I.] POOR MAN'S FRIEND. 7 



SAME LAW that we have ; they are under the 

 same Government ; lei them duly enforce that law; 

 and then they will stand in no need of money from 

 us to provide for their protection." 



5. This is what common sense says would be your 

 language in such a case ; and does not common sense 

 say, that the people of Hampshire, and of every other 

 part of England, will thus think, when they are told 

 of the sufferings, and the starvation, in Lancashire 

 and Yorkshire ! The report of the Manchester ley^~" 

 payers, which took place on the 17th of August, 

 reached me in a friend's house in this little village ; 

 and when another friend, who was present, read, in 

 the speeches of Mr. BAXTER and Mr. POTTER, that 

 tens of thousands of Lancashire people were on the 

 point of starvation, and that many had already 

 actually died from starvation; and when he per- 

 ceived, that even those gentlemen uttered not a word 

 of complaint against either overseer or justices of the 

 peace, he exclaimed : " What ! are there no poor-laws 

 in Lancashire ? Where, amidst all this starvation, 

 is the overseer ? Where is the justice of the peace ? 

 Surely that Lancashire can never be in England?" 



6. The observations of this gentleman are those 

 which occur to every man of sense ; when he hears 

 the horrid accounts of the sufferings in the manufac- . 

 turing districts ; for, though we are all well awareT' 

 that the burden of the poor-rates presses, at this time, 

 with peculiar weight on the land-owners and occu- 

 piers, and on owners and occupiers of other real pro- 

 perty, in those districts, we are equally well aware, 

 that those owners and occupiers have derived great 

 benefits from that vast population that now presses 

 upon them. There is land in the parish in which I 

 am now writing, and belonging to the farm in the 

 house of which I am, which land would not let for 

 20s. a statute acre ; while land, not so good, would 

 let, in any part of Lancashire, near to the manufac- 

 tories, at 605. or 80s. a statute acre. The same may 

 be said with regard to houses. And, pray, are the 

 owners and occupiers, who have gained so largely by 



