426 EDITORIAL COLLOQUIES, &C. 



brightness fled, 7 she answers archly, ' Oh, it was before any body 

 you know can remember/ " 



" Speaking of Mrs. F. puts me in mind of her old admirer, one 

 of the assistant Poor-Law Commissioners. How absurd it is to 

 place men in such important situations, who are utterly destitute of 

 all knowledge of the statistics of the country ! They showed you, 

 I suppose, a copy of their circular to the Yorkshire manufac- 

 turers ? " 



" They did, and, had it not been that I was too much shocked at 

 the utter ignorance displayed, I should have been in a towering 

 passion with Edwin Chad wick. In the first place, the manufac- 

 turing districts are weighed down by surplus hands ; and, in the 

 second, I detest the crowding of peasantry into towns, when it 

 only requires a proper estimate of their resources to keep them in 

 their natural position as tillers of the soil. Cicero said well, ' Mi- 

 serum atque iniquum ex agro homines traducere in forum ; ab aratro, 

 ad subsellia; ab usu rerum rusticarum, ad insolitam litem atque 

 judicium.'" 



"But what are the starving people to do? Six o'clock; will 

 you go with me to the House ? No. Well. By the bye, did you 

 notice Mr. Hume's face the other night, when he announced the 

 abandonment of stopping the supplies ? The memory of it has been 

 the subject of a laughing soliloquy in my mind ever since." 



" No, I did not. I should fancy the Radical party must be just 

 now somewhat at a discount amongst their * unwashed * admirers. 

 What a piece of work is the anonymous letter by one of their oracles 

 to the discontented Canadians ! The advices received latterly form a 

 commentary upon the expression : ' Spring Rice is in office : stop his 

 supplies, as the Radicals are coming into power;' which it is impos- 

 sible to misunderstand.' It will come upon their ears like a thunder- 

 clap, and it exhibits the genius of ultraism in its most odious colours. 

 The miserable casuistry which represents it as a stimulus to healthy 

 agitation, and appeals to the excitement of the Reform Bill, is un- 

 worthy even a laugh of scorn." 



" You speak as every man of sense and discretion must do on 

 a most unadvised and ill-judged step. Stimulants are not wanted 

 in Canada; calm and temperate discussion is lost in party; and for 

 any one to urge on its inflamed spirit, from the mother country, is to 



