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As from this height I looked down on miserable habitations of the poor, and cast my eye over distant Spitalfields and thought of the 150,000 who knew not where they were to sleep that nightof the myriads crying for bread within sight of so much splendor-how that Tower sunk in my sight. It had but an hour ago stirred my heart like a trumpet-call, but now as I saw its white turrets against the sky, I hated its grandeur. What were its emblems of greatness? emblems of tyranny. The power that once wielded those instruments for self-aggrandizement, now used for the same purpose the sweat and toil of the poor. To gather these treasures the blood of many thousands of England's subjects had been spilt. To sustain the pomp and royalty they minister to, tens of thousands now pine in ignorance and die of famine. Give me that Jewel-room to convert into bread, and I will send a shout of joy over the land that never before shook England. Give me the useless diamonds that glitter on from age to age by lamplight in that dark and narrow cell, and before to-morrow night there shall go up more thanksgiving from London than ever before rose from its receptacles of woe. Convert these monuments of royal vanity into money which shall. clothe and feed the naked and the hungry, and in one single day, they will purchase more happiness, than they will impart though they shine on for a thousand centuries. How strong must be the love of pomp, when it can overcome,

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not only sympathy for the suffering, but the fears and dangers of a mad and desperate population. Yes, I exclaimed, England's magnificence is based on suffering hearts, formerly purchased by blood, now by tears-formerly won in the hot fierce fight that filled hundreds of villages with mourning-now in the darker conflict of tyranny with liberty at home-of the few with the many-the rich with the poor, and which leaves the land filled with pallid poverty, wan famine, and scowling hate.

War of some sort England must wage to sustain her privileged classes-war with other nations, or war with her own subjects. Spoils she must win from somebody, or her oligarchy or hierarchy go to the ground. To support so large an unproductive, and yet spendthrift class, money must be obtained by unjust means. The spoils of war or the spoils of home oppression, it matters not which, if they can but lay their hand upon them. Slothful and luxurious, they will not produce; they only spend. Let another Tower be erected to trumpet forth England's magnificence, and all the trophies of it gathered there. Let the relics be picked from any battle-field where the people's rights have fallen, and piled within. Place on his appropriate pedestal, (a straw couch,) that wan and haggard man who died for want of the bread which the Corn Laws had placed beyond his reach. Close by him arrange the squalid family in the damp, foul cellar, famishing because an

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honest father can find no work. posing groups the corpses of perished in her manufactories. women, and children, chained together naked in her coal mines. Let the rags and tatters be the Crown jewels, and take Pomp through the Museum, and bid her behold her appropriate trophies. Such a Tower would fill all London. would be more appropriate, more significant, than the other for England's present wealth and grandeur grow as really out of this suffering and destitution, as it formerly did out of her armies and navies; or in other words, out of the sufferings and destitution of foreign foes. Idle and profligate pomp must live on open or secret spoils; but spoils are not to be got without inflicting wrong and suffering somewhere; and indeed a greater sacrifice of life is now demanded to sustain the feudal spirit and worthless magnificence of England, than when whole ranks were mowed down by the scythe of war.

But one who looks at England as she now is, must be struck with the moral change which is so rapidly working throughout her population. The reverence for symbols is fast passing away. The people no longer shout when the coronet flashes by. They will no longer fight that a lazy lord may wear another star or ribbond. A feudal chieftain can no longer lead his vassals like sheep to the slaughter, to gratify his pride, or appease his revenge. Men begin to think for themselves: of

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every project of government the subjects ask "Cui bono?" Even they, thick-headed as their oppressors would fain have us believe them, are able to perceive some inconsistency in such piles of wealth being got without labour, and squandered without profit, while they who slave in sorrow die without bread. Before this cry for bread titles and symbols disappear. Want sweeps distinctions to the grave. Famine is the greatest leveller on earth. Its hand will strike a lord as quick as a peasant. It will send its cry into the very heart of the palace as soon as into a hovel. Men dare ask for bread any where of any man. When men have abundance they want glory; when they lack bread glory cannot satisfy them.

England seems now to stand as the representative head of the monarchies of Europe, and she is leading the van in the solemn conflict through which each is destined to pass-the conflict which is to decide whether governments shall be for the few or the many, the rulers or the ruled. In that conflict which no earthly power can long delay, thrones are to sink, the long lines of kings disappear, and titles and estates vanish away.

It is well England is thrown first into this great arena, for she will pass the trial with a moderation and a firmness we could not expect of other nations; and when she comes forth from it, the question will be settled for the continent and the world.

BOOK THE SECOND.

EMBRACING A VIEW OF THE GENERAL
CONDITION OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE

IN PAST AGES-THEIR BURDENS AND
SUFFERINGS.

In past ages, the People-never having conceived the idea of a social condition different from its own, and entertaining no expectation of ever ranking with its chiefs-submitted without resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the inevitable visitations of the arm of God.-De Tocqueville.

The Poor were not the authors of the system which has ruined their freedom, their industry and their morals.-Edinburgh

Review.

The sternest Republican that ever Scotland produced, was so struck with this reflection, (the increase of pauperism, ignorance and crime,) that he did not hesitate to wish for the re-establishment of Domestic Slavery, as a remedy for the squalid wretchedness and audacious guilt with which his country was overrun.Quarterly Review.

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