Agricultural Statistics. 
585 
intractable attitude of mind that man can wear towards man. Be 
it never so allied with the mere timidity of ignorance, it wears 
for the moment, with complete success, the garb of manly cau- 
tion and superior knowledge. It is impossible to unmask it, 
because, unlike the vice of the hypocrite, it lacks the conscience 
that should help the moulting process from within. Innocent in 
its origin, — at least so far as fear is innocent and ignorance is 
innocent — it is the cruellest form of injustice because it assails 
the innocence of others without compunction, and without the 
after-sense that makes amends. " I '11 willingly give a return of 
my crops," says a farmer, quoted in a speech made at the Tring 
Agricultural Society, " if the grocer is made to return the quan- 
tity of tea and sugar he sells ; the draper of his broad cloth, and 
so of all other trades," &c. Here is a sample (indorsed, too, by 
the speaker !) of the kind of argument referred to. It sounds fair 
to the ear ; let us see how it will bear the simple exposure of 
clear statement. " I '11 willingly give a return of the crops I 
grow, if the grocer is made to return the quantity of tea and sugar 
he sells r 
Passing by the false comparison between the producer and the 
retailer, was the objector, so confidently quoted, aware that every 
pound of tea, every hundredweight of sugar, passing through a 
grocer's hands, has already undergone, in most ca'ses twice, the 
terroi's of statistics ? — first, for export, in India, China, Jamaica, 
or Mauritius, where it was grown and manufactured ; and, 
secondly, on its entrance for duty through our own Custom-house ? 
Does the broad-cloth argument fare better? Is not every tod of 
foreign wool that enters this country counted for duty, and re- 
ported ? and, for that home grown, does it not constitute a part of 
the very problem of which, being unwisely ignorant, we are 
seeking the solution by the very measure against which the 
complainant brought it forth ? Would intelligence have used, 
or quoted with approval, such reasoning as this ? Yet there 
seems to have been no one to answer it ; and no doubt many a 
man went home with a suspicion suggested, or an objection 
confirmed, by an argument which, only subjected to fair state- 
ment, demolishes the very objection it was used to fortify. 
But one is almost thankful in such a case for the candour that 
will put objection into a shape susceptible of reply ; for it is 
mere vexation to follow out the history of this experimental trial 
of one of the most useful measures that ever emanated from Go- 
vernment in the behoof of agriculture, as the tale is drearily told 
in the remaining Reports of the Poor Law Inspectors employed 
for agricultural statistics. But why Poor Law Inspector ? is the 
question that keeps pressing on the mind as one reads, and 
recurring fresh and fresh at every page ? There are few gentle- 
