USES TO WHICH [Chap. 



forelieadj and for making them slaves to wear 

 chains with iron collars round their necks ; facts 

 which I dare any man with a name and reputa- 

 tion to deny in print : when one reflects on the 

 regulations in schools like this for the saving of 

 bread in times of dearth of that article ; when 

 cue reflects on regulations of a similar kind, in 

 poor-houses and the like : when one thus reflects, 

 must it not be a subject of joy, to perceive 

 that here is a thing, come as propitiously, and 

 almost as wonderfully, as if it had dropped from 

 the skies, to put an end for ever, to the neces- 

 sity of all these regulations, and to all the dis- 

 putation, and all the ill blood between the rich 

 and the poor, arising from compulsory regula- 

 tions as to food? If, in the year 1800, corn 

 had been grov/n in England ; or, even if its 

 uses had been generally known, at the tinie 

 when the nation was paying enormous premiums 

 on the importation of human food, we should 

 not, indeed, have had, in the amiable person of 

 Mr.VANsiTTART (now Lord Bexley), a '' Com- 

 missioner of Scotch Herrinfjs ;" nor should we 

 have had any of those heart-cheering paragraphs 

 and books, written for the purpose of showing 

 what delicious food, what delicious and nutritious 

 food the English people, if it were not for their 

 p^'ejudices, might obtain by the potatoes of the 

 Irish and the herrings of the Scotch ; '^ the 



