into the belief of which, so many Englishmen have been deluded; that the peasantry of England are" the happiest peasantry in the world!" An impression which has no other foundation than the dreams of the poet, or the false representations of oppressive landlords.

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Says the Review, "There is not a step, but simply a hand's-breadth between the condition of our agricultural labourers, and pauperism! For although the labour of our parish yards and Unions is more dependent and less remunerated than that of the free labour of those who keep themselves aloof from the parish, yet such is the actual condition of the farming men of this country, to say nothing of Ireland, that if only sickness during a few weeks assail them, or they lose employment for the same length of time, they have nothing to fall back upon, but the large district receptacles for the sick, the famishing, and the infirm. Misery everywhere exists-vast and incalculable misery! but it is more obvious, condensed, palpitating, and fuller of interest to a mere casual observer, in the great towns and cities, than in the fields, moors, fens, and mountains of our land. Misery in the country is less obvious to the passer-by, to the votary of pleasure and dissipation, and even to the man of leisure and reflection: but it is not the less real. The cottagers of England, once so cheerful and gay, are melancholy. and mournful. The voice of singing is never heard within their walls. Their unhappy in

mates vegetate on potatoes and hard dumplings, and keep themselves warm with hot water poured over one small teaspoonful of tea that barely colours the water, and which is administered to the fretful children by their anxious and impoverished parents."

"We have not taken these statements for granted: we have not fallen into the cry of 'hard times for the agricultural poor,' without knowing them to be so; and we are as well acquainted with the farming labourer's repast, as we are with their miseries. They are ground down by iron and searching poverty, and their meals are neither nutritive in quality, nor adequate in solid amount.”

From all I can gather, I have no hesitation in saying, that the wages of agricultural labourers will not average 8s. per week. I am not now speaking of the average including all the adult able-bodied male peasantry, for vast multitudes are compelled to remain idle.

It should be remembered that the price of labour, like the price of everything else, depends on the proportion the demand bears to the supply. Where there is so much surplus labour as there is in England, the poor who have no other resources are obliged to bid against each other, until their labour falls in the market to so low a rate, that a whole family may often find themselves unable even by the most wasting and ceaseless toil to get a sufficient supply of the coarsest bread to allay the pains of hunger. This competition is

ruinous to the poor. The rich merchant is often made bankrupt by being compelled to dispose of his goods in a market he already finds glutted with the only articles he has to sell; how much more seriously is this misfortune felt by whole masses, who are never sought after by the proprietors, but who crowd around every spot where work is to be done, offering to labour for the scantiest pittance rather than stand idle. This is the case all over the British Islands. Everywhere there are more workmen than work. It is no argument against this to say that English manufactures have increased in a far greater ratio than the population, for the work of several hundred millions of men is now done by labour-saving machinery.

This I shall show when I come to speak of 800,000 hand-loom weavers, who waste away their muscles in a painful attempt to compete with the tremendous power of machinery It still remains true, that after all the wonderful inventions of modern times which have called such half-miraculous power into play, there never was a period when the English labourer struggled so hard to live, or lived in such suffering as now.

Another thing must be considered. The great question to settle is not, how much money the labourer receives for his work; but how many of the necessaries and comforts of life it will procure him; for upon this the value of the poor man's labour entirely depends. And although it is undoubtedly true, that the money rate of wages

in England and Scotland, generally exceeds somewhat that of the continent, yet in consequence of the enormous price of all the necessaries of life, the English labourer is often more dependant and suffers more, than the labourers of most, if not all other European countries.

Soon after the "anti-corn law league" was organized, a new spirit of inquiry into the condition of the people was awakened. This resulted in so thorough an investigation, and in the accumulation of facts so incontrovertible, that no person who has any reputation for accuracy or intelligence to preserve, will risk it upon a denial of the terrible truth, that misery vast and incalculable everywhere prevails in the three kingdoms; and that the agricultural labourers, so far from being exempt from the general distress, have been among the severest sufferers.

In giving an account of an investigation into the condition of the peasantry of Devonshire, the garden of England, the editor of the anti-corn circular, says :

"We invite particular attention to the account of the condition of the Devonshire peasantry, given in this number. It appears that the average wages paid to the labourers who till the soil of that garden of England, are under eight shillings a week! Tens of thousands of heads of families are there toiling for a shilling or fourteen pence a day each, which, supposing them to have a wife and three children, will not be more than

eighteen-pence a head;-less by sixpence than is allowed for the subsistence of a pauper in the Manchester workhouse,-nay, less than is paid for the food and clothing of the criminals confined in our New Bailey prison! Such are the peasantry of beautiful Devonshire. Truly may it be said of that country,-God created a paradise, and man surrounded it with an atmosphere of misery, and peopled it with the wretched victims of selfish legislation !"

In putting on record the weekly expenditure of a peasant's family, whose receipts were seven shillings a week, the writer adds, "the account subjoined is not imaginative, being taken from the mouth of an honest and industrious peasant, living and working in the parish of Tiverton. His family consists of himself, his wife, and four children, the ages of the latter being seven, six, four, dren,—the and two years." The following is the literal account given me by the parties :—