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  After steering for some time, we came down to a very fine farm-house, which we stopped a little to admire; and I asked Richard whether that was not a place to be happy in. The village, which we found to be STOKE-CHARITY, was about a mile lower down this little vale. Before we got to it, we overtook the owner of the farm, who knew me, though I did not know him; but, when I found it was Mr HINTON BAILEY, of whom and whose farm I had heard so much, I was not at all surprised at the fineness of what I had just seen. I told him that the word charity, making, as it did, part of the name of this place, had nearly inspired me with boldness enough to go to the farm house, in the ancient style, and ask for something to eat; for, that we had not yet breakfasted. He asked us to go back; but, at BURGHCLERE we were resolved to dine. After, however, crossing the village, and beginning again to ascend the downs, we came to a labourer’s (once a farm house), where I asked the man, whether he had any bread and cheese, and was not a little pleased to hear him say ‘Yes’. Then I asked him to give us a bit, protesting that we had not yet broken our fast. He answered in the affirmative, at once, though I did not talk of payment. His wife brought out the cut loaf, and a piece of Wiltshire cheese, and I took them in hand, gave Richard a good hunch, and took another for myself. I verily believe, that all the pleasure of eating enjoyed by all the feeders in London in a whole year, does not equal that which we enjoyed in gnawing this bread and cheese, as we rode over this cold down, whip and bridle-reins in one hand, and the hunch in the other. Richard, who was purse bearer, gave the woman, by my direction, about enough to buy two quartern loaves: for she told me, that they had to buy their bread at the mill, not being able to bake themselves for want of fuel; and this, as I said before, is one of the draw-backs in this sort of country. I wish every one of these people had an American fire-place. Here they might, then, even in these bare countries have comfortable warmth. Rubbish of any sort would, by this means, give them warmth. I am now, at six o’clock in the morning, sitting in a room, where one of these fire-places, with very light turf in it, gives as good and steady a warmth as it is possible to feel, and which room has, too, been cured of smoking by this fire-place.

  Before we got this supply of bread and cheese, we, though in ordinary times a couple of singularly jovial companions, and seldom going a hundred yards (except going very fast) without one or the other speaking, began to grow dull, or rather glum. The way seemed long; and, when I had to speak in answer to Richard, the speaking was as brief as might be. Unfortunately, just at this critical period, one of the loops that held the straps of Richard’s little portmanteau broke; and it became necessary (just before we overtook Mr Bailey) for me to fasten the portmanteau on before me, upon my saddle. This, which was not the work of more than five minutes, would, had I had a breakfast, have been nothing at all, and, indeed, matter of laughter. But, now, it was something. It was his ‘fault’ for capering and jerking about ‘so’. I jumped off, saying, ‘Here! I’ll carry it myself And then I began to take off the remaining strap, pulling, with great violence and in great haste. Just at this time, my eyes met his, in which I saw great surprise; and, feeling the just rebuke, feeling heartily ashamed of myself, I instantly changed my tone and manner, cast the blame upon the saddler, and talked of the effectual means which we would take to prevent the like in future.

  Now, if such was the effect produced upon me by the want of food for only two or three hours; me, who had dined well the day before and eaten toast and butter the over-night; if the missing of only one breakfast, and that, too, from my own whim, while I had money in my pocket, to get one at any public-house, and while I could get one only for asking for at any farm-house; if the not having breakfasted could, and under such circumstances, make me what you may call ‘cross’ to a child like this, whom I must necessarily love so much, and to whom I never speak but in the very kindest manner; if this mere absence of a breakfast could thus put me out of temper, how great are the allowances that we ought to make for the poor creatures, who, in this once happy and now miserable country, are doomed to lead a life of constant labour and of half-starvation. I suppose, that, as we rode away from the cottage, we gnawed up, between us, a pound of bread and a quarter of a pound of cheese. Here was about five-pence worth at present prices. Even this, which was only a mere snap, a mere stay-stomach, for us, would, for us two, come to 3s. a week all but a penny. How, then, gracious God ! is a labouring man, his wife, and, perhaps, four or five small children, to exist upon 8s. or 9s. a week! Aye, and to find house-rent, clothing, bedding and fuel out of it? Richard and I ate here, at this snap, more, and much more, than the average of labourers, their wives and children, have to eat in a whole day, and that the labourer has to work on too!

  When we got here to Burghclere, we were again as hungry as hunters. What, then, must be the life of these poor creatures? But is not the state of the country, is not the hellishness of the system, all depicted in this one disgraceful and damning fact, that the magistrates, who settle on what the labouring poor ought to have to live on, ALLOW THEM LESS THAN IS ALLOWED TO FELONS IN THE GAOLS, and allow them nothing for clothing and fuel, and house-rent! And yet, while this is notoriously the case, while the main body of the working class in England are fed and clad and even lodged worse than felons, and are daily becoming even worse and worse off, the King is advised to tell the Parliament, and the world, that we are in a state of unexampled prosperity, and that this prosperity must be permanent, because all the GREAT interests are prospering! The working people are not, then, ‘a great interest’! They will be found to be one, by-and-by. What is to be the end of this? What can be the end of it, but dreadful convulsion? What other can be produced by a system, which allows the felon better food, better clothing, and better lodging than the honest labourer?

  I see that there has been a grand humanity-meeting in Norfolk, to assure the parliament, that these humanity-people will back it in any measures that it may adopt for freeing the negroes. Mr BUXTON figured here, also Lord Suffield, who appear to have been the two principal actors, or showers-off. This same Mr BUXTON opposed the bill intended to relieve the poor in England by breaking a little into the brewers’ monopoly; and, as to Lord Suffield, if he really wish to free slaves, let him go to Wykham in this county, where he will see some drawing, like horses, gravel to repair the roads for the stock-jobbers and dead-weight and the seat-dealers to ride smoothly on. If he go down a little further, he will see CONVICTS at PRECISELY THE SAME WORK, harnessed in JUST THE SAME WAY; but, the convicts he will find hale and ruddy-cheeked, in dresses sufficiently warm, and bawling and singing; while he will find the labourers thin, ragged, shivering, dejected mortals, such as never were seen in any other country upon earth. There is not a negro in the West-Inthes, who has not more to eat in a day, than the average of English labourers have to eat in a week, and of better food too. COLONEL WODEHOUSE and a man of the name of Hoseason, (whence came he?) who opposed this humanity-scheme, talked of the sums necessary to pay the owners of the slaves. They took special care not to tell the humanity-men to look at home for slaves to free. No, no! that would have applied to themselves, as well as to Lord Suffield and humanity BUXTON. If it were worm while to reason with these people, one might ask them, whether they do not mink, that another war is likely to relieve them of all these cares, simply by making the colonies transfer their allegiance, or assert their independence? But, to reason with them is useless. If they can busy themselves with compassion for the negroes, while they uphold the system that makes the labourers of England more wretched, and beyond all measure more wretched, than any negro slaves are, or ever were, or ever can be, they are unworthy of any thing but our contempt.

  But, the ‘education’ canters are the most curious fellows of all. They have seen ‘education’1 as they call it, and crimes, go on increasing together, till the gaols, though of six times their former dimensions, will hardly suffice; and yet, the canting creatures still cry, that crimes arise from want of what they call ‘education!’ They see the FELON better
fed and better clad than the HONEST LABOURER. They see this; and yet they continually cry, that the crimes arise from a want of ‘education’! What can be the cause of this perverseness? It is not perverseness: it is roguery, corruption, and tyranny. The tyrant, the unfeeling tyrant, squeezes the labourers for gain’s sake; and the corrupt politician and literary or tub rogue, find an excuse for him by pretending, that it is not want of food and clothing, but want of education, that makes the poor, starving wretches thieves and robbers. If the press, if only the press, were to do its duty, or but a tenth part of its duty, this hellish system could not go on. But, it favours the system by ascribing the misery to wrong causes. The causes are these: the tax-gatherer presses the landlord; the landlord the farmer; and the farmer the labourer. Here it falls at last; and this class is made so miserable, that a felon’s life is better than that of a labourer. Does there want any other cause to produce crimes? But, on these causes, so clear to the eye of reason, so plain from experience, the press scarcely ever says a single word; while it keeps bothering our brains about education and morality; and about ignorance and immorality leading to felonies. To be sure immorality leads to felonies. Who does not know that? But, who is to expect morality in a half-starved man, who is whipped if he do not work, though he has not, for his whole day’s food, so much as I and my little boy snapped up in six or seven minutes upon Stoke-Charity down? Aye! but, if the press were to ascribe the increase of crimes to the true causes, it must go further back. It must go to the cause of the taxes. It must go to the debt, the dead-weight, the thundering standing army, the enormous sinecures, pensions, and grants; and this would suit but a very small part of a press, which lives and thrives principally by one or the other of these.

  As with the press, so is it with Mr BROUGHAM, and all such politicians. They stop short, or, rather, they begin in the middle. They attempt to prevent the evils of the deadly ivy by cropping off, or, rather, bruising a little, a few of its leaves. They do not assail even its branches, while they appear to look upon the trunk as something too sacred even to be looked at with vulgar eyes. Is not the injury recently done to about forty thousand poor families in and near Plymouth, by the Small-note Bill,2 a thing that Mr Brougham ought to think about before he thinks any thing more about educating those poor families? Yet, will he, when he again meets the Ministers, say a word about this monstrous evil? I am afraid that no Member will say a word about it; but, I am rather more than afraid, that he will not. And, why? Because, if he reproach the Ministers with this crying cruelty, they will ask him first, how this is to be prevented without a repeal of the Small-note Bill (by which Peel’s Bill was partly repealed); then they will ask him, how the prices are to be kept up without the small-notes; then they will say, ‘Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see wheat at four shillings a bushel again?’

  B. No, (looking at Mr WESTERN and DADDY COKE) no, no, no! Upon my honour, no!

  MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see Cobbett again at county meetings, and to see petitions again coming from those meetings, calling for a reduction of the interest of the…?

  B. No, no, no! upon my soul, no!

  MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see that equitable adjustment, which Cobbett has a thousand times declared can never take place without an application, to new purposes, of that great mass of public property, commonly called Church property?

  B. (Almost bursting with rage) How dare the honourable gentlemen to suppose me capable of such a thought?

  MIN. We Suppose nothing. We only ask the question; and we ask it, because to put an end to the small-notes would inevitably produce all these things; and, it is impossible to have small-notes to the extent necessary to keep up prices, without having, now-and-then, breaking banks. Banks cannot break without producing misery; you must have the consequence, if you will have the cause. The honourable and learned Gentleman wants the feast without the reckoning. In short, is the honourable and learned Gentleman for putting an end to public credit’?

  B. No, no, no, no!

  MIN. Then would it not be better for the honourable and learned Gentleman to hold his tongue?

  All men of sense and sincerity will, at once, answer this last question in the affirmative. They will all say, that this is not opposition to the Ministers. The Ministers do not wish to see 40,000 families, nor any families at all (who give them no real annoyance), reduced to misery; they do not wish to cripple their own tax-payers; very far from it. If they could carry on the debt and dead-weight and place and pension and barrack system, without reducing any quiet people to misery, they would like it exceedingly. But, they do wish to carry on that systems and he does not oppose them who does not endeavour to put an end to the system. This is done by nobody in Parliament; and, therefore, there is, in fact, no opposition; and this is felt by the whole nation; and this is the reason why the people now take so little interest in what is said and done in Parliament, compared to that which they formerly took. This is the reason why there is no man, or men, whom the people seem to care at all about. A great portion of the people now clearly understand the nature and effects of the system; they are not now to be deceived by speeches and professions. If PITT and Fox had now to start, there would be no ‘PITTITES’ and ‘FOXITES’. Those happy days of political humbug are gone for ever. The ‘gentlemen opposite’ are opposite only as to mere local position. They sit on the opposite side of the house: that’s all. In every other respect they are like parson and clerk; or, perhaps, rather more like the rooks and jack-daws: one caw and the other chatter; but both have the same object in view: both are in pursuit of the same sort of thet. One set is, to be sure, IN place, and the other OUT; but, though the rooks keep the jack-daws on the inferior branches, these latter would be as clamorous as the rooks themselves against FELLING THE TREE; and just as clamorous would the ‘gentlemen opposite’ be against any one who should propose to put down the system itself. And yet, unless you do that, things must go on in the present way, and FELONS must be BETTER FED than HONEST LABOURERS; and starvation and thieving and robbing and gaol-building and transporting and hanging and penal laws must go on increasing, as they have gone on from the day of the establishment of the debt to the present hour. Apropos of penal laws. Doctor Black (of the Morning Chronicle) is now filling whole columns with very just remarks on the new and terrible law, which makes the taking of an apple FELONY; but, he says not a word about the silence of SIR JAMMY3 (the humane code-softener) upon this subject! The ‘humanity and liberality’ of the Parliament have relieved men addicted to fraud and to unnatural crimes from the disgrace of the pillory, and they have, since CASTLEREAGH cut his own throat, relieved self-slayers from the disgrace of the cross-road burial; but the same Parliament, amidst all the workings of this rare humanity and liberality, have made it felony to take an apple off a tree, which last year was a trivial trespass, and was formerly no offence at all! However, even this is necessary, as long as this bank note system continue in its present way; and all complaints about severity of laws, levelled at the poor, are useless and foolish; and these complaints are even base in those who do their best to uphold a system, which has brought the honest labourer to be fed worse than the felon. What, short of such laws, can prevent starving men from coming to take away the dinners of those who have plenty? ‘Education’! Despicable cant and nonsense! What education, what moral precepts, can quiet the gnawings and ragings of hunger?

  Looking, now, back again, for a minute, to the little village of Stoke-Charity, the name of which seems to indicate, that its rents formerly belonged wholly to the poor and indigent part of the community. It is near to Winchester, that grand scene of ancient learning, piety and munificence. Be this as it may, the parish formerly contained ten farms, and it now contains but two, which are owned by Mr Hinton Bailey and his nephew, and, therefore, which may probably become one. There used to be ten well-fed families in this parish, at any rate: these, taking five to a family, made fifty well-fed people
. And, now, all are half-starved, except the curate and the two families. The blame is not the landowner’s; it is nobody’s; it is due to the infernal funding and taxing system, which of necessity drives property into large masses in order to save itself; which crushes little proprietors down into labourers; and which presses them down in that state, there takes their wages from them and makes them paupers, their share of food and raiment being taken away to support debt and dead-weight and army and all the rest of the enormous expenses, which are required to sustain this intolerable system. Those, therefore, are fools or hypocrites, who affect to wish to better the lot of the poor labourers and manufacturers, while they, at the same time, either actively or passively, uphold the system which is the manifest cause of it. Here is a system, which, clearly as the nose upon your face, you see taking away the little gentleman’s estate, the little farmer’s farm, the poor labourer’s meat-dinner and Sunday-coat; and, while you see this so plainly, you, fool or hypocrite, as you are, cry out for supporting the system that causes it all! Go on, base wretch; but, remember, that of such a progress dreadful must be the end. The day will come, when millions of long-suffering creatures will be in a state that they and you now little dream of. All that we now Sehold of combinations, and the like, are mere indications of what the greai body of the suffering people feel, and of the thoughts that are passing in their minds. The coaxing work of schools and tracts will only add to what would be quite enough without them. There is not a labourer in the whole country, who does not see to the bottom of this coaxing work. They are not deceived m this respect. Hunger has opened their eyes. I’ll engage that there is not, even in this obscure village of Stoke-Charity, one single creature, however forlorn, who does not understand all about the real motives of the school and the tract and the Bible affair4 as well as Butterworth, or Rivington, or as Joshua Watson himself.