172 ^V AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



might be right there amongst them ! He would like to know 

 what there was to oppose them. The miller said there was 

 " gammon." The sergeant, on being asked, admitted that he was 

 not aware of any respectable force stationed in that vicinity, and 

 the miller told him he was a " traitor then." Indian said miller 

 knew nothing about war, and the company unanimously acqui- 

 esced. Indian then resumed his speech asked if government 

 would dare to give arms to the people, and pictured an immense 

 army of Chartists arising in the night, and, with firebrands and 

 Frenchmen, sweeping the government, Queen and all, out of the 

 land, and establishing " a republican kingdom," where the poor 

 man was as good as the rich. The company all thought it very 

 probable, and each added something to make the picture more 

 vivid. A coarse joke about the Queen's bundling off with her 

 children produced much laughter ; and the hope that the parsons 

 and lawyers would have to go to work for a living, was much 

 applauded. 



It was strange what a complete indifference they all seemed to 

 have about it, as if they would be mere spectators not in any 

 way personally interested. They spoke of the government and 

 the Chartists, and the landlords and the farmers, but not a word 

 of themselves. 



Late in the evening there was some doleful singing, and a 

 woman came in and performed some sleight-of-hand tricks, every 

 one giving her a penny when she had concluded. We were 

 obliged to sleep two in a bed, one of us with a Methodist young 

 man, who traveled to make sales of tea, among country grocers 

 and innkeepers, for a Liverpool house. He said that what we 

 had seen in the tap-room would give us a very good notion of the 

 character of a large part of the laboring class about here. He 

 thought their moral condition most deplorable, and laid it much 

 to the small quantity and bad quality of the spiritual food that 



