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treated with greater humanity. The Siberian exiles too, are in a condition far preferable to the free miners of England.

It is vain to say, that because this terrible state of things has been so little known before, the English government are not to blame for it. I would reply that it has been known before: the facts have been told by individuals. But such statements have hitherto either been disregarded or disbelieved. In my first work on England I spoke of the wretched condition of the colliers; for at the time it was not unknown to me. I withheld in that work the darkest shades in many pictures I drew for two reasons.

The real condition of the working classes of Great Britain was in a great measure unknown both in America and England; and I remembered that I was not only the first American who had spoken so freely of the wrongs of England, but I was an author unknown to the world, and I did not wish to lay too heavy a tax upon the credulity of my readers. For exposing a part only of the truth, I was grossly abused by the ignorant conceited slaves of party, who, on mounting the editorial chair of a vile print, use the royal pronoun as imposingly as though they spoke the sentiments of half the world-by silk stockened writers of romance, who were qualified to give no opinion of any matter that related to humanity, simply because they knew nothing about it;— and even by female editors and contributors of

namby pamby magazines, it was declared I had exaggerated the sufferings and wrongs of the poor of England, not even adding the modest qualification "in their opinion." Noble critics these, surely, upon the condition of the poor of a land which they visited, and it appears, only to pet a profligate aristocracy, who have caused this same misery of which I spoke. Some of these persons who have been so kind as to correct my mistakes by exposing their own ignorance, were in England, the same summer with myself. And while their pretty feet were pressing the winter carpets of the halls of the aristocracy, they had made such a death struggle to enter, I happened either from humanity or curiosity-call it which you please, to be exploring the coal mines of Lancashire, and the factories and lanes of Preston, Manchester and Leeds. Some of these travellers have told us what they saw-they have described soirées, balls, and all kinds of fashionable dissipation, enough of which I witnessed to be disgusted with it all, and with descriptions of which I might have filled two volumes and peddled out the leavings to fashionable magazines, had I cared more for the esteem of the beau monde, than of the humane and the philanthropic.

But to return. It is impossible such horrid barbarities could be perpetrated in a country like England, and not be known to multitudes. They were most likely unknown to the aristocracy and fashionable circles in the metropolis-to the great

pleasure-seeking world of London; for these classes meddle no more than is necessary with the affairs of the poor. "It is," says Blackwood's Magazine, "nauseous and emetical to such persons to be told that our fellow subjects starve outside our gates such recitals of domestic misery interfere with the process of digestion, and like the sad realities of another place should not be mentioned in the hearing of ears polite. Nothing can be more vulgar, uninteresting and anti-sentimental, than the distresses of Hicks, Higgins, Figgins and Stubbs, and all weavers and others, who are neither rebels nor refugees-who are vulgar enough to work if they can get it—who wear no bristles under their noses and lips, and who have no names ending in 'rinski.'"

But whether the legislators of England knew these facts or not, it is nevertheless true that this damning slavery which stamps the condition of the lower classes in Great Britain, is the result of unjust laws, and an oppressive system of Government, by which the helpless poor man is robbed of the fruits of his hard toil. It is also true that after a full investigation of the facts, Parliament refused to provide a remedy, and indefinitely postponed the whole matter.

As investigation goes on, and one abuse after another is exposed, Englishmen profess great surprise at such unlooked for developments! They shock all men who have a spark of humanity left, but they surprise no one who is gifted

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with sagacity enough to discover that these terrible sufferings are produced legitimately and of necessity by the tyranny of the government. This grand cause is adequate to the production of more misery and crime than have yet been brought to light. Let the investigation go on. Let the curtain which has so long veiled the distress and degradation of the slave classes, from the gaze of the aristocracy be lifted, and let them behold the fearful ruin they have brought on starving millions, so that they be not taken by surprize when they find themselves visited by the ISSUE.

END OF FIRST VOL.

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