JX.] CORN IS APPLICABLE. 



together with all their natural consequences ; 

 such accidents and exhibitions in the streets, 

 that^ if Chetwynd's " exposure-of-the-person 

 Biir^ had been then in existence^ every second 

 or third house must have been a jail to con- 

 tain the criminals. In a short time, however, 

 such were the groanings of the people, the 

 collective wisdom thought proper to abandon 

 the Act, together with all its provisions about 

 mill-stones and dressers and sieves and bolting 

 cloths ; though, at the time when they gave it 

 up, WiLBERFORCE had actually before them the 

 project of a law for granting out of the taxes a 

 premium on tlie growth of potatoes. It was 

 worth while for the nation to be griped and 

 pinched a little for the sake of ensuring this 

 infallible proof of the " collective wisdom" of 

 its rulers ; and this sort of proof it never could 

 have had, if corn had been grown in England, 

 or even if its uses had been any thing like gene- 

 rally known. The Collective is " an universal 

 genius :'' ordinary bodies of men, like ordinary 

 individuals, excel in particular branches of 

 knowledge or departments of life ; but, the 

 collective, whether in domestic or rural eco- 

 nomy; in fiscal and money affairs, as well in 

 the distribution as in the collection ; in matters 

 of free-trade, in those of religion, in the barrack 

 and hulk systems 3 in matters at home and mat- 



