56 GOBBET'S [NO. 



county; and therefore it is reasonable to suppose, 

 that the scale was as good a one for the poor as any 

 in England. According to this scale, which was 

 printed and published, and also acted upon for years, 

 the weekly allowance, for a man, his wife and three 

 children, was, according to present money-prices, Us. 

 4d. Thus it had, in the space of twenty-four years, 

 fell from 13s. Id. to Us. 4d. Thus were the people 

 brought to the pig-meat ! Food, fit for men, they 

 could not have with 11s. 4d. a week for five per- 

 sons. 



59. One would have thought, that to make a hu- 

 man being live upon 4d. a day, and fiudfuel, clothing-, 

 rent, washing, and bedding', out of tne 4d., besides 

 eating and drinking, was impossible ; and one would 

 have thought it impossible for any-thing not of hellish 

 birth and breeding, to entertain a wish to make poor 

 creatures, and our neighbours too, exist in such a 

 state of horrible misery and degradation as the la- 

 bourers of England were condemned to by this scale 

 of 1795. Alas ! this was happiness and honour; this 

 was famous living ; this 11s. 4d. a week was luxury 

 and feasting, compared to what we NOW BE- 

 HOLD ! For now the allowance, according to pre- 

 sent money-prices, is 8s. a week for the man, his 

 wife, and three children; that is to say 2%d. In 

 words, TWO PENCE AND FIVE SEVENTHS 

 OF ANOTHER PENNY, FOR A DAY ! There, 

 that is England now! That is what the base 

 wretches, who are fattening upon the people's la- 

 bour, call " the envy of surrounding nations and the 

 admiration of the world." This is what SIR FRAN- 

 CIS BURDETT applauds ; and he applauds the mean 

 and cruel and dastardly ruffians, whom he calls, "the 

 country gentlemen of England," and whose genero- 

 sity he cries up; while he well knows, that it is they 

 (and he amongst the rest) who are the real and only 

 cause of this devil-like barbarity, which (and he 

 well knows that too) could not possibly be practised 

 without the constant existence and occasional em- 

 ployrnent of that species of force, which is so abhor- 



