“Well, then,” says the devil of laziness, “and could you not be contented to live here all the rest of your life; and never again pester yourself with the cursed politics?” “Why, I think I have laboured enough. Let others work now. And such a pretty place for coursing and for hare-hunting and woodcock shooting, I dare say; and then those pretty wild-ducks in the water, and the flowers and the grass and the trees and all the birds in spring and the fresh air, and never, never again to be stifled with the smoke that from the infernal Wen ascendeth for ever more and that every easterly wind brings to choke me at Kensington!” The last word of this soliloquy carried me back, slap, to my own study (very much unlike that which I am in), and bade me think of the Gridiron; bade me think of the complete triumph that I have yet to enjoy: promised me the pleasure of seeing a million of trees of my own, and sown by my own hands this very year. Ah! but the hares and the pheasants and the wild ducks! Yes, but the delight of seeing Prosperity Robinson hang his head for shame: the delight of beholding the tormenting embarrassments of those who have so long retained crowds of base miscreants to revile me; the delight of ousting spitten-upon Stanley and bound-over Wood! Yes, but, then, the flowers and the birds and the sweet air! What, then, shall Canning never again hear of the “revered and ruptured Ogden!” Shall he go into his grave without being again reminded of “driving at the whole herd, in order to get at “the ignoble animal!” Shall he never again be told of Six-Acts and of his wish “to extinguish that accursed torch of discord for ever!” Oh! God forbid! farewell hares and dogs and birds! what, shall Sidmouth, then, never again hear of his Power of Imprisonment Bill, of his Circular, of his Letter of Thanks to the Manchester Yeomanry! I really jumped up when this thought came athwart my mind, and, without thinking of the breakfast, said to George who was sitting by me, “Go, George, and tell them to saddle the horses;” for, it seemed to me, that I had been meditating some crime. Upon George asking me, whether I would not stop to breakfast? I bade him not order the horses out yet; and here we are, waiting for breakfast.
Ryall,
Wednesday Night, 27th Sept.
After breakfast we took our leave of Sir Thomas Winnington, and of Stanford, very much pleased with our visit. We wished to reach Ryall as early as possible in the day, and we did not, therefore, stop at Worcester. We got here about three o’clock, and we intend to set off, in another direction, early in the morning.
RIDE FROM RYALL, IN WORCESTERSHIRE, TO BURGHCLERE, IN HAMPSHIRE.
| “Alas, the country! How shall tongue or pen Bewail her now, uncountry gentlemen! The last to bid the cry of warfare cease, The first to make a malady of peace! For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn. But corn, like ev’ry mortal thing, must fall: Kings, conquerors, and, markets most of all.” |
| Lord Byron. |
Ryall,
Friday Morning, 29th September, 1826.
I have observed, in this country, and especially near Worcester, that the working people seem to be better off than in many other parts, one cause of which is, I dare say, that glove manufacturing, which cannot be carried on by fire or by wind or by water, and which is, therefore, carried on by the hands of human beings. It gives work to women and children as well as to men; and that work is, by a great part of the women and children, done in their cottages, and amidst the fields and hop-gardens, where the husbands and sons must live, in order to raise the food and the drink and the wool. This is a great thing for the land. If this glove-making were to cease, many of these women and children, now not upon the parish, must instantly be upon the parish. The glove-trade is, like all others, slack from this last change in the value of money; but there is no horrible misery here, as at Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Paisley, and other Hell-Holes of 84 degrees of heat. There misery walks abroad in skin, bone and nakedness. There are no subscriptions wanted for Worcester; no militia-clothing. The working people suffer, trades’-people suffer, and who is to escape, except the monopolizers, the Jews, and the tax-eaters, when the Government chooses to raise the value of money, and lower the price of goods? The whole of the industrious part of the country must suffer in such a case; but, where manufacturing is mixed with agriculture, where the wife and daughters are at the needle, or the wheel, while the men and the boys are at plough, and where the manufacturing, of which one or two towns are the centres, is spread over the whole country round about, and particularly where it is, in very great part, performed by females at their own homes, and where the earnings come in aid of the man’s wages; in such case the misery cannot be so great; and accordingly, while there is an absolute destruction of life going on in the hell-holes, there is no visible misery at, or near, Worcester; and I cannot take my leave of this county without observing, that I do not recollect to have seen one miserable object in it. The working people all seem to have good large gardens, and pigs in their styes; and this last, say the feelosofers what they will about her “antallectual enjoyments,” is the only security for happiness in a labourer’s family.
Then, this glove-manufacturing is not like that of cottons, a mere gambling concern, making Baronets to-day and Bankrupts to-morrow, and making those who do the work slaves. Here are no masses of people, called together by a bell, and “kept to it” by a driver; here are no “patriots,” who, while they keep Englishmen to it by fines, and almost by the scourge, in a heat of 84 degrees, are petitioning the Parliament to “give freedom” to the South Americans, who, as these “patriots” have been informed, use a great quantity of cottons!