CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 139 



the lower classes, for they would get no more ; with the price of 

 bread, their wages, if lower be possible, were likely to be re 

 duced ; the advantages of such increased products would, of 

 course, go into the hands of the land-holders and farmers, or the 

 large manufacturers and mill-owners ; and that, for his part, he 

 saw no ultimate remedy but starvation ; that is, such an actual 

 reduction of the means of living, that multitudes should gradu 

 ally perish from want, and so thin off the surplus population. 

 He said this, too, with all the coolness and indifference with 

 which he would speak of brushing off the flies from the dinner- 

 table. &quot; Good God!&quot; I said within myself, &quot;has it come to 

 this, that familiarity with want and misery can render the heart 

 of man capable of contemplating such a result with calmness, 

 and that human life on earth should come to be deemed utterly 

 worthless ? If there be any humanity, or any religion, left in the 

 world, they must be roused to prevent such a catastrophe.&quot; 



Whatever anxiety, however, the prospect may excite in a 

 benevolent mind, there is no room for despair. It is not consist 

 ent with the nature of my present undertaking, to discuss this 

 subject, in its various bearings and aspects, in this place. If life 

 and health are spared me, I shall do it in another form. The 

 people do not so much demand charity, as work. They do not 

 so much require to be supported, as to be allowed to support 

 themselves. The remarkable experiment, already referred to,\ 

 of Mrs. Gilbert, a sagacious and benevolent woman, at East- 1 

 bourne, in Sussex county, who has four hundred tenants, on 1 

 small allotments, and of whom not more than three have failed \ 

 to pay their rent punctually, and who, on these small allotments, 

 do, in many cases, all that is necessary, and in all, much for the / 

 support of their families, should command attention. There 

 remains, as I have before stated, an immense amount of land, 

 which might be cultivated and rendered productive. These 

 considerations present the strongest inducements to an improved 

 agriculture. More land should be brought into cultivation ; that \\ 

 which is cultivated should be better cultivated. The laborers J 

 should have every encouragement and opportunity to help them 

 selves. The interest of the farmers cannot be separated from 

 that of the laborers ; the interests of one class from that of 

 another. Embarked in the same vessel, they must succeed or 

 suffer, they must sink or swim, together. 



