1824] 
was made up to the spikes, and the enemy, 
about 2000 behind the ditch, poured in 
their destructive fire ; and this, together 
with the obstacles in front, made the poor 
fellows step back, but none went to the 
right about until the retreat was sounded, 
Our loss was severe; Lieutenant Arm- 
strong, of the 10th, killed; Lieutenant- 
Colonel Bowen slightly wounded witha 
spent ball; Lieutenant Graves slightly in 
the arm; and Ensign Barbarie danger- 
ously, leg since amputated; about 120 
men of the 10th killed and wounded. 
Captain Johnston, a very active and gallant 
officer, was very severely wounded 
throngh the knee ; and about forty men of 
the detachment of 23d Rungpore, were 
killed and wounded, including the forty- 
two men spiked in the feet and legs oppo- 
site Buddeepore, where the enemy had 
commenced making some stockades.” 
Among events which have much in- 
terested and affected the public, has 
been the arrival of the King and Queen 
of the Sandwich Islands. ‘They made 
their long voyage, partly for improve- 
ment, and partly for the political 
object of obtaining the protection of 
Engiand against the encroachments 
of Russia in those seas. For some 
weeks they were objects of much pub- 
lic curiosity, and were followed at the 
public places which they visited. At 
length they unhappily caught the 
measles, a disease unknown in Owhy- 
hee; and the queen falling a victim, 
her death, and the disease, proved 
alike fatal in a few days to her con: 
sort! The incident has occasioned a 
lively sympathy for their untimely 
fate, but no skill of medical science 
could avert it. 
The Select Committee of the House 
of Commons, appointed to inquire into 
the practice which prevails in some 
parts of the country of paying the 
wages of labour out of the poor-rates, 
and to consider whether any, and 
what, measures can be carried into 
execution, for the purpose of altering 
that practice, and to report their 
observations thereupon to the House, 
have, pursuant to the order of the 
House, examined into the matter to 
them referred, and have agreed upon 
the following Report :— 
From the evidence, and other infor- 
mation collected by your committee, it 
appears that, in some districts of the 
country, able-bodied labourers are sent 
round to the farmers, and receive a part, 
and in some instances the whole, of their 
subsistence from the parish, while work- 
ing upon the land of individuals. This 
Political Affairs in July. 
79 
practice was doubtless introduced at first ” 
as a mean of employing the surplus la- 
bourers of a parish; but by an abuse, 
which is almost inevitable, it has beer 
converted into a mean of obliging the 
parish to pay for labour which onght to 
have been hired and paid for by private 
persons, ‘This abuse frequently follows 
immediately the practice of sending the 
unemployed labourers upon the farms in 
the parish. The farmer, finding himself 
charged for a greater quantity of labour 
than he requires, naturally endeavours to 
economise, by discharging those labourers 
of whom he has the least need, and relying 
upon the supply furnished by the parish, 
for work hitherto performed entirely at 
his own cost. An instance has been 
quoted of a farmer’s team standing ‘stil} 
because the farmer had not received the 
number of roundsmen he expected. Thus 
the evil of this practice augments itself; 
and the steady hard-working labourer, 
employed by agreement with his master, 
is converted into the degraded and in- 
efficient pensioner of the parish. 
In other parts of the country this prac- 
tice has been carried to a very great 
extent, for the sake of diminishing the 
income of the clergyman of the parish, and 
paying for the expenses of one class of 
men out of the revente of another. In 
the parish of Hurstimonceaux, in Sussex, 
it appears that the wages of labour were 
reduced, in this manner to 6d. a day; and 
a clergyman of a neighbouring parish has 
been threatened with the adoption of a 
similar practice, 
This practice is the natural result of 
another, which is far more common, 
namely, that of paying an allowance to 
labourers, for the maintenance of their 
children. In some counties, as in Bed- 
fordshire, this. payment usually. begins 
when the, labourer has a single child, 
wages being kept so low that it is utterly 
impossible for him to support a wife and 
child without parish assistauee, 
The evils which follow from the system 
above described may be thus enu- 
mnerated :— 
1st.—The employer does not obtain 
sufficient labour from the labourer whom 
he hires. In parts of Norfolk, for in- 
stance, a labourer is quite certain of ob- 
taining an allowance from the parish 
sufficient to support his family ; it conse- 
quently becomes a matter of indifference 
to him whether he earns a small sum ora 
large one. It is obvious, indeed, that a 
disinclination to work must be the conse- 
quence of so vicions a system. He whose 
subsistence is secure without work, and 
who cannot obtain more than a mere suf- 
ficiency by the hardest work, will na- 
turally be an idle and careless labourer. 
Frequently the work done by four or five 
such labourers does not amount to what 
might 
