in summer, and as long as I have light to see in winter. My wages be one shilling and fourpence a-day-eight shillings aweek. It be not much, be it?"

"No, it is not much. How do you manage to live?"

"Not well; and there be three more-wife and two children. We had another boy, but he died two weeks aback; as fine a boy as you could wish to see he wur, and as much thought on by his mother and I; but we ben't sorry he be gone. I hopes he be happy in heaven. He ate a smart deal; and many a time, like all on us, went with a hungry belly. Ah! we may love our children never so much, but they be better gone; one hungry belly makes a difference where there ben't enough to

eat.'

"Poor man! It is indeed a melancholy evidence of national distress to hear a hard-working man speak as you do. Have you got a piece of garden-ground with your cottage?"

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Ees, a small piece, about four log or so, it don't grow much for such as be so ready to eat everything as we. And it costs, with house rent, L.2, 10s. That ben't easy paid out o' eight shillings a-week, be it?"

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No; you must have a very hard struggle to keep yourselves alive?"

"Ees, hard enough. It makes one think on doing what one would never do, but for hunger."

"Did the late Earl Nelson employ many people on his estate?"

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No; I don't know that he employed many-not more than others here—not so many as some-not so many as Lord Radnor did at Longford; but he be gone from that now, and I hear say there ben't so many at work as wur."

"He, the late Lord Nelson I mean, was a clergyman-was he not?"

"I've heard he wur once, but don't know much of what he wur, 'cept that he transported me."

"Transported you! What for?"

"For poaching. I got seven year; and wur killed near almost. And they killed my brother dead at once-knocked his skull to pieces."

"Who-the gamekeepers, I suppose? Did you make much resistance?"

"No; I heard them fall on my brother, and I wur fifty yards from him. And when I wur hiding, they came and took hold on me, and beat in my skull. Here, you can feel with your hand; out of that part, and this, and this, eleven pieces of bone were taken. I never wur expected to live for a long time. No, I never made no resistance; for they had

broken my head and killed my brother afore I knew they saw

This man went on to tell me, in answer to several questions, that he was at that time out of work; that he and his brother went out to poach, leaving their father, mother, and two sisters, I think he said, at home; that the result was, as already stated, that after lying long in the prison hospital he was tried; that the Earl of Radnor, pitying the family for what had already befallen it, endeavoured to prove that the men were taken on his ground, and not on Earl Nelson's, but it was decided otherwise; that he (the convict) was kept nineteen months at Portsmouth after trial, and then shipped off for Bermuda; that he served the full term of his sentence there, at building the public docks and fortifications; that about a thousand convicts were there during that time, who slept in barracks at night, and wrought by day under a military guard; but who, apart from this unpleasantness, lived well. He wishes, he says, and prays to God, that he could now for himself and family at home have such an allowance of food as he had in the West Indies when a convict.

"We had terrible good living," this was his expression, "by as I ever had for working in England. Fresh beef three times a-week, pork, and peas four times a-week. But the weather was so hot we drowd (threw) the soup away."

"Could you have remained there after your time was up?" "I don't know; I wur tired of the confinement and the heat-it wur terrible hot, it wur, and we had no liberty. And then father and mother and sisters wur at home. But father died soon as I wur gone-one son killed, and me a'most, and then transported, wur too much for him to stand. Ah! he wur broken hearted, he wur; and as soon I was come home mother died."

"I suppose you had difficulty in finding employment when you came home? People who wanted workmen would look on you as a bad character."

"Ees; but some on 'em knew as I never would do no harm, and I got work some how, and got married. I be nine or ten year at home now."

"When you were in the West Indies serving your sentence. was any attempt made to instruct you? Were there any attempts made to reform you, to give you instruction, teach you to read, and make you comprehend the duties of life, and prepare you to practise them when you would escape from bondage.

"Oh ees, we had a terrible sight of all that. We had prayers many times a-day, sometimes oftener, and sometimes

fewer, but many times, and on Sundays nought but prayers. Oh ees, we had a terrible sight of that, too much many a time, we got tired on it."

"But had you any books to read? Or was any attempt made to teach you to read."

"No; nothing but prayers, and some preaching o' Sundays."

"No instruction was given on the moral duties of life, as, for instance, the relationship of one man to another as human beings, how to live comfortably, profitably, and honestly?" 66 Oh ees; I wur told thousands o' times that poaching wur a terrible bad thing."

However, you were not taught to read and write?"

No, there wur none o' that."

"What is your name!"

"John Baillie-that be my name."

Having, after some other conversation about the present fall in wages, left this man, I entered a roadside inn at the distance of half a mile from where he was at work, and there, amongst other things, heard the landlady say "The man you speak of must be John Baillie. He is a truthful man. Depend on it, whatever he told you was the truth, extraordinary as you may think his account of himself. There is no man, I believe, that is more honest and truthful than John Baillie, even though he has been transported."

Perhaps it will occur to some people that such a man as this might have been a better citizen, maintaining himself and family comfortably with a little expense in education, and early moral training; whereas he must, as it is, live a very unpleasant life, and have cost the country a great deal of money during his imprisonment. The public money expended on him alone would do a good deal for the reclamation of the waste land and the waste people in his native country.

Report on the Condition of the Agricultural Districts.

November 1842.

The following extract from a great quantity of matter collected by the author, and partly published in the Anti-BreadTax Circular, at this time, refers to the same locality as the last three letters. The precise place is outside the park walls of St Giles', the seat of the Earl of Shaftesbury. His Lordship is the nobleman spoken of; the farmer numbered as 21 is

one of his tenants; and the labourer numbered as 22 was an eccentric subject met with at that time.

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"Never

No. 22, A labourer putting flints on the highway, is spoken with shortly after leaving No. 21. He says he has eight shillings a-week, and has received notice that after next week he will only have seven. Says he saw me talking to old and would like to know what he said about wages. I told him that we talked of many things, but I forgot to mention wages. The labourer asks what I did talk about to the "old un.” I reply that I talked to him about his manner of keeping accounts, whether he was particular in writing everything down. To which No. 22 says, "And what did old un say to thee?" "He said he did not keep any accounts, he trusted to his memory." And," says No. 22, "what did thou say to he?" "I said it was not proper to trust everything to one's memory, that a man could not conduct his business properly unless he kept his accounts correctly." "And what did old un say to thee then?" "He said he never forgot anything." forgot nothing!" exclaimed the labourer, as if highly amused with his examination and my replies; "Never forgot nothing!" he again repeated, "no, old un be not likely to forget nothing as will put a penny in his pocket and keep it out of another man's. Old un won't forget that he told his men last week he would take them down a shilling; but he be's as long as a journey from here to London on a pig's back afore his memory be's good enough to raise wages at the time he promises when he takes 'em down!" And having thus spoken, No. 22 applied himself with great vigour to his work. Observing at this moment a person at some distance, walking by himself, and supposing that he was some other farmer whom I had not seen, I called the man's attention to him, and inquired if he knew him, and if he was a farmer? After standing a minute, and scanning the person as narrowly as the trees would permit, the labourer said, "That be the old un's master; that be all our masters. The old un be as much afraid of that un as any of we." "Does he go out among the farmers much?" "I ben't no farmer myself; wish I wur." do you wish you were?" "What do thee think I work for?" "For wages. "And how much do thee think I get?" "You told me you had only eight shilling, that you are to be reduced to seven?" "And how much do thee think I eat over a whole week out of that?" "I cannot say; I should like to know; perhaps you will tell me?" "Suppose, rather than I tell thee, that thou tries. Take thee to breaking flints and making roads at eight shillings a-week for a year, do thee think thou could tell what thee lived on ?" "I don't know;

Why

I think there would be no danger of having such an abundance as to forget." "Do thee think not? Well, an I wur a farmer I would always have as much to eat as to be able to know what it wur; I don't be able to tell it now at times, 'cause how I go with an empty belly so often that my grub ha'n't no name. Ah! you be a precious lot o' hard screws on a poor man, the whole lot of you be." "Which lot? You seem to include me, and yet you don't know who or what I am ?" "Don't I though? I see you ha' got a good coat on your back, and a face that don't look like an empty belly; there be no hunger looking out atween your ribs I'll swear. You either be a farmer or somebody else that lives on somebody else. May be you be a lord for aught I know on; or a squire; or a parson, dang it-you be a parson perhaps ! One thing I see, you ben't one of them as works fourteen hours aday, to feed lords, and squires, and parsons, and farmers; dang the farmers, they be the worst of the lot of

66

ye.'

Why do you think so? Why do you think the farmers are the worst?" Why! what need of me to tell you why? You wouldn't believe me wur I to tell why; but I dare say you know without telling. I dare say you be one of them as has your daughter, an you ha' a daughter, playing on the piano on a Saturday night to drown the noise of them brutes of labouring men what come to get their wages through a hole in the wall; what cannot be allowed to set foot within a farmer's house now-a-days; what must be paid through an opening in the partition, lest they defile the house of a master what gets rich as they get poor; a master what must get his daughter to play music lest the voice of a hard-working man be heard through the hole in the wall! Ah! it be enough to drive men mad; it ha' made men think on things they never would ha' thought on."

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But," said I," you are wrong in supposing every person to be your enemy who is not one of yourselves. Do you speak of a farmer in particular who pays his men through a hole in the wall while his daughter plays the piano inside, or do you all the farmers do so?" "Oh, you know, master, what I mean; you be not such a stranger here as you would make me believe." "Did you ever see me before?" "I ha' seed

say

enough o' thee, I dare say. I dare say you be about to go and tell all you heerd me say now. I dare say you be one of 'em as come from London to kill game, that a poor man, like I, must not look at. Ah! I don't care; we must just go We be all like to have justice sometime; there ben't no noblemen in heaven, they say." "Is there not? and will there be any poor men there?" Not an the rich can help

on.