224) Domestic Notices : — England. 



teresting : give us one in every hamlet and village throughout the island, 

 and we ask for nothing more. The rest will follow of course. — Cond. 



The Labourer's Friend Society. — This Society has been recently 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 which 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 

 children. The address of this Society is, 51. Threadneedle Street. — Cond. 



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

 blished in Warwickshii-e, chiefly through the exertions of Sir Eardley Wil- 

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

 passed, was one to the effect that the recent disturbances among the agri- 

 cultm-al labourers have arisen chiefly from " the practice of giving inade- 

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

 no garden ground round their cottages, so as to give them employment at 

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

 the Society to be, to encourage the labourer in habits of industry, in the 

 cultivation of his garden, &c., 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 dangerous, to the rich ; and they must be quieted in 

 some way or other. Feeding and clothmg them form, certainly, the best 

 mode to begin with j but the grand object, in our opinion, ought to be, to 

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

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

 theii' position in society j by teaching them that they are as much commo- 

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

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

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

 own hands, it is always in their power, by refraining from early marriages, 

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

 of the power of their employers to underpay them. TUl 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 foundation of improvement among the ignorant. All 

 labourers above 40, who have not been readers from theii' youth, may be 

 considered hopeless ; but all under this age ought to be encouraged to peruse 

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

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

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

 coming generation by the schoolmaster. If the proprietors and the clergy 

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

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

 national measures for educating every individual that shall hencetbrth be 

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

 is founded on the principle 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 thing that calls forth so little of our sympathy 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 j the names which appear connected with them are, as far 

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

 doing good ; and, in particular, we highly respect Sir E. E. Wilmot, whoj 



