NATIONAL DISTRESS.
In a late number[61] we somewhat unfeelingly (it is hinted by a correspondent) doubted, and even sneered at, the universal topic, the national distress, with which we are, it seems, overwhelmed; and when any suggestions of our friends (backed by truth and reason) can be attended to, we are always delighted to avail ourselves of them, and recant our errors.
We have reconsidered the subject, and, during the last fortnight, have visited the most diversified scenes of life, and we feel bound to retract the "flippant doubts" (those are our communicant's words), which we expressed as to the existence of general calamity, and are ready to confess that we had no idea of its extent, particularly in and about the metropolis.
The first object which tended to convert us from our original prejudiced opinion on the subject, was the sight of that most melancholy assemblage of people called "Epsom Races." Upwards of fifty thousand of the most unhappy of our fellow-countrymen, victims of tyranny and taxation, no longer ago than the week before last, dragged their wretched limbs to this sad and deplorable spectacle; and the vast sums of money taken from some of them, and the immense quantity of provisions and liquor which the poorer part of the slaves were compelled to devour, were unparalleled, we believe, on any former similar occasion.
It made our hearts bleed to behold our excellent and free-born tailor driving, with great labour and danger, a tandem, with two blood-horses; and we nearly wept when we found that our bootmaker and his unhappy family could only afford a barouche and four, hired for the day.
But we had, also, an eye to the agricultural part of the question; and we were struck with horror and amazement at the pale, emaciated, and threadbare appearance of the broken-down farmers of Surrey, Berks, and Bucks, who crawled out to the mournful scene upon their starving ponies, for which some, in their despair for money, were wild enough to ask seventy, eighty, and a hundred guineas each.
At the inns on the road, the expenses the tax-ridden slaves incurred were abominable. A hatter in Bond Street was charged seventeen shillings a bottle for champagne; and a wretched party of landholders in the neighbourhood of Leatherhead, who have threatened to abandon their farms, were driven by their grief to drink two dozen and four bottles of that shameful imposition upon British credulity called Chateau Margaux.
On our return from Epsom (having to cross the country) we passed through Kingston. Woe, grief, and mendicity there had established their tribunal. Petitions and remonstrances were all in array; and, in order to give the mourning victims of that devoted parish an opportunity of assembling occasionally to grieve in unison, some sympathetic philanthropists in the vicinity have built a theatre or circus, wherein a Miss Hengler endeavours nightly to solace their incurable woes, by dancing on wires, balancing tobacco-pipes, and swallowing live cockchafers. Such an expedient was never hit upon at this distance from town, till the melancholy aspect of things in general pointed out the absolute necessity of it in this wretched year.