little from the ordinary and regular way of acting? We conceive, therefore, that such a person doth not contract the guilt of theft, who happening, not through his own fault, to be in extreme want, either of necessary food, or of clothes to preserve him from the violence of the weather, and cannot obtain them from the voluntary gift of the rich, either by urgent entreaties, or by offering somewhat equivalent in price, or by engaging to work it out, shall either forcibly or privily relieve himself out of their abundance; especially if he do it with full intention to pay the value of them whenever his better fortune gives him ability. Some men deny that such a case of necessity, as we speak of, can possibly happen. But what if a man should wander in a foreign land, unknown, friendless, and in want, spoiled of all he had by shipwreck, or by robbers, or having lost by some casualty whatever he was worth in his own country; should none be found willing either to relieve his distress, or to hire his service, or should they rather (as it commonly happens,) seeing him in a good garb, suspect him to beg without reason, must the poor creature starve in this miserable condition?”
42. Many other great foreign authorities might be referred to, and I cannot help mentioning Covarruvius, who is spoken of by Judge Hale, and who expresses himself upon the subject in these words: “The reason why a man in extreme necessity may, without incurring the guilt of theft or rapine, forcibly take the goods of others for his present relief, is because his condition renders all things common. For it is the ordinance and institution of nature itself, that inferior things should be designed and directed to serve the necessities of men. Wherefore the division of goods afterwards introduced into the world doth not derogate from that precept of natural reason, which Suggests, that the extreme wants of mankind may be in any manner removed by the use of temporal possessions.” Puffendorf tells us, that Peresius maintains, that, in case of extreme necessity, a man is compelled to the action, by a force which he cannot resist; and then, that the owner’s consent may be presumed on, because humanity obliges him to succour those who are in distress. The same writer cites a passage from St. Ambrose, one of the Fathers of the church, which alleges that (in case of refusing to give to persons in extreme necessity) it is the person who retains the goods who is guilty of the act of wrong doing, for St. Ambrose says; “it is the bread of the hungry which you detain; it is the raiment of the naked which you lock up.”
43. Before I come to the English authorities on the same side, let me again notice the foul dealing of Blackstone; let me point out another instance or two of the insincerity of this English court-sycophant, who was, let it be noted, Solicitor-general to the queen of the “good old King.” You have seen, in paragraph 28, a most flagrant instance of his perversion of the Scriptures. He garbles the word of God, and prefaces the garbling by calling it a thing “certified by King Solomon himself;” and this word certified he makes use of just when he is about to begin the scandalous falsification of the text which he is referring to. Never was anything more base. But, the whole extent of the baseness we have not yet seen; for, Blackstone had read Hale, who had quoted the two verses fairly; but besides this, he had read Puffendorf, who had noticed very fully this text of Scripture, and who had shown very clearly that it did not at all make in favour of the doctrine of Blackstone. Blackstone ought to have given the argument of Puffendorf; he ought to have given the whole of his argument; but particularly he ought to have given this explanation of the passage in the Proverbs, which explanation I have inserted in paragraph 27. It was also the height of insincerity in Blackstone, to pretend that the passage from Cicero had anything at all to do with the matter. He knew well that it had not; he knew that Cicero contemplated no case of extreme necessity for want of food or clothing; but, he had read Puffendorf, and Puffendorf had told him, that Cicero’s was a question of the mere conveniences and inconveniences of life in general; and not a question of pinching hunger or shivering nakedness. Blackstone had seen his fallacy exposed by Puffendorf; he had seen the misapplication of this passage of Cicero fully exposed by Puffendorf; and yet the base court-sycophant trumped it up again, without mentioning Puffendorf’s exposure of the fallacy! In short this Blackstone, upon this occasion, as upon almost all others, has gone all lengths; has set detection and reproof at defiance, for the sake of making his court to the government by inculcating harshness in the application of the law, and by giving to the law such an interpretation as would naturally tend to justify that harshness.
44. Let us now cast away from us this insincere sycophant, and turn to other law authorities of our own country. The Mirrour of Justices, (quoted by me in paragraph 14,) Chap. 4, Section 16, on the subject of arrest of judgment of death, has this passage. Judgment is to be staid in seven cases here specified: and the seventh is this: “in POVERTY, in which case you are to distinguish of the poverty of the offender, or of things; for if poor people, to avoid famine, take victuals to sustain their lives, or clothes that they die not of cold, (so that they perish if they keep not themselves from cold,) they are not to be adjudged to death, if it were not in their power to have bought their victuals or clothes; for as much as they are warranted so to do by the law of nature.” Now, my friends, you will observe, that I take this from a book which may almost be called the BIBLE of the law. There is no lawyer who will deny the goodness of this authority; or who will attempt to say that this was not always the law of England.
45. Our next authority is one quite as authentic, and almost as ancient. The book goes by the name of Britton, which was the name of a Bishop of Hereford, who edited it, in the famous reign of Edward the first. The book does, in fact, contain the laws of the kingdom as they existed at that time. It may be called the record of the laws of Edward the First. It begins thus, “Edward by the grace of God, King of England and Lord of Ireland, to all his liege subjects, peace, and grace of salvation.” The preamble goes on to state, that people cannot be happy without good laws; that even good laws are of no use unless they be known and understood; and that, therefore, the king has ordered the laws of England thus to be written and recorded. This book is very well known to be of the greatest authority, amongst lawyers, and in Chap. 10 of this book, in which the law describes what constitutes a BURGLAR, or house-breaker, and the punishment that he shall suffer (which is that of death,) there is this passage: “Those are to be deemed burglars who feloniously, in time of peace, break into churches or houses, or through walls or doors of our cities, or our boroughs; with exception of children under age, and of poor people who for hunger, enter to take any sort of victuals of less value than twelve pence; and except idiots and mad people, and others that cannot commit felony.” Thus, you see, this agrees with the Mirrour of Justices, and with all that we have read before from these numerous high authorities. But this, taken in its full latitude, goes a great length indeed; for a burglar is a breaker-in by night. So that this is not only a taking; but a breaking into a house in order to take! And observe, it is taking to the value of twelve pence; and twelve pence then was the price of a couple of sheep, and of fine fat sheep too; nay, twelve pence was the price of an ox, in this very reign of Edward the First. So that, a hungry man might have a pretty good belly-full in those days without running the risk of punishment. Observe, by-the-by, how time has hardened the law. We are told of the dark ages, of the barbarous customs, of our forefathers: and we have a Sir James Mackintosh to receive and to present petitions innumerable, from the most tender hearted creatures in the world, about “softening the criminal code;” but, not a word do they ever say about a softening of this law, which now hangs a man for stealing the value of a RABBIT, and which formerly did not hang him till he stole the value of an OX! Curious enough, but still more scandalous, that we should have the impudence to talk of our humanity, and our civilization, and of the barbarousness of our forefathers. But, if a part of the ancient law remain, shall not the whole of it remain? If we hang the thief, still hang the thief for stealing to the value of twelve pence; though the twelve pence now represents a rabbit instead of an ox; if we still do this, would Blackstone take away the benefit of the ancient law from the starving man? The passage that I have quoted is of such great importance as to this question, that I think it necessary to add, here, a copy of the original, which is in the old Norman-French, of which I give the translation above. “Sunt tenus burgessours trestous ceux, que felonisement en temps de pees debrusent esglises ou auter mesons, ou murs, ou portes de nos cytes, ou de nos burghes; hors pris enfauntz dedans age, et poures, que, pur feyn, entrêt pur ascun vitaille de meindre value q’de xii deners, et hors pris fous nastres, et gens arrages, et autres que seuent nule felonie faire.”
46. After this, lawyers, at any rate, will not attempt to gainsay. If there should, however, remain any one to affect to doubt of the soundness of this doctrine, let them take the following from him who is always called the “pride of philosophy,” the “pride of English learning,” and whom the poet Pope calls “greatest and wisest of mankind.” It is Lord Bacon of whom I am speaking. He was Lord High Chancellor in the reign of James the First; and, let it be observed, that he wrote those “law tracts,” from which I am about to quote, long after the present poor-laws had been established. He says (Law Tracts, page 55,) “The law chargeth no man with default where the act is compulsory and not voluntary, and where there is not consent and election; and, therefore, if either there be an impossibility for a man to do otherwise, or so great a perturbation of the judgment and reason, as in presumption of law a man’s nature cannot overcome, such necessity carrieth a privilege in itself.—Necessity is of three sorts: necessity of conservation of life; necessity of obedience; and necessity of the act of God or of a stranger.—First, of conservation of life; if a man steal viands (victuals) to satisfy his present hunger, this is no felony nor larceny.”
47. If any man want more authority, his heart must be hard indeed; he must have an uncommonly anxious desire to take away by the halter the life that sought to preserve itself against hunger. But, after all, what need had we of any authorities? What need had we even of reason upon the subject? Who is there upon the face of the earth, except the monsters that come from across the channel of St. George; who is there upon the face of the earth, except those monsters, that have the brass, the hard hearts and the brazen faces, which enable them coolly to talk of the “MERIT” of the degraded creatures, who, amidst an abundance of food, amidst a “superabundance of food,” lie quietly down and receive the extreme unction, and expire with hunger? Who, upon the face of the whole earth, except these monsters, these ruffians by way of excellence; who, except these, the most insolent and hard-hearted ruffians that ever lived, will contend, or will dare to think, that there ought to be any force under heaven to compel a man to lie down at the door of a baker’s and butcher’s shop, and expire with hunger! The very nature of man makes him shudder at the thought. There want no authorities; no appeal to law books; no arguments; no questions of right or wrong: that same human nature that tells me that I am not to cut my neighbour’s throat, and drink his blood, tells me that I am not to make him die at my feet by keeping from him food or raiment of which I have more than I want for my own preservation.
48. Talk of barbarians, indeed; Talk of “the dark and barbarous ages.” Why, even in the days of the Druids, such barbarity as that of putting men to death, or of punishing them for taking to relieve their hunger, was never thought of. In the year 1811, the Rev. Peter Roberts, A. M. published a book, entitled Collectanea Cambrica. In the first volume of that book, there is an account of the laws of the Ancient Britons. Hume, and other Scotchmen, would make us believe, that the ancient inhabitants of this country were a set of savages, clothed in skins and the like. The laws of this people were collected and put into writing, in the year 694 before Christ. The following extract from these laws shows, that the moment civil society began to exist, that moment the law took care that people should not be starved to death. That moment it took care, that provision should be made for the destitute, or that, in cases of extreme necessity, men were to preserve themselves from death by taking from those who had to spare. The words of these laws (as applicable to our case) given by Mr. Roberts, are as follows:—“There are three distinct kinds of personal individual property, which cannot be shared with another, or surrendered in payment of fine; viz., a wife, a child, and argyfrew. By the word argyfrew is meant, clothes, arms, or the implements of a lawful calling. For without these a man has not the means of support, and it would be unjust in the law to unman a man, or to uncall a man as to his calling.” Triad 53d.—“Three kinds of THIEVES are not to be punished with Death. 1. A wife, who joins with her husband in theft. 2. A youth under age. And 3. One who, after he has asked, in vain, for support, in three towns, and at nine houses in each town.” Triad 137.
49. There were, then, houses and towns, it seems; and the towns were pretty thickly spread too; and, as to “civilization” and “refinement,” let this law relative to a youth under age, be compared with the new orchard and garden law, and with the tread-mill affair, and new trespass law!
50. We have a law, called the Vagrant Act, to punish men for begging. We have a law to punish men for not working to keep their families. Now, with what show of justice can these laws be maintained? They are founded upon this; the first, that begging is disgraceful to the country; that it is degrading to the character of man, and, of course, to the character of an Englishman; and, that there is no necessity for begging, because the law has made ample provision for every person in distress. The law for punishing men for not working to maintain their families is founded on this, that they are doing wrong to their neighbours; their neighbours, that is to say, the parish, being bound to keep the family, if they be not kept by the man’s labour; and, therefore, his not labouring is a wrong done to the parish. The same may be said with regard to the punishment for not maintaining bastard children. There is some reason for these laws, as long as the poor-laws are duly executed; as long as the poor are duly relieved, according to law; but, unless the poor-laws exist; unless they be in full force; unless they be duly executed; unless efficient and prompt relief be given to necessitous persons, these acts, and many others approaching to a similar description, are acts of barefaced and most abominable tyranny. I should say that they would be acts of such tyranny; for generally speaking, the poor-laws are, as yet, fairly executed, and efficient as to their object.
51. The law of this country is, that every man, able to carry arms, is liable to be called on, to serve in the militia, or to serve as a soldier in some way or other, in order to defend the country. What, then, the man has no land; he has no property beyond his mere body, and clothes, and tools; he has nothing that an enemy can take away from him. What justice is there, then, in calling upon this man to take up arms and risk his life in the defence of the land: what is the land to him? I say, that it is something to him; I say, that he ought to be called forth to assist to defend the land; because, however poor he may be, he has a share in the land, through the poor-rates; and if he be liable to be called forth to defend the land, the land is always liable to be taxed for his support. This is what I say: my opinions are consistent with reason, with justice, and with the law of the land; but, how can Malthus and his silly and nasty disciples; how can those who want to abolish the poor-rates or to prevent the poor from marrying; how can this at once stupid and conceited tribe look the labouring man in the face, while they call upon him to take up arms, to risk his life, in defence of the land? Grant that the poor-laws are just; grant that every necessitous creature has a right to demand relief from some parish or other; grant that the law has most effectually provided that every man shall be protected against the effects of hunger and of cold; grant these, and then the law which compels the man without house or land to take up arms and risk his life in defence of the country, is a perfectly just law; but, deny to the necessitous that legal and certain relief of which I have been speaking; abolish the poor laws; and then this military-service law becomes an act of a character such as I defy any pen or tongue to describe.
52. To say another word upon the subject is certainly unnecessary; but we live in days when “stern necessity” has so often been pleaded for most flagrant departures from the law of the land, that one cannot help asking, whether there were any greater necessity to justify Addington for his deeds of 1817 than there would be to justify a starving man in taking a loaf? Addington pleaded necessity, and he got a Bill of Indemnity. And, shall a starving man be hanged, then, if he take a loaf to save himself from dying? When Six Acts were before the Parliament, the proposers and supporters of them never pretended that they did not embrace a most dreadful departure from the ancient laws of the land. In answer to Lord Holland, who had dwelt forcibly on this departure from the ancient law, the Lord Chancellor, unable to contradict Lord Holland, exclaimed, “Salus populi suprema lex,” that is to say “The salvation of the people is the first law.” Well, then, if the salvation of the people be the first law, the salvation of life is really and bona fide the salvation of the people; and, if the ordinary laws may be dispensed with, in order to obviate a possible and speculative danger, surely they may be dispensed with, in cases where to dispense with them is visibly, demonstrably, notoriously, necessary to the salvation of the lives of the people: surely, bread is as necessary to the lips of the starving man, as a new law could be necessary to prevent either house of parliament from being brought into contempt; and surely, therefore, Salus populi suprema lex may come from the lips of the famishing people with as much propriety as they came from those of the Lord Chancellor!
53. Again, however, I observe, and with this I conclude, that we have nothing to do but to adhere to the poor-laws which we have; that the poor have nothing to do, but to apply to the overseer, or to appeal from him to the magistrate; that the magistrate has nothing to do but duly to enforce the law; and that the government has nothing to do, in order to secure the peace of the country, amidst all the difficulties that are approaching, great and numerous as they are; that it has nothing to do, but to enjoin on the magistrates to do their duty according to our excellent law; and, at the same time, the government ought to discourage, by all the means in their power, all projects for maintaining the poor by any other than legal means; to discourage all begging-box affairs; all miserable expedients; and also to discourage, and, where it is possible, fix its mark of reprobation upon all those detestable projectors, who are hatching schemes for what is called, in the blasphemous slang of the day, “checking the surplus population” who are hatching schemes for preventing the labouring people from having children: who are about spreading their nasty beastly publications; who are hatching schemes of emigration; and who, in short, seem to be doing every-thing in their power to widen the fearful breach that has already been made between the poor and the rich. The government has nothing to do but to cause the law to be honestly enforced; and then we shall see no starvation, and none of those dreadful conflicts which the fear of want, as well as actual want, never fail to produce. The bare thought of forced emigration to a foreign state, including, as it must, a transfer of all allegiance, which is contrary to the fundamental laws of England; or, exposing every emigrating person to the danger of committing high treason; the very thought of such a measure, having become necessary in England, is enough to make an Englishman mad. But, of these projects, these scandalous nasty beastly and shameless projects, we shall have time to speak hereafter; and in the mean while, I take my leave of you, for the present, by expressing my admiration of the sensible and spirited conduct of the people of Stockport, when an attempt was, on the 5th of September, made to cheat them into an address, applauding the conduct of the Ministers! What! Had the people of Stockport so soon forgotten 16th of August! Had they so soon forgotten their townsman, Joseph Swan! If they had, they would have deserved to perish to all eternity. Oh, no! It was a proposition very premature: it will be quite soon enough for the good and sensible and spirited fellows of Stockport; quite soon enough to address the Ministers, when the Ministers shall have proposed a repeal of the several Jubilee measures, called Ellenborough’s law; the poacher-transporting law; the sun-set and sun-rise transportation law; the tread-mill law; the select-vestry law; the Sunday-toll laws; the new trespass law; the new treason law; the seducing-soldier-hanging law; the new apple-felony law; the SIX ACTS; and a great number of others, passed in the reign of Jubilee. Quite soon enough to applaud, that is, for the sensible people of Stockport to applaud, the Ministers, when those Ministers have proposed to repeal these laws, and, also, to repeal the malt tax, and those other taxes, which take, even from the pauper, one half of what the parish gives him to keep the breath warm in his body. Quite soon enough to applaud the Ministers, when they have done these things; and when in addition to all these, they shall have openly proposed a radical reform of the Commons House of Parliament. Leaving them to do this as soon as they like, and trusting, that you will never, on any account, applaud them until they do it, I, expressing here my best thanks to Mr. Blackshaw, who defeated the slavish scheme at Stockport, remain,
Your faithful friend,
and most obedient servant,
Wm. Cobbett.
NUMBER III.
Hurstbourne Tarrant (called Uphusband,)
Hants, 13th October, 1826.
My Excellent Friends,
54. In the foregoing Numbers, I have shown, that men can never be so poor as to have no rights at all: and that, in England, they have a legal, as well as a natural, right to be maintained, if they be destitute of other means, out of the lands, or other property, of the rich. But, it is an interesting question, HOW THERE CAME TO BE SO MUCH POVERTY AND MISERY IN ENGLAND. This is a very interesting question; for, though it is the doom of man, that he shall never be certain of any-thing, and that he shall never be beyond the reach of calamity; though there always has been, and always will be, poor people in every nation; though this circumstance of poverty is inseparable from the means which uphold communities of men; though, without poverty, there could be no charity, and none of those feelings, those offices, those acts, and those relationships, which are connected with charity, and which form a considerable portion of the cement of civil society: yet, notwithstanding these things, there are bounds beyond which the poverty of the people cannot go, without becoming a thing to complain of, and to trace to the Government as a fault. Those bounds have been passed, in England, long and long ago. England was always famed for many things; but especially for its good living; that is to say, for the plenty in which the whole of the people lived; for the abundance of good clothing and good food which they had. It was always, ever since it bore the name of England, the richest and most powerful and most admired country in Europe; but, its good living, its superiority in this particular respect, was proverbial amongst all who knew, or who had heard talk of, the English nation. Good God! How changed! Now, the very worst fed and worst clad people upon the face of the earth, those of Ireland only excepted. How, then, did this horrible, this disgraceful, this cruel poverty come upon this once happy nation? This, my good friends of Preston, is, to us all, a most important question; and, now let us endeavour to obtain a full and complete answer to it.
55. POVERTY is, after all, the great badge, the never-failing badge, of slavery. Bare bones and rags are the true marks of the real slave. What is the object of Government? To cause men to live happily. They cannot be happy without a sufficiency of food and of raiment. Good government means a state of things in which the main body are well fed and well clothed. It is the chief business of a government to take care, that one part of the people do not cause the other part to lead miserable lives. There can be no morality, no virtue, no sincerity, no honesty, amongst a people continually suffering from want; and, it is cruel, in the last degree, to punish such people for almost any sort of crime, which is, in fact, not crime of the heart, not crime of the perpetrator, but the crime of his all-controlling necessities.—To what degree the main body of the people, in England, are now poor and miserable; how deplorably wretched they now are; this we know but too well; and now, we will see what was their state before this vaunted “Reformation.” I shall be very particular to cite my authorities here. I will infer nothing; I will give no “estimate;” but refer to authorities, such as no man can call in question, such as no man can deny to be proofs more complete than if founded on oaths of credible witnesses, taken before a judge and jury. I shall begin with the account which Fortescue gives of the state and manner of living of the English, in the reign of Henry VI.; that is, in the 15th century, when the Catholic Church was in the height of its glory. Fortescue was Lord Chief Justice of England for nearly twenty years; he was appointed Lord High Chancellor by Henry VI. Being in exile, in France, in consequence of the wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and the King’s son, Prince Edward, being also in exile with him, the Chancellor wrote a series of Letters, addressed to the Prince, to explain to him the nature and effects of the Laws of England, and to induce him to study them and uphold them. This work, which was written in Latin, is called De Laudibus Legum Angliæ; or, Praise of the Laws of England. This book was, many years ago, translated into English, and it is a book of Law-Authority, quoted frequently in our courts of this day. No man can doubt the truth of facts related in such a work. It was a work written by a famous lawyer for a prince; it was intended to be read by other contemporary lawyers, and also by all lawyers in future. The passage that I am about to quote, relating to the state of the English, was purely incidental; it was not intended to answer any temporary purpose. It must have been a true account.—The Chancellor, after speaking generally of the nature of the laws of England, and of the difference between them and the laws of France, proceeds to show the difference in their effects, by a description of the state of the French people, and then by a description of the state of the English. His words, words that, as I transcribe them, make my cheeks burn with shame, are as follows: “Besides all this, the inhabitants of France give every year to their King the fourth part of all their wines, the growth of that year, every vintner gives the fourth penny of what he makes of his wine by sale. And all the towns and boroughs pay to the King yearly great sums of money, which are assessed upon them, for the expenses of his men at arms. So that the King’s troops, which are always considerable, are substituted and paid yearly by those common people, who live in the villages, boroughs, and cities. Another grievance is, every village constantly finds and maintains two cross-bow-men, at the least; some find more, well arrayed in all their accoutrements, to serve the King in his wars, as often as he pleaseth to call them out, which is frequently done. Without any consideration had of these things, other very heavy taxes are assessed yearly upon every village within the kingdom, for the King’s service; neither is there ever any intermission or abatement of taxes. Exposed to these and other calamities, the peasants live in great hardship and misery. Their constant drink is water, neither do they taste, throughout the year, any other liquor, unless upon some extraordinary times, or festival days. Their clothing consists of frocks, or little short jerkins, made of canvass, no better than common sackcloth; they do not wear any woollens, except of the coarsest sort; and that only in the garment under their frocks; nor do they wear any trowse, but from the knees upwards; their legs being exposed and naked. The women go barefoot, except on holidays. They do not eat flesh, except it be the fat of bacon, and that in very small quantities, with which they make a soup. Of other sorts, either boiled or roasted, they do not so much as taste, unless it be of the inwards and offals of sheep and bullocks, and the like which are killed, for the use of the better sort of people, and the merchants; for whom also quails, partridges, hares, and the like, are reserved, upon pain of the gallies; as for their poultry, the soldiers consume them, so that scarce the eggs, slight as they are, are indulged them, by way of a dainty. And if it happen that a man is observed to thrive in the world, and become rich, he is presently assessed to the King’s tax, proportionably more than his poorer neighbours, whereby he is soon reduced to a level with the rest.” Then comes his description of the English, at the same time; those “priest-ridden” English, whom Chalmers and Hume, and the rest of that tribe, would fain have us believe, were a mere band of wretched beggars.—“The King of England cannot alter the laws, or make new ones, without the express consent of the whole kingdom in Parliament assembled. Every inhabitant is at his liberty fully to use and enjoy whatever his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth, the increase of his flock, and the like: all the improvements he makes, whether by his own proper industry, or of those he retains in his service, are his own, to use and enjoy, without the let, interruption, or denial of any. If he be in anywise injured or oppressed, he shall have his amends and satisfactions against the party offending. Hence it is that the inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all the necessaries and conveniences of life. They drink no water, unless at certain times, upon a religious score, and by way of doing penance. They are fed, in great abundance, with all sorts of flesh and fish, of which they have plenty every-where; they are clothed throughout in good woollens; their bedding and other furniture in their houses are of wool, and that in great store. They are also well provided with all other sorts of household goods and necessary implements for husbandry. Every one, according to his rank, hath all things which conduce to make life easy and happy.”—Go, and read this to the poor souls, who are now eating sea-weed in Ireland; who are detected in robbing the pig-troughs in Yorkshire; who are eating horse-flesh and grains (draff) in Lancashire and Cheshire; who are harnessed like horses, and drawing gravel in Hampshire and Sussex; who have 3d. a day allowed them by the magistrates in Norfolk; who are, all over England, worse fed than the felons in the jails. Go, and tell them, when they raise their hands from the pig-trough, or from the grains-tub, and, with their dirty tongues, cry “No Popery;” go, read to the degraded and deluded wretches, this account of the state of their Catholic forefathers, who lived under what is impudently called “Popish superstition and tyranny,” and in those times which we have the audacity to call “the dark ages.”—Look at the then picture of the French; and, Protestant Englishmen, if you have the capacity of blushing left, blush at the thought of how precisely that picture fits the English now! Look at all the parts of the picture; the food, the raiment, the game! Good God! If any one had told the old Chancellor, that the day would come, when this picture, and even a picture more degrading to human nature, would fit his own boasted country, what would he have said? What would he have said, if he had been told, that the time was to come, when the soldier, in England, would have more than twice, nay, more than thrice, the sum allowed to the day-labouring man; when potatoes would be carried to the field as the only food of the ploughman; when soup-shops would be open to feed the English; and when the Judges, sitting on that very Bench on which he himself had sitten for twenty years, would (as in the case of last year of the complaints against Magistrates at Northallerton) declare that BREAD AND WATER were the general food of working people in England? What would he have said? Why, if he had been told, that there was to be a “Reformation,” accompanied by a total devastation of Church and Poor property, upheld by wars, creating an enormous Debt and enormous taxes, and requiring a constantly standing army; if he had been told this, he would have foreseen our present state, and would have wept for his country; but, if he had, in addition, been told, that, even in the midst of all this suffering, we should still have the ingratitude and the baseness to cry “No Popery,” and the injustice and the cruelty to persecute those Englishmen and Irishmen, who adhered to the faith of their pious, moral, brave, free and happy fathers, he would have said, “God’s will be done: let them suffer.”—But, it may be said, that it was not, then, the Catholic Church, but the Laws, that made the English so happy; for, the French had that Church as well as the English. Aye! But, in England, the Church was the very basis of the laws. The very first clause of Magna Charta provided for the stability of its property and rights. A provision for the indigent, an effectual provision, was made by the laws that related to the Church and its property; and this was not the case in France; and never was the case in any country but this: so that the English people lost more by a “Reformation” than any other people could have lost.—Fortescue’s authority would, of itself, be enough; but, I am not to stop with it. White, the late Rector of Selbourne, in Hampshire, gives, in his History of that once-famous village, an extract from a record, stating that for disorderly conduct, men were punished by being “compelled to fast a fortnight on bread and beer!” This was about the year 1380, in the reign of Richard II. Oh! miserable “dark ages!” This fact must be true. White had no purpose to answer. His mention of the fact, or rather his transcript from the record, is purely incidental; and trifling as the fact is, it is conclusive as to the general mode of living in those happy days. Go, tell the harnessed gravel-drawers, in Hampshire, to cry “No Popery;” for, that, if the Pope be not put down, he may, in time, compel them to fast on bread and beer, instead of suffering them to continue to regale themselves on nice potatoes and pure water.—But, let us come to Acts of Parliament, and, first, to the Act above mentioned of King Edward III. That Act fixes the price of meat. After naming the four sorts of meat, beef, pork, mutton, and veal, the preamble has these words: “These being THE FOOD OF THE POORER SORT.” This is conclusive. It is an incidental mention of a fact. It is an Act of Parliament. It must have been true; and, it is a fact that we know well, that even the Judges have declared from the Bench, that bread alone is now the food of the poorer sort. What do we want more than this to convince us, that the main body of the people have been impoverished by the “Reformation?”—But I will prove, by other Acts of Parliament, this Act of Parliament to have spoken truth. These Acts declare what the wages of workmen shall be. There are several such Acts, but one or two may suffice. The Act of 23d of Edw. III. fixes the wages, without food, as follows. There are many other things mentioned, but the following will be enough for our purpose.
| s. | d. | |||
| A woman hay-making, or weeding corn, for the day | 0 | 1 | ||
| A man filling dung-cart | 0 | 3½ | ||
| A reaper | 0 | 4 | ||
| Mowing an acre of grass | 0 | 6 | ||
| Thrashing a quarter of Wheat | 0 | 4 |
The price of shoes, cloth, and of provisions, throughout the time that this law continued in force, was as follows:—
| L. | s. | d. | ||||
| A pair of shoes | 0 | 0 | 4 | |||
| Russet broad-cloth the yard | 0 | 1 | 1 | |||
| A stall-fed ox | 1 | 4 | 0 | |||
| A grass-fed ox | 0 | 16 | 0 | |||
| A fat sheep unshorn | 0 | 1 | 8 | |||
| A fat sheep shorn | 0 | 1 | 2 | |||
| A fat hog 2 years old | 0 | 3 | 4 | |||
| A fat goose | 0 | 0 | 2½ | |||
| Ale, the gallon, by proclamation | 0 | 0 | 1 | |||
| Wheat the quarter | 0 | 3 | 4 | |||
| White wine the gallon | 0 | 0 | 6 | |||
| Red wine | 0 | 0 | 4 |
These prices are taken from the Preciosum of Bishop Fleetwood, who took them from the accounts kept by the bursers of convents. All the world knows, that Fleetwood’s book is of undoubted authority.—We may then easily believe, that “beef, pork, mutton, and veal,” were “the food of the poorer sort,” when a dung-cart filler had more than the price of a fat goose and a half for a day’s work, and when a woman was allowed, for a day’s weeding, the price of a quart of red wine! Two yards of the cloth made a coat for the shepherd; and, as it cost 2s. 2d., the reaper would earn it in 6½ days; and, the dung-cart man would earn very nearly a pair of shoes every day! this dung-cart filler would earn a fat shorn sheep in four days; he would earn a fat hog, two years old, in twelve days; he would earn a grass-fed ox in twenty days; so that we may easily believe, that “beef, pork, and mutton,” were “the food of the poorer sort.” And, mind, this was “a priest-ridden people;” a people “buried in Popish superstition!” In our days of “Protestant light” and of “mental enjoyment,” the “poorer sort” are allowed by the Magistrates of Norfolk, 3d. a day for a single man able to work. That is to say, a half-penny less than the Catholic dung-cart man had; and that 3d. will get the “No Popery” gentleman about six ounces of old ewe-mutton, while the Popish dung-cart man got, for his day, rather more than the quarter of a fat sheep.—But, the popish people might work harder than “enlightened Protestants.” They might do more work in a day. This is contrary to all the assertions of the feelosophers; for they insist, that the Catholic religion made people idle. But, to set this matter at rest, let us look at the price of the job-labour; at the mowing by the acre, and at the thrashing of wheat by the quarter; and let us see how these wages are now, compared with the price of food. I have no parliamentary authority since the year 1821, when a report was printed by order of the House of Commons, containing the evidence of Mr. Ellman, of Sussex, as to wages, and of Mr. George, of Norfolk, as to price of wheat. The report was dated 18th June, 1821. The accounts are for 20 years, on an average, from 1800 inclusive. We will now proceed to see how the “popish, priest-ridden” Englishman stands in comparison with the “No Popery” Englishman.
| POPISH MAN. | NO POPERY MAN. | |||||||
| s. | d. | s. | d. | |||||
| Mowing an acre of grass | 0 | 6 | 3 | 7¾ | ||||
| Thrashing a quarter of Wheat | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | ||||
Here are “waust improvements, Mau’m!” But, now let us look at the relative price of the wheat, which the labourer had to purchase with his wages. We have seen, that the “popish superstition slave” had to give fivepence a bushel for his wheat, and the evidence of Mr. George states, that the “enlightened Protestant” had to give 10 shillings a bushel for his wheat; that is 24 times as much as the “popish fool,” who suffered himself to be “priest-ridden.” So that the “enlightened” man, in order to make him as well off as the “dark-ages” man was, ought to receive twelve shillings, instead of 3s. 7¾d. for mowing an acre of grass; and he, in like manner, ought to receive, for thrashing a quarter of wheat, eight shillings, instead of the four shillings which he does receive. If we had the records, we should doubtless find, that Ireland was in the same state.
56. There! That settles the matter as to ancient good living. Now, as to the progress of poverty and misery, amongst the working people, during the last half century, take these facts; in the year 1771, that is, 55 years ago, Arthur Young, who was afterwards Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, published a work on the state of the agriculture of the country, in which he gave the allowance for the keeping of a farm-labourer, his wife and three children, which allowance, reckoning according to the present money-price of the articles which he allows amounted to 13s. 1d. He put the sum, at what he deemed the lowest possible sum, on which the people could exist. Alas! we shall find, that they can be made to exist upon little more than one-half of this sum!
57. This allowance of Mr. Arthur Young was made, observe, in 1771, which was before the Old American War took place. That war made some famous fortunes for admirals and commodores and contractors and pursers and generals and commissaries; but, it was not the Americans, the French, nor the Dutch, that gave the money to make these fortunes. They came out of English taxes; and the heaviest part of those taxes fell upon the working people, who, when they were boasting of “victories,” and rejoicing that the “Jack Tars” had got “prize-money,” little dreamed that these victories were purchased by them, and that they paid fifty pounds for every crown that sailors got in prize-money! In short, this American war caused a great mass of new taxes to be laid on, and the people of England became a great deal poorer than they ever had been before. During that war, they BEGAN TO EAT POTATOES, as something to “save bread.” The poorest of the people, the very poorest of them, refused, for a long while, to use them in this way; and even when I was ten years old, which was just about fifty years ago; the poor people would not eat potatoes, except with meat, as they would cabbages, or carrots, or any other moist vegetable. But, by the end of the American war, their stomachs had come to! By slow degrees they had been reduced to swallow this pig-meat, (and bad pig-meat too,) not, indeed, without grumbling; but to swallow it; to be reduced, thus, many degrees in the scale of animals.
58. At the end of twenty-four years from the date of Arthur Young’s allowance, the poverty and degradation of the English people had made great strides. We were now in the year 1795, and a new war, and a new series of “victories and prizes” had begun. But who it was that suffered for these, out of whose blood and flesh and bones they came, the allowance now (in 1795) made to the poor labourers and their families will tell. There was, in that year, a Table, or Scale, of allowance, framed by the Magistrates of Berkshire. This is, by no means, a hard county; and therefore it is reasonable to suppose, that the scale was as good a one for the poor as any in England. According to this scale, which was printed and published, and also acted upon for years, the weekly allowance, for a man, his wife and three children, was, according to present money-prices, 11s. 4d. Thus it had, in the space of twenty-four years, fell from 13s. 1d. to 11s. 4d. Thus were the people brought to the pig-meat! Food, fit for men, they could not have with 11s. 4d. a week for five persons.
59. One would have thought, that to make a human being live upon 4d. a day, and find fuel, clothing, rent, washing, and bedding, out of the 4d., besides eating and drinking, was impossible; and one would have thought it impossible for any-thing not of hellish birth and breeding, to entertain a wish to make poor creatures, and our neighbours too, exist in such a state of horrible misery and degradation as the labourers of England were condemned to by this scale of 1795. Alas! this was happiness and honour; this was famous living; this 11s. 4d. a week was luxury and feasting, compared to what we NOW BEHOLD! For now the allowance, according to present money-prices, is 8s. a week for the man, his wife, and three children; that is to say 25⁄7d. In words, TWO PENCE AND FIVE SEVENTHS OF ANOTHER PENNY, FOR A DAY! There, that is England now! That is what the base wretches, who are fattening upon the people’s labour, call “the envy of surrounding nations and the admiration of the world.” This is what Sir Francis Burdett applauds; and he applauds the mean and cruel and dastardly ruffians, whom he calls, “the country gentlemen of England,” and whose generosity he cries up; while he well knows, that it is they (and he amongst the rest) who are the real and only cause of this devil-like barbarity, which (and he well knows that too) could not possibly be practised without the constant existence and occasional employment of that species of force, which is so abhorrent to the laws of England, and of which this Burdett’s son forms a part. The poor creatures, if they complain; if their hunger make them cry out, are either punished by even harder measures, or are slapped into prison. Alas! the jail is really become a place of relief, a scene of comparative good living: hence the invention of the tread-mill! What shall we see next? Workhouses, badges, hundred-houses, select-vestries, tread-mills, gravel-carts, and harness! What shall we see next! And what should we see at last, if this infernal THING could continue for only a few years longer?
60. In order to form a judgment of the cruelty of making our working neighbours live upon 25⁄7d. a day; that is to say 2d. and rather more than a halfpenny, let us see what the surgeons allow in the hospitals, to patients with broken limbs, who, of course, have no work to do, and who cannot even take any exercise. In Guy’s Hospital, London, the daily allowance to patients, having simple fractures, is this: 6 ounces of meat; 12 ounces of bread; 1 pint of broth; 2 quarts of good beer. This is the daily allowance. Then, in addition to this, the same patient has 12 ounces of butter a week. These articles, for a week, amount to not less at present retail prices (and those are the poor man’s prices,) than 6s. 9d. a week; while the working man is allowed 1s. 7d. a week! For, he cannot and he will not see his wife and children actually drop down dead with hunger before his face; and this is what he must see, if he take to himself more than a fifth of the allowance for the family.
61. Now, pray, observe, that surgeons, and particularly those eminent surgeons who frame rules and regulations for great establishments like that of Guy’s Hospital, are competent judges of what nature requires in the way of food and of drink. They are, indeed, not only competent judges, but they are the best of judges: they know precisely what is necessary; and having the power to order the proper allowance, they order it. If, then, they make an allowance like that, which we have seen, to a person who is under a regimen for a broken limb; to a person who does no work, and who is, nine times out of ten, unable to take any exercise at all, even that of walking about, at least in the open air; if the eminent surgeons of London deem six shillings and ninepence worth of victuals and drink, a week, necessary to such a patient; if they think that nature calls for so much in such a case; what must that man be made of, who can allow to a working man, a man fourteen hours every day in the open air, one shilling and seven pence worth of victuals and drink for the week! Let me not however ask what “that man” can be made of; for it is a monster and not a man: it is a murderer of men: not a murderer with the knife or the pistol, but with the more cruel instrument of starvation. And yet, such monsters go to church and to meeting; aye, and subscribe, the base hypocrites, to circulate that Bible which commands to do as they would be done by, and which, from the first chapter to the last, menaces them with punishment, if they be hard to the poor, the fatherless, the widow, or the stranger!
62. But, not only is the patient, in a hospital, thus so much more amply fed than the working man; the prisoners in the jails; aye, even the convicted felons, are fed better, and much better, than the working men now are! Here is a fine “Old England;” that country of “roast beef and plumb pudding:” that, as the tax-eaters say it is, “envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world.” Aye; the country WAS all these; but, it is now precisely the reverse of them all. We have just seen that the honest labouring man is allowed 25⁄7d. a day; and that will buy him a pound and a half of good bread a day, and no more, not a single crumb more. This is all he has. Well enough might the Hampshire Baronet, Sir John Pollen, lately, at a meeting at Andover, call the labourers “poor devils,” and say, that they had “scarcely a rag to cover them!” A pound and a half of bread a day, and nothing more, and that, too, to work upon! Now, then, how fare the prisoners in the jails? Why, if they be CONVICTED FELONS, they are, say the Berkshire jail-regulations, “to have ONLY BREAD and water, with vegetables occasionally from the garden.” Here, then, they are already better fed than the honest labouring man. Aye, and this is not all; for, this is only the week-day fare; for, they are to have, “on Sundays, SOME MEAT and broth!” Good God! And the honest working man can never, never smell the smell of meat! This is “envy of surrounding nations” with the devil to it! This is a state of things for Burdett to applaud.
63. But we are not even yet come to a sight of the depth of our degradation. These Berkshire jail-regulations make provision for setting the convicted prisoners, in certain cases, TO WORK, and, they say, “if the surgeon think it necessary, the WORKING PRISONERS may be allowed MEAT AND BROTH ON WEEK-DAYS;” and on Sundays, of course! There it is! There is the “envy and admiration!” There is the state to which Mr. Prosperity and Mr. Canning’s best Parliament has brought us. There is the result of “victories” and prize-money and battles of Waterloo and of English ladies kissing, “Old Blucher.” There is the fruit, the natural fruit, of anti-jacobinism and battles on the Serpentine River and jubilees and heaven-born ministers and sinking-funds and “public credit” and army and navy contracts. There is the fruit, the natural, the nearly (but not quite) ripe fruit of it all: the CONVICTED FELON is, if he do not work at all, allowed, on week-days, some vegetables in addition to his bread, and, on Sundays, both meat and broth; and, if the CONVICTED FELON work, if he be a WORKING convicted felon, he is allowed meat and broth all the week round; while, hear it Burdett, thou Berkshire magistrate! hear it, all ye base miscreants who have persecuted men because they sought a reform! The WORKING CONVICTED FELON is allowed meat and broth every day in the year, while the WORKING HONEST MAN is allowed nothing but dry bread, and of that not half a belly-full! And yet you see the people that seem surprised that crimes increase! Very strange, to be sure; that men should like to work upon meat and broth better than they like to work upon dry bread! No wonder that new jails arise. No wonder that there are now two or three or four or five jails to one county, and that as much is now written upon “prison discipline” as upon almost any subject that is going. But, why so good, so generous, to FELONS? The truth is, that they are not fed too well; for, to be starved is no part of their sentence; and, here are SURGEONS who have something to say! They know very well that a man may be murdered by keeping necessary food from him. Felons are not apt to lie down and die quietly for want of food. The jails are in large towns, where the news of any cruelty soon gets about. So that the felons have many circumstances in their favour. It is in the villages, the recluse villages, where the greatest cruelties are committed.
64. Here, then, in this contrast between the treatment of the WORKING FELON and that of the WORKING HONEST MAN, we have a complete picture of the present state of England; that horrible state, to which, by slow degrees, this once happy country has been brought; and, I should now proceed to show, as I proposed in the first paragraph of this present Number, HOW THERE CAME TO BE SO MUCH POVERTY AND MISERY IN ENGLAND; for, this is the main thing, it being clear, that, if we do not see the real causes of our misery, we shall be very unlikely to adopt any effectual remedy. But, before I enter on this part of my subject, let me prove, beyond all possibility of doubt, that what I say relatively to the situation of, and the allowances to, the labourers and their families, IS TRUE. The cause of such situation and allowances I shall show hereafter; but let me first show, by a reference to indubitable facts, that the situation and allowances are such as, or worse than, I have described them. To do this, no way seems to me to be so fair, so likely to be free from error, so likely to produce a suitable impression on the minds of my readers, and so likely to lead to some useful practical result; no way seems to me so well calculated to answer these purposes, as that of taking the very village, in which, I, at this moment, happen to be, and to describe, with names and dates, the actual state of its labouring people, as far as that state is connected with steps taken under the poor-laws.
65. This village was in former times a very considerable place, as is manifest from the size of the church as well as from various other circumstances. It is now, as a church living, united with an adjoining parish, called Vernon Dean, which also has its church, at a distance of about three miles from the church of this parish. Both parishes put together now contain only eleven hundred, and a few odd, inhabitants, men, women, children, and all; and yet, the great tithes are supposed to be worth two or three thousand pounds a year, and the small tithes about six hundred pounds a year. Formerly, before the event which is called “The Reformation,” there were two Roman Catholic priests living at the parsonage houses in these two parishes. They could not marry, and could, therefore have no wives and families to keep out of the tithes; and, WITH PART OF THOSE TITHES, THEY, AS THE LAW PROVIDED, MAINTAINED THE POOR OF THESE TWO PARISHES; and, the canons of the church commanded them to distribute the portion to the poor and the stranger, “with their own hands, in humility and mercy.”
66. This, as to church and poor, was the state of these villages, in the “dark ages” of “Romish superstition.” What! No poor-laws? No poor-rates? What horribly unenlightened times! No select vestries? Dark ages indeed! But, how stands these matters now? Why, the two parishes are moulded into one church living. Then the Great Tithes (amounting to two or three thousand a year) belong to some part of the Chapter (as they call it) of Salisbury. The Chapter leases them out, as they would a house or a farm, and they are now rented by John King, who is one of this happy nation’s greatest and oldest pensioners. So that, away go the great tithes, not leaving a single wheat-ear to be spent in the parish. The Small Tithes belong to a Vicar, who is one Fisher, a nephew of the late bishop of Salisbury, who has not resided here for a long while; and who has a curate, named John Gale, who being the son of a little farmer and shop-keeper at Burbage in Wiltshire, was, by a parson of the name of Bailey (very well known and remembered in these parts), put to school; and, in the fulness of time, became a curate. So that, away go also the small tithes (amounting to about 500l. or 600l. a year); and, out of the large church revenues; or, rather, large church-and-poor revenues, of these two parishes; out of the whole of them, there remains only the amount of the curate, Mr. John Gale’s, salary, which does not, perhaps, exceed seventy or a hundred pounds, and a part of which, at any rate, I dare say, he does not expend in these parishes: away goes, I say, all the rest of the small tithes, leaving not so much as a mess of milk or a dozen of eggs, much less a tithe-pig, to be consumed in the parish.
67. As to the poor, the parishes continue to be in two; so that I am to be considered as speaking of the parish of Uphusband only. You are aware, that, amongst the last of the acts of the famous Jubilee-Reign, was an act to enable parishes to establish SELECT VESTRIES; and one of these vestries now exists in this parish. And now, let me explain to you the nature and tendency of this Jubilee-Act. Before this Act was passed, overseers of the poor had full authority to grant relief at their discretion. Pray mark that. Then again, before this Act was passed, any one justice of the peace might, on complaint of any poor person, order relief. Mark that. A select vestry is to consist of the most considerable rate-payers. Mark that. Then, mark these things: this Jubilee-Act forbids the overseer to grant any relief other than such as shall be ordered by the select vestry: it forbids ONE justice to order relief, in any case, except in a case of emergency: it forbids MORE THAN ONE to order relief, except on oath that the complainant has applied to the select vestry (where there is one,) and has been refused relief by it; and that, in no case, the justice’s order shall be for more than a month; and, moreover, that when a poor person shall appeal to justices from a select vestry, the justices, in ordering relief, or refusing, shall have “regard to the conduct and CHARACTER of the applicant!”
68. From this Act, one would imagine, that overseers and justices were looked upon as being too soft and yielding a nature; too good, too charitable, too liberal to the poor! In order that the select vestry may have an agent suited to the purposes that the Act manifestly has in view, the Act authorizes the select vestry to appoint what is called an “assistant overseer,” and to give him a salary out of the poor-rates. Such is this Jubilee-Act, one of the last Acts of the Jubilee-reign, that reign, which gave birth to the American war, to Pitt, to Perceval, Ellenborough, Sidmouth, and Castlereagh, to a thousand millions of taxes and another thousand millions of debt: such is the Select Vestry Act; and this now little trifling village of Uphusband has a Select-Vestry! Aye, and an “Assistant Overseer,” too, with a salary of FIFTY POUNDS A YEAR, being, as you will presently see, about a SEVENTH PART OF THE WHOLE OF THE EXPENDITURE ON THE POOR!
69. The Overseers make out and cause to be printed and published, at the end of every four weeks, an account of the disbursements. I have one of these accounts now before me; and I insert it here, word for word, as follows:—
70. “The disbursements of Mr. T. Child and Mr. C. Church, bread at 1s. 2d. per gallon. Sept. 25th, 1826.
71. Under the head of “Widows” are, generally, old women wholly unable to work; and that of “Old Men” are men past all labour: in some of the instances lodging places, in very poor and wretched houses, are found these old people, and, in other instances, they have the bare money; and, observe, that money is FOR FOUR WEEKS! Gracious God! Have we had no mothers ourselves! Were we not born of woman! Shall we not feel then for the poor widow who, in her old age, is doomed to exist on two shillings a week, or threepence halfpenny a day, and to find herself clothes and washing and fuel and bedding out of that! And, the poor old men, the very happiest of whom gets, you see, less than 7d. a day, at the end of 70 or 80 years of a life, all but six of which have been years of labour! I have thought it right to put blanks instead of the names, under the second head. Men of less rigid morality, and less free from all illicit intercourse, than the members of the Select Vestry of Uphusband, would, instead of the word “bastard,” have used the more amiable one of “love-child;” and, it may not be wholly improper to ask these rigid moralists, whether they be aware, that they are guilty of LIBEL, aye, of real criminal libel, in causing these poor girls’ names to be printed and published in this way. Let them remember, that the greater the truth the greater the libel; and, let them remember, that the mothers and the children too, may have memories! But, it is under the head of “FAMILIES” that we see that which is most worthy of our attention. Observe, that eight shillings a week is the wages for a day labourer in the village. And, you see, it is only when there are more than four children that the family is allowed anything at all. “Levi Cook,” for instance, has five children, and he receives allowance for one child. “Joseph White” has eight children, and he receives allowance for four. There are three widows under this head; but, it is where there is a man, the father of the family, that we ought to look with attention; and here we find, that nothing at all is allowed to a family of a man, a wife, and four children, beyond the bare eight shillings a week of wages; and this is even worse than the allowance which I contrasted with that of the hospital patients and convicted felons; for there I supposed the family to consist of a man, his wife and three children. If I am told, that the farmers, that the occupiers of houses and land, are so poor that they cannot do more for their wretched work-people and neighbours; then I answer and say, What a selfish, what a dastardly wretch is he, who is not ready to do all he can to change this disgraceful, this horrible state of things!
72. But, at any rate, is the salary of the “Assistant Overseer” necessary? Cannot that be dispensed with? Must he have as much as all the widows, or all the old men? And his salary, together with the charge for printing and other his various expenses, will come to a great deal more than go to all the widows and old men too! Why not, then, do without him, and double the allowance to these poor old women, or poor old men, who have spent their strength in raising crops in the parish? I went to see with my own eyes some of the “parish houses,” as they are called; that is to say, the places where the select vestry put the poor people into to live. Never did my eyes before alight on such scenes of wretchedness! There was one place, about 18 feet long and 10 wide, in which I found the wife of Isaac Holden, which, when all were at home, had to contain nineteen persons; and into which, I solemnly declare, I would not put 19 pigs, even if well-bedded with straw. Another place was shown me by Job Waldron’s daughter; another by Thomas Carey’s wife. The bare ground, and that in holes too, was the floor in both these places. The windows broken, and the holes stuffed with rags, or covered with rotten bits of board. Great openings in the walls, parts of which were fallen down, and the places stopped with hurdles and straw. The thatch rotten, the chimneys leaning, the doors but bits of doors, the sleeping holes shocking both to sight and smell; and, indeed, every-thing seeming to say: “These are the abodes of wretchedness, which, to be believed possible, must be seen and felt: these are the abodes of the descendants of those amongst whom beef, pork, mutton and veal were the food of the poorer sort; to this are come, at last, the descendants of those common people of England, who, Fortescue tells us, were clothed throughout in good woollens, whose bedding, and other furniture in their houses, were of wool, and that in great store, and who were well provided with all sorts of household goods, every one having all things that conduce to make life easy and happy!”
73. I have now, my friends of Preston, amply proved, that what I have stated relative to the present state of, and allowances to, the labourers is TRUE. And now we are to do all we can to remove the evil; for, removed the evil must be, or England must be sunk for ages; and, never will the evil be removed, until its causes, remote as well as near, be all clearly ascertained. With my best wishes for the health and happiness of you all,
I remain,
Your faithful friend, and most obedient servant,
Wm. Cobbett.
THE END.
Footnotes:
[1] 4s. 6d. English, equal to one dollar.
[2] 2d. English, equal to four cents, nearly.
[3] The above items may be converted into United States’ money by reckoning 4s. 6d. to the dollar: Thus As 4s. 6d. : 1 dollar :: 11l. 7s. 2d. : 50 dollars 48 cents.
[4] To convert these sums into United States’ money, see page 16.
[5] All the calculations in this work, it must be remembered, are in English money but may be turned into United States’ money as before directed, page 16.
[6] Be sure, now, before you go any further, to go to the end of the book, and there read about Mangle Wurzle. Be sure to do this. And there read also about Cobbett’s Corn. Be sure to do this before you go any further.
[7] To me the following has happened within the last year. A young man, in the country, had agreed to be my servant; but it was found that he could not milk; and the bargain was set aside. About a month afterwards a young man, who said he was a farmer’s son, and who came from Herefordshire, offered himself to me at Kensington. “Can you milk?” He could not; but would learn! Ay, but in the learning, he might dry up my cows! What a shame to the parents of these young men! Both of them were in want of employment. The latter had come more than a hundred miles in search of work; and here he was left to hunger still, and to be exposed to all sorts of ills, because he could not milk.
[8] London
[9] The father of the present Sir Robert Peel, who gained his fortune as a cotton weaver by the help of machinery.
[10] Editors of the London Times Newspaper.
Transcriber’s Note:
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