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  It was dark by the time that we got to a village, called EAST WOODHAY. Sunday evening is the time for courting, in the country. It is not convenient to carry this on before faces, and, at farm-houses and cottages, there are no spare apartments; so that the pairs turn out, and pitch up, to carry on their negotiations, by the side of stile or a gate. The evening was auspicious; it was pretty dark, the weather mild, and Old Michaelmas (when yearly services end) was fast approaching; and, accordingly, I do not recollect ever having before seen so many negotiations going on, within so short a distance. At WEST WOODHAY my horse cast a shoe, and, as the road was abominably flinty, we were compelled to go at a snail’s pace; and I should have gone crazy with impatience, had it not been for these ambassadors and ambassadresses of Cupid, to every pair of whom I said something or other. I began by asking the fellow my road; and, from the tone and manner of his answer, I could tell pretty nearly what prospect he had of success, and knew what to say to draw something from him. I had some famous sport with them, saying to them more than I should have said by day-light, and a great deal less than I should have said, if my horse had been in a condition to carry me away as swiftly as he did from OSMOND RICARDO’S TERRIFIC CROSS! ‘There!’ exclaims Mrs SCRIP, the stockjobber’s young wife, to her old hobbling wittol of a spouse, ‘You see, my love, that this mischievous man could not let even these poor peasants alone.’ ‘Peasants! you dirty-necked devil, and where got you that word?4 You, who, but a few years ago, came, perhaps, up from the country in a wagon; who made the bed you now sleep in; and who got the husband by helping him to get his wife out of the world, as some young party-coloured blade is to get you and the old rogue’s money by a similar process!’

  We got to BURGHCLERE about eight o’clock, after a very disagreeable day; but we found ample compensation in the house, and all within it, that we were now arrived at.

  Burghclere, Sunday, 8th Oct.

  It rained steadily this morning, or else, at the end of these six days of hunting for GEORGE and two for me, we should have set off. The rain gives me time to give an account of Mr BUDD’S crop of TULLIAN WHEAT. It was sown in rows and on ridges, with very wide intervals, ploughed all summer. If he reckon that ground only which the wheat grew upon, he had one hundred and thirty bushels to the acre; and even if he reckoned the whole of the ground, he had 28 bushels all but two gallons to the acre! But, the best wheat he grew this year, was dibbled in between rows of Swedish Turnips, in November, four rows upon a ridge, with an eighteen inch interval between each two rows, and a five feet interval between the outside rows on each ridge. It is the white cone that Mr Budd sows. He had ears with 130 grains in each. This would be the farming for labourers in their little plots. They might grow thirty bushels of wheat to the acre, and have crops of cabbages, in the intervals, at the same time; or, of potatoes, if they liked them better.

  Before my arrival here, Mr BUDD had seen my description of the state of the labourers in Wiltshire, and had, in consequence written to my son James (not knowing where I was) as follows: ‘In order to see how the labourers are now screwed down, look at the following facts: ARTHUR YOUNG, in 1771 (55 years ago) allowed for a man, his wife and three children 13s. 1d. a week, according to present money-prices. By the Berkshire Magistrate’s table, made in 1795, the allowance was, for such family, according to the present money-prices, 11s. 4d. Now it is, according to the same standard, 8s. According to your father’s proposal, the sum would be (supposing there to be no malt tax) 18s. a week; and little enough too.’ Is not that enough to convince any one of the hellishness of this system? Yet Sir GLORY applauds it. Is it not horrible to contemplate millions in this half-starving state; and, is it not the duty of ‘England’s Glory’, who has said that his estate is ‘a retaining fee for defending the rights of the people’; is it not his duty to stay in England and endeavour to restore the people, the millions, to what their fathers were, instead of going abroad; selling off his carriage horses, and going abroad, there to spend some part, at least, of the fruits of English labour? I do not say, that he has no right, generally speaking, to go and spend his money abroad; but, I do say, that having got himself elected for such a city as Westminster, he had no right, at a time like this, to be absent from Parliament. However what cares he! His ‘retaining fee’ indeed! He takes special care to augment that FEE; but, I challenge all his shoe-lickers, all the base worshippers of twenty thousand acres, to show me one single thing that he has ever done, or, within the last twelve years, attempted to do, for his CLIENTS. In short, this is a man that must now be brought to book: he must not be suffered to insult Westminster any longer: he must turn-to or turn out: he is a sore to Westminster; a set-fast on its back; a cholic in its belly; a cramp in its limbs; a gag in its mouth: he is a nuisance, a monstrous nuisance, in Westminster, and he must be abated.

  FROM BURGHCLERE TO LYNDHURST, IN THE NEW FOREST

  Hurstboume Tarrant (commonly called Uphusband), Wednesday, 11th October

  When quarters are good, you are apt to lurk in them; but, really it was so wet, that we could not get away from BURGHCLERE till Monday evening. Being here, there were many reasons for our going to the great fair at Weyhill, which began yesterday, and, indeed, the day before, at APPLESHAW. These two days are allotted for the selling of sheep only, though the horse-fair begins on the 10th. To Appleshaw they bring nothing but those fine curled-homed and long-tailed ewes, which bring the house-lambs and the early Easter-lambs; and these, which, to my taste, are the finest and most beautiful animals of the sheep kind, come exclusively out of Dorsetshire and out of the part of Somersetshire bordering on that county.

  To Weyhill, which is a village of half a dozen houses on a down, just above Appleshaw, they bring from the down-farms in Wiltshire and Hampshire, where they are bred, the South-down sheep: ewes to go away into the pasture and turnip countries to have lambs, wethers to be fatted and killed, and lambs (nine months old) to be kept to be sheep. At both fairs there is supposed to be about two hundred thousand sheep. It was of some consequence to ascertain how the price of these had been affected by ‘late panic’, which ended the ‘respite’ of 1822; or by the ‘plethora of money’ as loan-man BARING, called it. I can assure this political Doctor, that there was no such ‘plethora’ at WEYHILL, yesterday, where, while I viewed the long faces of the farmers, while I saw consciousness of ruin painted on their countenances, I could not help saying to myself, ‘the loan-mongers think they are cunning; but, by —, they will never escape the ultimate consequences of this horrible ruin’! The prices, take them on a fair average, were, at both fairs, JUST ABOUT ONE-HALF WHAT THEY WERE LAST YEAR. So that my friend Mr THWAITES of the Herald, who had a lying Irish reporter at Preston, was rather hasty, about three months ago, when he told his well-informed readers, that, ‘those politicians were deceived, who had supposed that prices of farm produce would fall in consequence of “late panic” and the subsequent measures’! There were Dorsetshire ewes that sold last year, for 50s. a head. We could hear of none this year that exceeded 25S. And only think of 255. for one of these fine, large ewes, nearly fit to kill and having two lambs in her, ready to be brought forth in, on an average, six weeks time! The average is three lambs to two of these ewes. In 1812 these ewes were from 55s. to 72s. each, at this same Appleshaw fair; and in that year I bought South-Down ewes at 45s. each, just such as were, yesterday, sold for 18s. Yet, the sheep and grass and all things are the same in real value. What a false, what a deceptious, what an infamous thing, this paper-money system is! However, it is a pleasure, it is real, it is great delight, it is boundless joy to me, to contemplate this infernal system in its hour of wreck: swag here: crack there: scroop this way: souse that way: and such a rattling and such a squalling: and the parsons and their wives looking so frightened, beginning, apparently, to think that the day of judgment is at hand! I wonder what master parson of SHARNCUT, whose church can contain eight persons, and master parson of DRAYCOT FOLIOT, who is, for want of a church, inducted under a tent, or temporar
y booth; I wonder what they think of South-Down lambs (9 months old) selling for 6 or 7 shillings each! I wonder what the BARINGS and the RICARDOS think of it. I wonder what those master parsons think of it, who are half-pay naval, or military officers, as well as master parsons of the church made by law. I wonder what the GAFFER GOOCHES, with their parsonships and military offices think of it. I wonder what DADDY COKE and SUFFIELD think of it; and when, I wonder, do they mean to get into their holes and barns again to cry aloud against the ‘roguery of reducing the interest of the Debt’; when, I wonder, do these manly, these modest, these fair, these candid, these open, and, above all things, these SENSIBLE, fellows intend to assemble again, and to call all ‘the HOUSE OF QUIDENHAM’ and the ‘HOUSE OF KILMAINHAM’, or Kinsaleham, or whatever it is,1 (for I really have forgotten), to call, I say, all these about them, in the holes and the barns, and then and there again make a formal and solemn protest against COBBETT and against his roguish proposition for reducing the interest of the Debt! Now, I have these fellows on the hip; and brave sport will I have with them before I have done.

  Mr BLOUNT, at whose house (7 miles from Weyhill) I am, went with me to the fair; and we took particular pains to ascertain the prices. We saw, and spoke to, Mr John Herbert, of Stoke (near Uphusband), who was asking 20s., and who did not expect to get it, for South Down ewes, just such as he sold, last year (at this fair), for 36s. Mr JOLLIFF, of Crux-Easton, was asking 16s. for just such ewes as he sold, last year (at this fair), for 32s. Farmer HOLDWAY had sold ‘for less than half’his last year’s price. A farmer that I did not know, told us, that he had sold to a great sheep-dealer of the name of Smallpiece at the latter’s own price! I asked him what that ‘own price’ was; and he said that he was ashamed to say. The horse-fair appeared to have no business at all going on; for, indeed, how were people to purchase horses, who had got only half-price for their sheep?

  The sales of sheep, at this one fair (including Appleshaw), must have amounted, this year, to a hundred and twenty or thirty thousand pounds less than last year! Stick a pin there, master ’PROSPERITY ROBINSON’, and turn back to it again anon! Then came the horses; not equal in amount to the sheep, but of great amount. Then comes the CHEESE, a very great article; and it will have a falling off, if you take quantity into view, in a still greater proportion. The hops being a monstrous crop, their price is nothing to judge by. But, all is fallen. Even corn, though, in many parts, all but the wheat and rye have totally failed, is, taking a quarter of each of the six sorts (wheat, rye, barley, oats, pease, and beans), 11s.9d. cheaper, upon the whole; that is to say, 11s. 9d. upon 258s. And, if the ‘late panic’ had not come, it must and it would have been, and according to the small bulk of the crop, it ought to have been, 150s. dearer, instead of 11s. 9d. cheaper. Yet, it is too dear, and far too dear, for the working people to eat! The masses, the assembled masses, must starve, if the price of bread be not reduced; that is to say, in Scotland and Ireland; for, in England, I hope that the people will ‘demand and insist’ (to use the language of the Bill of Rights) on a just and suitable provision, agreeably to the law; and, if they do not get it, I trust that law and justice will, in due course, be done, and strictly done, upon those who refuse to make such provision. Though, in time, the price of corn will come down without any repeal of the Corn Bill; and though it would have come down now, if we had had a good crop, or an average crop; still the Corn Bill ought now to be repealed, because people must not be starved in waiting for the next crop; and the ‘landowners’ monopoly’ , as the son of ‘John with the bright sword’ calls it, ought to be swept away; and the sooner it is done, the better for the country. I know very well that the landowners must LOSE THEIR ESTATES, if such prices continue, and if the present taxes continue: I know this very well; and, I like it well; for, the landowners may cause the taxes to be taken off if they will. ‘Ah! wicked dog!’ say they, ‘What, then, you would have us lose the half-pay and the pensions and sinecures which our children and other relations, or that we ourselves, are pocketing out of the taxes, which are squeezed, in great part, out of the labourer’s skin and bone!’ Yes, upon my word, I would; but, if you prefer losing your estates, I have no great objection; for it is hard that, ‘in a free country’ , people should not have their choice of the different roads to the poor-house. Here is the RUB: the vote-owners, the seat-owners, the big borough-mongers, have directly and indirectly, so large a share of the loaves and fishes, that the share is, in point of clear income, equal to, and, in some cases, greater than, that from their estates; and, though this is not the case with the small fry of jolterheads, they are so linked in with, and overawed by, the big ones, that they have all the same feeling; and that is, that, to cut off half-pay, pensions, sinecures, commissionerships (such as that of Hobhouse’s father), army, and the rest of the ‘good things’, would be nearly as bad as to take away the estates, which, besides, are, in fact, in many instances, nearly gone (at least from the present holder) already, by the means of mortgage, annuity, rent-charge, settlement, jointure, or something or other. Then there are the parsons, who with their keen noses, have smelled out long enough ago, that, if any serious settlement should take place, they go to a certainty. In short, they know well how the whole nation (the interested excepted) feel towards them. They know well, that were it not for their allies, it would soon be queer times with them.

  Here, then, is the RUB. Here are the reasons why the taxes are not taken off! Some of these jolterheaded beasts were ready to cry, and I know one that did actually ay to a farmer (his tenant) in 1822. The tenant told him, that ‘Mr Cobbett had been right about this matter.’ ‘What!’ exclaimed he, ‘I hope you do not read Cobbett! He will ruin you, and he would ruin us all. He would introduce anarchy, confusion, and destruction of property!’ Oh, no, Jolterhead! There is no destruction of property. Matter, the philosophers say, is indestructible. But, it is all easily transferable, as is well known to the base Jolterheads and the blaspheming Jews. The former of these will, however, soon have the faint sweat upon them again. Their tenants will be ruined first: and, here what a foul robbery these landowners have committed, or at least, enjoyed and pocketed the gain of! They have given their silent assent to the one-pound note abolition Bill. They knew well that this must reduce the price of farm produce one-half, or thereabouts; and yet, they were prepared to take and to insist on, and they do take and insist on, as high rents as if that Bill had never been passed! What dreadful ruin will ensue! How many, many farmers’ families are now just preparing the way for their entrance into the poor-house! How many; certainly many a score farmers did I see at WEYHILL, yesterday, who came there as it were to know their fate; and who are gone home thoroughly convinced, that they shall, AS FARMERS, never see Weyhill fair again! When such a man, his mind impressed with such conviction, returns home and there beholds a family of children, half bred up, and in the notion that they were not to be mere working people, what must be his feelings? Why, if he have been a bawler against Jacobins and Radicals; if he have approved of the Power-of-Imprisonment Bill and of Six-Acts; aye, if he did not rejoice at Castlereagh’s cutting his own throat; if he have been a cruel screwer down of the labourers, reducing them to skeletons; if he have been an officious detector of what are called poachers’, and have assisted in, or approved of, the hard punishments, inflicted on them; then, in either of these cases, I say, that his feelings, though they put the suicidal knife into his own hand, are short of what he deserves! I say this, and this I repeat with all the seriousness and solemnity with which a man can make a declaration; for, had it not been for these base and selfish and unfeeling wretches, the deeds of 1817 and 1819 and 1820 would never have been attempted. These hard and dastardly dogs, armed up to the teeth, were always ready to come forth to destroy, not only to revile, to decry, to belie, to calumniate in all sorts of ways, but, if necessary, absolutely to cut the throats of, those who had no object, and who could have no object, other than that of preventing a continuance in that course of measures, which ha
ve finally produced the ruin, and threaten to produce the absolute destruction, of these base, selfish, hard and dastardly dogs themselves. Pity them! Let them go for pity to those whom they have applauded and abetted.

  The farmers, I mean the renters, will not now, as they did in 1819, stand a good long emptying out. They had, in 1822, lost nearly all. The present stock of the farms is not, in one half of the cases, the property of the farmer. It is borrowed stock; and the sweeping out will be very rapid. The notion, that the Ministers will ‘do something’ is clung on to by all those who are deeply in debt, and all who have leases, or other engagements for time. These believe (because they anxiously wish) that the paper-money, by means of some sort or other, will be put out again; while the Ministers believe (because they anxiously wish) that the thing can go on, that they can continue to pay the interest of the debt, and meet all the rest of. their spendings, without one-pound notes and without bank-restriction. Both parties will be deceived, and in the midst of the strife, that the dissipation of the delusion will infallibly lead to, the whole THING is very likely to go to pieces; and that, too, MIND, tumbling into the hands and placed at the mercy, of a people, the millions of whom have been fed upon less, to four persons, than what goes down the throat of one single common soldier! Please to MIND that, Messieurs the admirers of select vestries! You have not done it, Messieurs STURGES BOURNE and the HAMPSHIRE PARSONS! YOU thought you had! You meaned well; but it was a coup-manqué, a missing of the mark, and that, too, as is frequently the case, by over-shooting it. The attempt will, however, produce its just consequences in the end; and those consequences will be of vast importance.