290 THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 



up the country, which is a good deal like a man swallow 

 ing his own stomach. You see, this state of things makes 

 rather a dull look for the old parish, and worries the min 

 ister, and it works out in his sermons on Thanksgivings, 

 and Fasts, and sometimes on Sundays. Some grumble 

 about political preaching, and secular preaching, etc., but 

 for my part, if a man has got any thing to say to make 

 folks better, I never could see why it wa n t jest as well to 

 say it on Sunday as any other time. But the grumbling 

 don t trouble Mr. Spooner much. He s as independent as a 

 wood-chopper, and knows he can get his bread and take 

 care of himself, if the Hookertown people turn him out of 

 the pulpit to-morrow, which they have no notion of doing. 

 He speaks right square out, and nobody has any more 

 doubt as to which side of a question he is on, than they 

 have about sunrise. 



Well, you see this food question is what the philoso 

 phers call a poser. If bread and meat are all the while get 

 ting dearer, and labor is growing cheaper, and that is the 

 settled tendency of society, you see the time is coining 

 when labor wont buy bread, and somebody must perish. 

 That is the way things are working now, and wise men 

 should be looking for a remedy. 



Mr. Spooner showed this very clearly. It has been the 

 tendency in Europe for a great many years England 

 hasn t raised her own bread stuffs for more than 80 years. 

 The great mass of her people are gathered in cities and 

 large manufacturing towns, and there is not land enough 

 left to raise a full supply of food for her population, even 

 with their improved husbandry. She has to bring large 

 quantities of wheat and other grains from the ports of the 

 Mediterranean, and from across the Atlantic, to make up 

 the deficiency. Now, if there should be short crops in 

 these countries and in America, or if she should be at war 

 with enemies strong enough to blockade her ports, nothing 

 could prevent great distress and starvation. 



