ats: OVpPR RIE. [Surr. 
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NA1SDEG-—. 2aiauy 
“LETTER. UPON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL, FROM, A GENTLEMAN, IN 
4) LONDON, TO.A GENTLEMAN IN THE COUNTRY. © sigh 
-*Tur hot weather, and various prodigies concomitant upon. it, Rave 
béen all’ that people ‘could afford to talk about in this last month. Only 
éné shower of rain, I believe, through all England, between the 30th of 
June and the Ist of September. The race of frogs (in, Pritam 
extinet! — And the fish, in shallow ponds, have been actually cooked— 
whole Jakes. converted into great dishes of water-souchy. A swarm of 
«Jady-birds” alighting on the top of St. Paul’s has spread consternation 
through the City ; and produced more prophesy than when the grass- 
hopper from the Royal Exchange met the dragon of Bow-steeple in the 
cellar of Mr. White, the ironmonger, at the back of Fleet-market. 
Herrings have appeared upon our coasts in such shoals, that if they had 
only been ready-pickled, or could have been enticed up any of the 
canals towards Manchester or Blackburn, all our anxiety about the 
people in the weaving districts might have ceased. Many persons have 
taken up their “eternal rest” in the Thames at Westminster-bridge, 
and in the New River; because, what between the fleas and the flies, 
there was no hope of getting any rest.on earth. And one man—horribile 
dictu !—was so dreadfully bitten by the bugs—I think it was on the 11th 
of August—that he ran out of his house raving, shook his night-cap at 
the moon, and finding only six inches depth (and that luke-warm) in the 
water-butt, put a period to his sufferings by hanging himself in the 
cellar. 
Politics are getting up, rather than presently active. There has not 
been a great deal that is new since my last; but the storm is gathering ; 
there will be enough to do when it bursts in the winter. In the mean- 
time, every interest is busy in showing that it is by a curtailment of its 
neighbour’s immunities that the general safety is to be maintained: but 
the corn-restriction it is that will go—in fact the dealers alone have 
struck a death-blow at it—the fraud of the “ Averages” grows too 
impudent and barefaced to be endured. There has been some talk 
lately of improvement in the North ; but, under our present system, no 
material improvement can be looked for. There is no problem in the 
evil—we have 400,000 more hands ready to manufacture cotton (or any 
thing else,) than our markets, home or foreign, can find consumption for ; 
and a farther application of capital in the way of machinery would very 
soon make that 400,000 that we have out of employ, 800,000, If we 
cannot, by lower prices, extend our foreign demand, or create a new 
one—for in the home market no increase can take place—the people must 
either starve—they must be fed out of the public stock—-or they must 
emigrate ;—that is to say, they must go to some place where by their 
labour they can raise bread ; instead of raising that which is not bread, 
until they have found somebody who is disposed (and may be permitted) 
to give bread in exchange for it. esol 
Treland is getting into distress too, it appears ; a mishap of which her 
patriots are, of course, preparing to make the most. Catholic emanci- 
pation (and the potatoe-crop) having both failed together ;, absolutely 
England is not to keep the country—* Divel a bit,at_all”—not twelve. 
months longer. Is it not lamentable, feeling as one does deeply and 
sincerely for the real distresses of the peasantry of Ireland, to have to_ 
be sickened with this trash—a threat of the separation of the’ two. 
Oty 
