From several generations past, the manufactories of our great commercial towns have encouraged the most extensive employment to the labouring poor; motley groups of individuals from various quarters have been lured to them; the parental stock in various particulars originally defective in point of stamina, and their progeny of course, unhappily tainted with the same misfortune; the gleanings of work houses from the capital, from many parts of the country, have been thrown into these great towns; forsaken children from impure connexions, in whom squalid poverty has laid the foundation of many disorders, and which growing up and settling in these places have been communicated to a succeeding race: this evil is therefore not the present growth of our large factories. In Scotland, it is but of late years the manufactures have sprung up; the stamina of their labouring poor is naturally more hardy and less corrupted, not having the intercourse of the Southern provinces; and by recruiting constantly from the same parental source, no wonder that the children at the Lanark Mills have been found more healthy than those of the English manufacturing towns.

Although the proprietor of the Lanark Mills may deserve praise for his attention to the health of the children employed in his establishment, it does not follow that other gentlemen, eminently signalized for their enterprising spirit, industry, and abilities, owing to the natural advantages of Mr. Dale,[4] deserve a public exposure and stigma.

I think Mr. Bott, of Nantwich, in Cheshire, is highly to be commended, for his denial of an entry into his manufactory; and if the visit of the benevolent Mr. Neild was only to wrest from his mill articles of crimination for an exposure before the public, Mr. Bott has acted very wisely, by the interdiction of curiosity and intrusive inquiry at his own expense; but there are many other reasons which may be fairly alledged for this gentleman’s refusal. I am informed, that it frequently happens that many persons, on gaining admittance to these extensive manufactories, have suborned the artisans from their employers, and in various other respects have caused much disorder to the establishment.

By the law of the land, it is ordained that these factories should be opened to the regular and periodical visits of Magistrates; therefore, by thus exposing the partial evils of these extensive commercial establishments, which few human undertakings of such a vast magnitude can be exempt from, where such immense numbers of hands are employed, an oblique reflection is doubtless cast on the judicial administration of the State.

The benevolence and zeal of a patriotic character should recommend itself in a more effectual manner than by publicly praising one man or set of men at the expense of others, equally, and in the fullest extent as much deserving. All memorials for the public good should be circulated through the hands of the civil Magistrate or members of the country where the evil exists; reforms can thus be more certainly obtained than by innuendos, which but too generally carry with them the appearance of party consideration, or other interested motives.

Conservator.

ANNUAL STATEMENT OF WHEAT, FLOUR, AND BREAD FOR THE YEAR 1804.
Source.—Gentleman’s Magazine. Vol. 74, January to June, 1804, p. [iv].

Wheat.

Quantity of Quarters returned per Month. Highest Price per Quarter in the Month. Monthly Arrangement, 1804. Lowest Price per Quarter in the Month. Average Price per Quarter for the the Month.
Qrs. Bush. Shillings. Shillings. s. d.
25,789 3 63 January 35 53 8½
19,253 5 60 February 32 52 1¼
22,465 2 61 March 35 50 8¼
22,813 1 62 April 30 51 8¾
17,198 0 59 May 32 51 8¾
18,877 8 58 June 32 51 1¾
30,517 4 70 July 32 54 11¼
50,437 2 80 August 37 64 2¼
45,199 3 85 September 42 70 6¼
64,684 7 93 October 42 73 5
69,001 1 132 November 50 88 11¼
51,933 3 135 December 62 10 3¼