DECEMBER 419 



London, who passed the last years of his hfc in the Ditchingham 

 Hospital, and whose story would be worth the telling if I had the 

 space to write down human documents. One day a message was 

 sent to me to say that he was dying, and I hurried to the place to 

 bid him farewell. He received me with a beaming smile. 



* Thank God, dear friend,' he gasped in a broken whisper so 

 low that I could scarcely catch his words, 'at last I am "shuffling 

 off — this mortal coil.'" 



He was a man of considerable reading, and enjoyed quoting 

 Shakespeare to the end. 



With reference to the controversy of which I wTote yesterday, 

 I am interested to sec in the paper where it has been carried on 

 a letter from a gentleman who signs himself ' An Old Radical.' 

 The Old Radical, after stating that he is strongly opposed to my- 

 self in politics — I should like to hear his definition of my politics 

 — adds that ' in this instance, if he will allow so unworthy a subject 

 to join hands with him, I will.' He then says that he has passed the 

 allotted span of life, that he was born a farmer's son, and became 

 a London tradesman, and has been the witness of a great deal of 

 misery, with the result that ' the very thought of Protection makes 

 me shudder.' He adds that after forty- five years of absence he 

 returned to his native country. Now I will let him speak for 

 himself : 



* What did I find ? Well, I looked about for my old schoolboy 

 friends, sons of men of good position in those days. I found most 

 of them dead, and, if not dead, certainly " dead-broke." Several 

 of them are paupers. I seek for the cause. I find it all put down 

 to Free Trade. I say that we cannot afford to have our wheat 

 lands thrown out of cultivation Then don't kill the farmer, but 

 give him a bounty. Let the loaf be cheap, and if the foreigner 

 wants to swamp us with his corn, let him. Let's have a cheap 

 loaf, and no reasonable taxpayer will object to help the farmer.' 



A bounty on wheat when it falls below 30^-. a quarter may be 

 an economical iniquity — possibly it is, and certainly it is not a 

 remedy of which, personally, I am enamoured — but at least, even 



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