12 MR. Oliver's address. 



get by '-truck and dicker," by bargaining and buying of you, 

 who stand between " us and her nobiUty," — we whose lives 

 have not been cast in so pleasant places; we, some of whom 

 drive the quill, all day, thro' Day-Book and Ledger, in the 

 Counting-Room ; we, who instead of speeding the Plough, toil 

 over the Speeder, the Warper and the Loom — in the confine- 

 ment of Factory Life ; we, who instead of sowing the seed of 

 fertile grains beneath the free air of God's open sky, 

 " Sow only stitches, 

 In petticoats and breeches ;" — New Song. 



pent up in narrow and low garrets, where every breath exhal- 

 ed, makes fouler the already pestilent air ; 



" Work, work, work ! 

 From weary chime to chime ; 



Work, work, work ! 

 As prisoners work for crime ! 



Band and gusset and seam, 



Seam and gusset and band, 

 'Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, 



As well as the weary hand !" — Hoods " Song of the Shirt." 



we, who instead of ploughing the rich surface of a grateful 



earth, knowing that our labor is not in vain, and trusting in 



the Lord of all the earth, who hath promised that the harvest 



shall not fail in all enduring time ; we, I say, who plough the 



fields of Ocean with furrows that survive not, " the inconstant 



billows dancing" on their track — where 



" Crowding waves gush with impetuous rage, 



Resistless, overwhelming !" — Phillips' " Splendid Shilling." 



that Ocean, now deceitfully calm, of every rustling v/ind, 



and keeping us in long delay, 



" Day after day — day after day. 



Sticking ; nor breath nor motion, 

 As idle as a painted ship, 



Upon a painted ocean." — Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner." 



and now heaving and surging its mountainous waves before 

 the fury of resistless hurricane, and swallowing us, ship, men, 

 and all, in one huge mouthful, within the fathomless abyss of 

 its insatiate maw, — what know we, the battered mariners of a 

 thousand storms, of the peaceful calm, the unruffled quiet of 

 happy husbandry, with its sure rewards, consequent upon per- 



