221; Domestic Notices : — England. 



tcresting : give us one in everv hainlet and ^■ill:lce througliout the island, 

 and we ask tor nothing more. Tiic rest will follow of course. — Cond. 



The Lahourcrs Friend Sociciu. — Tiiis Society has been reccntl\- estab- 

 lished in London, for the purpose of disseminating knowledge beneficial 

 to the farmer, the landowner, and the labourer. It gives away tracts, one 

 of wluch we have seen ; but it appears to us not duly to estimate the im- 

 portance of general knowledge, and especially that of morals and political 

 economy, to the grown-up poor, and of a high degree of education for their 

 cliildren. The address of this Society is, ol. Threadneedle Street. — Coud. 



An Agricultural Sodyftj. — An Agricultural Society has just been esta- 

 blished in "Warwickshire, chiefly through the exertions of Sir Eariiley Wil- 

 mot, a most benevolent and enlightened proprietor. Among the resolutions 

 I>assed, was one to the eti'ect that the recent disturbances among the agri- 

 cultund labourers have arisen chieriy from " the practice of giving inade- 

 quate wages, to be made up out of the poor rates ; and the having little or 

 no g-arden ground round their cottages, so as to give them employment at 

 tJieir leisure hours." Their resolutions state " the first and chief object of 

 tlie Society to be, to encounige the labourer in habits of industry, in the 

 cultivation of his garden, iSrc, by premiums and the temporary loans of 

 money." This is excellent so far as it goes ; but there is not a single reso- 

 lution, among the twenty-five passed at the meeting on Feb. 4., that has 

 the slightest tendency to go to the root of the evil. The poor have become 

 troublesome, and even dmigexous, to the ridi ; and they nuist be quieted in 

 some way or other. Feeding and clothing them form, certiiinly, tiie best 

 mode to begin witli; but the gnuid object, in oiu opuiion, ought to be, to 

 place the poor m a condition to enable them to take care of themselves for 

 tlie future. There is no way of doing this, but by giving them some idea of 

 their position in society ; by teaching them that they are as much commo- 

 dities in the market as the cattle which they rear, or the wheat whidi tliey 

 cultivate ; that the price of their labour depends as much on the supply iii 

 the one case as it does in the other ; and that, the supply being in their 

 own hiuids, it is always in their power, by refraining from ciirly marriiures, 

 luid by thus diminishing their numbers, to raise their wages, and put it out 

 of the ix)wer of their employers to underpay them. Till the labourers of 

 a country understand these things clearly, the recent miseries will, as has 

 always been the case, be continually recurring. Knowledge, therefore, is 

 the only essential fouuilation of improvement among the ignorant. All 

 labourers above -iO, who have not been readers from their youth, may be 

 considered hopeless ; but ail mider this age ought to be eucoiu~.iged to peruse 

 cheap pamphlets and newspapers ; and all children should be sent to school, 

 and subjected to the most improved methods of uistruction till the age of 

 puberty. The present population can be only saved by the press, and the 

 comuig generation by die schoolmaster. If the proprietors and the clerg^^ 

 understood the true and permanent interests of themselves and their fiuui- 

 lies, they would imitate the French government, which has recently taken 

 national measures for educating every individiud that shall henceforth be 

 born in France. But much of w hat the rich do for the poor, in this country, 

 is founded on the prmciple of keeping them under as a distinct class : a 

 generous policy, or any thing like universal benevolence or a love of human 

 nature, is completely out of the question. With every disposition to think 

 well of associations of men for public purposes, we confess we have not, for 

 a long time, met with any tiling that calls forth so little of our symjiathy as 

 the resolutions of the Society before us. They are altogether behind the 

 age, and too plainly founded on the selfishness and fear of the landed pro- 

 prietors, to excite either confidence or respect. We speak, however, only 

 of the resolutions ; the names which appear connected with them are, as tar 

 as we know, tliose of excellent men, who possess the best intentions of 

 doing good ; and, in particular, we highly respect Sir E. E. \\'ibiot, who. 



