The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-17 00:00:00

ADDRESS TO THE LABOURERS

OF SUSSEX BY A FELLOW-LABOURER.
(From the Brighton Herald.)
The following address is from the pen of a labour-
ing man, living in a village in this county. His
name and place of abode are affixed to the produc-
tion ; but, although it does him credit, and is evi-
dently the effusion of truth, still we think it best to
suppress them, lest it should expose him to persecu-
tion. The writer, in his letter to us, thus describes
himself :

"I am a labouring man, with a family of five
children. Two of my boys work at wages, 2s. 6d.
each weekly. My own wages is only ss. weekly, in
consequence of my not being so strong as my fellow-
labourers. It is on this account that I wish to do
something better for my family if I can. I have
wrote it in haste, in my wife's absence, because the
authorities of - have told my wife that my pen
will one day be the ruin of me. Alas! my fate
must be bad indeed, if I fare worse than I do
now. Had I time to reflect before I wrote, I
doubt not I should have wrote better and
spelled better. People in towns are little aware
of the petty tyranny existing in villages. The gen-
try take a deal of pains to convince the poor that they
have a soul, but if we should presume to say we
know it, they are at great pains to convince us that
we ought to keep it with as much secresy as the Pro-
testants did their Bibles in the dark ages of Romish
bigotry."

The following is his address :
My Fellow-Labourers,—Dr. Johnson has ob-
served that the poor look up with stupid malignity
at the rich.' But he did not tell us that this bad
feeling arises from the hardships and privations we
undergo, and the little comforts we enjoy, in com-
parison to all other cla;ses. Let us respectfully ask
the three gentlemen whom we maintain in luxury
out of our labour—viz., the landlord, clergyman, and
farmer, not to grind our faces as they hitherto have
done. Let us pray them to stretch forth their hands
to save us from that squalid poverty towards which
we are approaching with gigantic strides. Our con-
dition gets worse every year. The cry of the farmer
now is that we are too numerous : this is a falsehood.
We must first cultivate every acre of waste land, in-
cluding the various parks throughout England, ere
we can say this. Human pride will try to forbid our
cultivating the numerous parks, but, in the eyes of
Him who sent us here to till the land, what has
human pride to do with His laws and the natural
rights of man ? 'We, are Nature's out-door cooks,
and we are the only cooks in this world who are not
allowed to take a sop in the pan.
There are those who think that bread alone is
sufficient to keep a man's strength up who has to la-
bour in the fields. I wish that those who think thus
would accompany me on a cold winter's morn, with
the bitter biting north wind blowing in his face, with
rain, sleet, or snow. Let him work in the fields for
five hours, and afterwards sit under a wet cold hedge
and eat for his dinner a bit of bread day after day.
He would then, like me, and thousands more, in the
words of Burns, " find every sad succeeding night
and joyous morn the same." He would wonder why
he, of all created beings, should be so wretched. How
often have I envied the birds and beasts ! " You,"
said I, " have a table spread in the wilderness ; you
eat and drink from it without anxiety or care." When
I look around on the providence of God, everything
I see is conducted with so much benevolent care to
every living being, that I am quite convinced that
He never sent a human being to pass through a life
of misery.
The new poor-law was a direct robbery of 24 per
cent. from the labourer's wages. The difficulty of
bringing up a family at this time is extreme, more espe-
cially if the two first-born are females. Boys get to
work much sooner than girls.
Surely it is very laudable and kind to send out
missionaries abroad to ameliorate the condition of our
sable brethren ; and it would be also very laudable
to inquire into the condition of our own labourers.
And it is very kind of the gentry to send us religious
tracts—to teach the rustic" moralist to die; and it
would also be very kind if our superiors would teach
As how to bring up a family upon 10s. a week. We
beseech the three gentlemen whom we are keeping
in luxury, when they make laws for the people, to
recollect that we form part of the community—a low
part certainly, yet we are a link in the great chain of
society.
Brethren, our state is worse, much worse, than it
was in our fathers' time ; and I am sorry to say it
will ytarly get worse, unless we are allowed to till all
the waste land in Britain, or emigrate to some of our
colonies—not under the present system, but under a
well organised system of emigration. Leave not your
native land to starve on a foreign shore, as thousands
have done lately. 'We often see accounts of the de-
pravity of man, but can there be an instance of greater
depravity than the following fact ?—ln consequence
of the rapid increase of the population we have not of
late years grown corn enough for our consumption;
we are, therefore, obliged to buy many thousand
quarters of foreign corn to supply and make up the
deficiency, How kind is God to send us a supply
from other countries! And how wickedly depraved
are those who try every means in their power to
starve us by refusing to take the gift a kind God
sends us !

This careless, hard-hearted behaviour to the la-
bouring people, has created in us a disgust and hatred
towards the aristocracy, and I am sorry to hear that
this bad feeling is often displayed by the burning of
corn. This is wicked, and indeed very stupid. The
gentry do not pay us just wages to enable us to bring
up our families, and in order to be revenged on them
we do a very wicked, stupid, and malicious act, which
injures those people who do not injure us, viz., the
people who keep the fire-offices, for every stack and
rick is insured. Let us petition Parliament to take
up our cause.

1 made, some little time since, a calculation. I
took the amount of meat consumed by ten of the fa-
milies of the aristocracy, and I found each of the
members, including servants and all, amounted to
each member per day to one pound and a half, which
is ten pounds and a half to each individual weekly. I
also took the amount of meat consumed by ten fami-
lies of poor people, and it amounted to only half-
an-ounce per day, or nearly half-a-pound per week.
So that we see that the idle eat or waste three times
as much per day as the poor do in one week. Did
they but know the faintness and langour that so often
come over the hard-working labouring man who eats
only bread, the gentry would pity us. I am not
speaking about those labouring people who have
grown-up children and able to work, but those who
have to bring up families with only the man's wages
to live on.
Some little time since I saw this shameful para-
graph in the Agricultural Express :—" If we look
into the beer-shops on a Saturday night we shall see
the cause of the distress among the agricultural
labourers." A more gross falsehood against a suffer-
ing class of the community was never uttered. Per-
haps the man that wrote that insinuation against us
has read Burns's description of a cotter's Saturday
night ? if he has, let him compare it with my wife's
description of the English cotter's Saturday night :
" Well, .Tames, I have just been to market. I wish
you would go yourself, for I really do not know how
to lay the money out. I have paid 7s. for flour, Is.
for coals, 3d. soap, 3d. candles, 3d. yeast, sd. for
butter, 6d. for meat, 2d. for tea. I did mean to save
2d. for you to buy you one pint of beer, because you
have been so poorly for the last three days, but I
could not spare it ; for you know our little babe can-
not eat his sop without a little sugar ; if he has dry
bread to eat for two or three days he is ready to
starve, dear little soul. I have bought one pound of
mutton, with which I will make you some broth to-
night ; it will do your cold good : what you leave
will make a dinner for us to-morrow. I wanted
to buy some flannel for Mary, and some calico
for myself. George wants his shoes mended,
and Richard wants some trousers ; he and all
of us are very thin clad for winter. I was
in hopes this week that I should be able to buy

a basin or two, for we have only one fer us all. Oh,
dear me ! I have spent all the money, and have forgot
to buy some oil for the shoes and boot-laces. Dear
me, my head turns round ; I am bewildered when I
think of our numerous wants. When you was ill, a
month since, and could not work for a week, we
should have perished if the shopkeeper had not kindly
given us credit for a little grocery, and the miller for
a grist. These people expect their money ; they do
not ask me for it, certainly ; but I do hate to look
them in the face, because I owe them so much. I hope
none of my dear children will ever marry, for love
is to the poor the greatest curse. Ah, James, you
may look at me ; even my love to you is a curse.
How hurtful to my feelings is it when in winter you
come home wet through), no good shoes to keep your
feet dry, day after day, in consequence of which you
have got the rheumatism in your feet. How do I wish
at these times I had something to nourish you in lieu of
a bit of bread and a little toast and water, a poor re-
ward for a man who has stood the pelting of the piti-
less storm all day long. God grant that in the next
world we may not be governed by human beings, bAt
by the law of God, which wicked human beings-
fully misconstrue. There we shall no more hear the
voice of our oppressors."
My fellow-labourers, is not this a true picture of
the English labourer's Saturday night to eight out of
ten ? Nay, I have put down nearly word for word
the speech that my anxious wife has often made to me.
Let us send petitions to our good Queen, stating
the truth of our wretchei condition. Do not make
known our griefs by incendiary fires, or sit down
brooding and planning schemes of revenge, as did a
man at Rye_ last year, who invented a new crime,
which, had it not been nipped in the bud, would have
made England one vast watch-house.

My fellow-labourers, my experience of human life
convinces me that the majority of mankind—not-
withstanding their very strict observance of the
forms, rites, and ceremonies of religion—notwith-
standing the repeated admonitions of the still small
voice—are but half civilised, and bear too close a re-
semblance to the finny tribe, which inhabit the deep
and prey upon each other. But there is a glorious
minority of human beings who possess souls. To
those who possess that inestimable gem let us maka
an appeal ; let us try to interest them by our re-
spectful and patient behaviour to intercede for us, and
not let us sink down into a much worse than Egyp-
tian bondage.
I have said that bread alone will not keep a man's
strength up; nor will it. But alas ! how many
thousands of us are there that do not get enough of
that necessary food ! How many times have I my-
self been obliged to make up a dinner on raw turnips,
because I have not had bread enough for myself and
two boys; and how often have I told my poor boys
that my master gave me leave to take them, fearing
to inculcate a bad lesson in them on their first expe-
rience of life.

Why is it that fevers always stop at the poor
man's door ? The answer is as plain as the way to
the parish church—it is our low living that breeds
this miasma. I could say much on the harshness
and severity with which we are treated by guardians
and farmers when we apply for work ; but in this
case I shall at present keep in my mind the motto of
the absent Allan, " I hide my time."
I must now conclude by telling you all, that our
condition will yearly get worse if you do not come
forward and state your grievances. Therefore, if you
love your wives, if you love the children whom God
has committed to your care for purposes best known
to Himself, come forward with respectful petitions,
and pray for adequate and fair wages.—l remain,
your well-wishing friend, * *

IRELAND.

THE NEW DEAN OF LIMERICK.

DUBLIN, DEC. 14.—The Government have bestowed
the vacant deanery of Limerick upon the Rev. William
Iliggin, Vicar-General of the Diocese of Killaloe and
Rector of Roscrea. The new dean is described by a cor-
respondent of the Evening Post as a benevolent clergy-
man, free from sectarian bigotry.
AN OT II ER MURDER.

The Tipperary Vindicator of this day gives the follow-
ing account of another murder :—" It affords us the
deepest pain to record another of those crying murders
which have brought down on our county a notoriety so
unenviable. In this case the parties were nearly related.
An uncle was the victim—two brothers the alleged per-
petrators of the awful deed which has deprived him of
life ! Britt is the name of the persons ; the scene of the
dreadful deed near Inch, Borrisoleigh ; the cause of
quarrel some dispute about land, or the right of passage
through a green lane. For a long time these persons
have been squabbling and litigating, always before the
Borrisoleigh Petty Sessions, where they paid no attention
to the truly excellent remonstrances of Mr. George
Ryan, D.L., and the other magistrates of that district,
who ever advised them to settle their dispute amicably.
On Tuesday, it would appear, they all met in the green
lane, the cause of their contention—a violent altercatior
commenced—blows ensued—and the uncle, overpowered,
fell a sacrifice ! We are shocked at the recurrence of
these tremendous outrages. The clergy are indefati-
gable, as they have ever been, in warning their flocks
againkst them.:,. Why, then, do.they recur ? This is. the
qiiestiort.that should Lte.,,examintd intoi-gnd we, trust/it
may speedily arrest the serious and deliberate attention
of al,lethose, wkt, biawio-,he,ao the •interests of the
country." , • .. •
'WEA -

Since Thursday the weather has become exceedingly
severe. On that night there was a snow storm, the wind
blowing with great violence. On Friday snow and sleet
fell at intervals, and this day the air is very cold and
severe. The accounts from the country state that the
winter has set in with unusual severity.
_ NATIONAL EDUCATION.

The usual half-yearly examination of the masters in
training at the National Board of Education was held
on Tuesday, the 10th inst. Of the Commissioners there
were present the Archbishop of Dublin, the Provost of
Trinity College, the Rev. P. S. henry, J. R. Corballis,
and Alexander Macdonnell, Ebqs. The Archbishop of
Dublin, in addressing the Protestant teachers, said—
The fruits of the national system of education, wherever
it had been fairly tried, have been charity, forbearance,
and goodwill. Those blessed results, so much required
in Ireland, have not sprung, as the opponents of the
system have sometimes alleged, from indifference to re-
ligion. They are the offspring of true religion, properly
understood. The opinions of others, who differ from
them on theological subjects, should be treated with re-
spect. Do not, said his Grace, give up what you believe
to be truth ; support it boldly and honestly, but with
calmness and Christian charity. They might expect to
hear the principles of the Board attacked, and, perhaps,
the management of their own schools misrepresented.
He earnestly exhorted them to reply to these attacks by
acts, not by words.

The Rev. Mr. HENRY, who addressed the Presby-
terian teachers, and Mr. CORBALLIS the Roman Catholic
teachers, repeated similar sentiments of benevolence and