SUPPOSED GRIEVANCES OF THE POOR. 303 



" The business of the publican may at first sight seem to be an 

 exception to the above general rule ; because, though his capital is 

 not required to be great, and the commodities he deals in have a 

 quick sale, and do not grow out of fashion, his profits, nevertheless, 

 must appear high, if we judge from the price he sells them at com- 

 pared with the quantity of food sold for the same money. Compare 

 a glass of brandy, for instance, with a twopenny loaf; or a gallon of 

 his unwholesome liquors, retailed out at the enormous price of 

 twelve or fourteen shillings, with a gallon of milk, which is real and 

 nourishing food, sold by the farmer for fourpence. But this busi- 

 ness will be found to have very great drawbacks, not commonly 

 attended to, particularly his losses by unpaid debts, from the 

 poverty, sickness, and death of his most constant customers to all 

 which evils they are more liable than other men. The supposed 

 high profit, therefore, of this business is fallacious, as many have 

 found, to their mortification and ruin. 



" To return to the dealers in provisions : if they are found to abuse 

 the trust reposed in them, and to cheat the poor people by false 

 weights and measures, they ought to be punished severely. You 

 have it in your power easily to detect the imposition by weighing 

 after them ; and I offer, for one, to take any trouble or expense 

 upon myself ,in bringing such base offenders to the most public 

 justice, and examplary punishment ; and protecting the poor from 

 any injury they may apprehend from the hucksters, to whom they 

 may perhaps be indebted. 



" The other complaint which has come to my knowledge is, that 

 no relief is given to the poor by their rich neighbours, unless the former 

 rise in a body to demand it. 



" If this complaint is well founded if the grievances on account 

 of the high prices of provisions have been too great to be supported, 

 and the sufferers have taken proper methods to make their case 

 known, and to solicit relief in a quiet and peaceable manner from 

 the magistrates, or those of their neighbours who were able to give 

 it, and Imve been refused a proper attention to their complaints, I 

 shall readily join with them in blaming the conduct of such magis- 

 trates or neighbours very much, and am willing to take my own 

 share, whatever it may be, of such blame and censure ; as I do not 

 mean in this address to be an advocate either for them or myself in 

 whatever we may have done wrong ; nor is anything further from 

 my intention than to bear hard upon the poor workman, in this 

 or any other instance. But the fact is that I have not heard of 

 such applications to my neighbours ; and having had none made to 



