The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-04-17 00:00:00

POLIPICAL ECONOMY-RICARDO LECTURES.

Mr. bl•Culloch was attended on Thursday with u crowded and
respectable an audience as on former occasions.

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

He had formerly stated that labour was the source of wealth, and
that labot.e was made productive by the security of property, the
division cf labour, and the accumulation of capital. The security
of property had been the subject of the last lecture ; he now pro-
ceeded to the division of labour. The division of labour was in
a great measure the result of population and civilized life; yet
among rude nations, subsisting by the chase, its first principles
could be traced. The hunter would give the surplus of his game
in exchange fur bow and arrows, and the man who had neither in-
clitiatiou nor skill for bunting would supply himself with game
by making bows and arrows for the hunter. As society advanced,
the division of labour was gradually made more distinct and
efficient, and the weaver, the tanner, the shoemaker, the tailor,
the smith, the carpenter, each confined himself to his particular
province of labour. The advantages of this division he explained
and illustrated under the three heads pointed out by Ik. Smith :
I. A greater efficacy given to labour by the skiff acquired in con..
'sequence of constant application to the same kind of labour;
2. A saving of time by not making a transition from one son of
' labour to another, and trading with one's work at commencing, and
previously to getting into the right course of operation ; 3. A desire
and facility of inventing machines and modes of producing a greater
quantity and finer quality in the particular department. The Jack
of all trades was proverbially never rich.
To this division of labour a ready exchange, or a large market,
was the great stimulus lust reward. Hence large towns were the
places in which the division of labour was most perfect. lacthe
country the surgeon must act as physician, dentist, oculist, he.
because there was no population to remunerate an individual in
each of those professions. The towns were again indefinitely in-
creased by the resort of all persons of skill, enterprise, and ambl-
don, to the only market for the produce of their labour. To these
must be added all the idle and luxurious, who resorted to the place
where they could obtain every gratification with the greatest faci-
lity. Towns were thus frequented by the laborious, ingenious,
ambitious, gay, and profligate.

CAUSES OF THE MAGNITUDE OF TOWNS.
The first origist of some must be ascribed to the assembling of
men together for the moms of defence and security against
attack and plunder. But In England, the United States, and other
countries, where such a cones must have ceased to operate, Innu-
merable towns were formed. This was accounted for by the en.
couragement afforded in towns to the division of labour. But there
was a check upon the increase of towns by the more extensive con-
' septum and grater expense of corn, coals, and all the necessaries
of his. If corn and coals were to cost 20 per cent. more in plan.
' cheater than in the country, the population of .slanshester would
not have increased as it has done. To counteract this check,
the making of roads and canals afibrded facility to the importation
of foreign and domestic produce. The greater cheapness of water.
carriage was the essential cause of forming and warming great
towns. Rome received the corn of Sicily, Mauritania, and Egypt,
by water. Babylon was connected with the OCCOII by mein, of
canals and rivers. London has become what it is because the
Thames flows by its side. Paris was the largest city ever formed
in en inland situation ; yet, because it had not any communication
with the ocean, it increased very slowly. In 1787, Si, William
Fetus stated the population of Paris at more then 00,000 ; at this
day it was but 700,000. London, at the same period, was be-
tween 600,000 and 700,000; it was now 1,300,000. Thus Paris,
the capital of so great a kingdom, and with so much lower a popu.
Won, had increased so much Ina than London, because it had no
water carriage for the commerce of the world. This subject Mr.
M'Culloch very fully and admirably illustrated, and then apolo-
gised for dwelling so long on its explanation, by saying that he
knew of no book to which he could refer than.
The steem.engine was particularly valuable, because It could be
applied to manufactures where the cheaper power of water could
not be obtained.
CAL'SE OF HIGH PRICES FOR CORN.

Dr. Smith had ascribed the high prices of corn in civilized society
over the prices of manufactured goods to the impassibility of intro-
ducing the same division of labour into agricultural operations.
The same man must plough, harrow, mow, and reap, because
there could not be employment enough throughout the wear for men
in each department. This he considered an error in the great work
of Dr. Smith. The true cause was the necessity in a populous
country of cultivating less fertile and barren grounds. This im-
portant view he would afterwards have occasion to open and illus.
trate more fully.
The benefits of the division of labour were the motives for the
establishment of Castes among the Egyptians and Hindoca, who
were the earliest nations civilised ; but this oppressive restrictioc to
hereditary employments, which thwarted natural inclination and
extinguished ambition, had produced the stationary state and de-
-1 gration of the llindoos. They were now what they had been in the
time of Alexander the Drum Arrian's account of than was
nearly appliaabls at the present day to the inhabitants of H
tan. This subject Air. M'Culloeh treated at considerable length,
and with great perspleuty and eloquence. At the conclusion he
mentioned that the nest Lecture would bean the accumulation of
capital, and that it would be delivered in Willies Rooms, King.
street, St. James's, at half past ten (instead of ten, which would
afterwards Lithe time), in order to allow time for chase who might
come to Bedford-street, to arrive at Willis's early enough for the
Lecture.

Great applause was given by the audience when the Lecture was
finiaiked.

The person ealling himself Charles Saroevl Cave, of
Thoeney Abbey, and whose
the kTh icrurious conduct to the daughter of's
r
la intikeepet at C we meptioned last week. we •
find is well known fti ose of Stamford, where he
4,
niarrirl two former wives, one of elhorri is still living. His tinW
CtnW a woman of King's Chfle,' naiad Nicholls ; by her
haalcrlN two children; and he was a widower with that tamily, set.
tled ass cooper at Wiabech, when he married secondly a creditable
young woman from Thornhaugh, near Stamford, named Charlotte
Witham, whom he basely deserted a few days before she was eon.
fined in ehild.bed, leaving her, and the children by his former wife,
chargeable to the parish of Wishe'. The children were disposed
of among the family of their own moler, and their mother-in.
law returned to her friends at Thornhastich, where she continued
until she obtained a place of service in i respectable family in
London. There she r, at present.—We understand it bas been
Ter Iced by the family of the innkeeper at Carlisle, whose daughter
the profligato fellow has so greatly Injured, to ;:prosecute him for
bigamy, aril the neeeroary measures fur that purpose are now
taking.—As Cave is as illiterate.. he is impudent, it is surprising
that he should have so incessantly carried on his imposture in the
North. Hi. driectimi arose from an application to a professional
gentleman at li'ishiseh, to whom he had the assurance to refer for
the transfer of " 6,0001. funded stock," which he had engaged to
advance on a mortgage near Carlisle ! ! The promptness of the
application, and of the answer to it, probably prevented Cave's
flight to some other part of the kingdom, where he might have re-
acted his nefarious tricks. Ile is held fast in the prison of Carlisle.
Shurtfurd Mercury.
.‘i ATCII OE TWENTY MlLES.—llalton, the Nottinghamshire
pedestrian, warted on Thursday morning early, for oils hundred
sovereigns, to go on foot from the one to the eleven mile stone,
and hack, on the Romford road, twenty 111ii...4 in two hours and ten
minutes. lie had twenty-sis minutes to perform the last four
tithes in, and he won by half a minute. but not without much per-
severance ; he was all abroad at getting home, and was put to
bed. _ . . .. .

TWENTY-roux M cam tw Two flouas.—This match, which
was trotted in harness over Sunbury Common, in more than two
minutes within the given time, by (lilts, of beadertliall-market, on
Saturday last, stands unrivalled ; but it produced a competition for
309 sovereigns, to be decided this day (Saturday) over part of the
ground, from Cambridge to fluntington, Mr. Brand, a dealer,
having undertaken to produce a house to do it, with leather weight
driving. Btuing is 6 and] to lon time.