Star.
London, England, 1830-01-05 00:00:00

Dig otutt
, ...,.- .-, • 1p.4.- At !,/
...-. ‘ ~ ~
i
t "

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.

At a meeting of the owners and occupiers of hind in
the hundreds of My and South Witchford, held at the White Hart
Inn, in Ely, on Thursday, the 3lst of December, 111119, Jonathan
Page, Esq. in the Chair. the following Petition was agreed to, and
ordered to be presented to the House of Commons:—
" To the Hon. the Commons. fite.
" The humble Petition of the undersigned Owners and Occupiers
of Land in the Hundred of Ely, and South Part of the Hun-
dred of Witchford, in the county of Cambridge—
" Showeth,—That agriculture, which is justly considered the
mainspring of our national resources, bas for some years ceased to
yield to those engaged in its pursuits a due return for their capital,
chill. and industry, and that the difficulties under which the culti-
vators of the soil have laboured have of late increased to an alarm-
ing extent.
" That to whatever causes the calamity is to be ascribed, and
however opinions may differ on the subject, your petitioners feel
that its existence is too apparent to admit of controversy, and that
the present posture of affairs, as evincing the depressed condition
of agriculture, and the injurious consequences resulting front it,
is truly appalling, and calls aloud for prompt and ell carious reme-
dies on the part of the Legislature.
" That in no respect has the unprosperous state of agricultural
pursuits more forcibly shown itself than in the inability of the
farmers to find employment for the poor,—a circumstance which
has been mainly instrumental in reducing the labouring classes to
their present wretched and degrading means of subsistence; and
your petitioners, in considering this subject, cannot forbear con-
trasting the present condition of the poor with their state in
times of agricultural prosperity. When the tillage of the
land afforded a fair remuneration to the farmer, the labourers
reaped the due reward of their toll, and with their earnings
maintained their families, and trained them in habits of industry
and sobriety. They then filled their stations in' society, with
credit to themselves, and advantage to the community; and duly
appreciating the benefits of our Cosstitution, they felt they had
an interest in the public weal ; bat now, no longer able
to maintain themselies by the sweat of their brow, they
are driven to the scanty pittance derived from parish funds, and
which is doled out to them. not according to the labour received in
return, bat to the extent of their families. Congregated on roads
and In gravel-pits, their spirits nave become broken and they are
constantly repining at their hard condition. and inciting each other
to vicious courses, while their employers are regarded as task-
masters. and the des of attachment to the land of their birth be-
come gradually torn asunder.
" Your petitioners cannot but regard the present condition of the
peasantry with feelings of intense anxiety for the welfare of the
State; they see in it matter for serious reflection for every well-
wisher of his country; and they implore your Honourable House
to take some means of arresting the further progress of the evil,
and of averting the lamentable consequences that must otherwise
ensue from it. As the most seasonable and effectual mode of re-
lief, they would entreat you to push it to its utmost practicable
limits, consistent with the maintenance of the public safety, eco-
rimy and retrenchment in every department of the State; they
would urge the necessity of a material reduction of all taxes pressing
directly or indirectiron the necessaries of life, and particularly on
the wholesome beverage of the poor; and they would also submit
ro your consideration the propriety of remodelling the poor laws,
with the view of placing them, as far as circumstances will allow,
within the spirit of the Act of Elisabeth; it appearing to your
petitioners that those laws, as now administered, too often operate
as a premium on idleness and dissipation, rather than as an incentive
to industry, and have also a direct tendency to encourage early and
improvident marriages.
" Your petitioners, in calling the attention of your Honourable
House to the state of the public creditor, disclaim any de-
sire unjustly to invade his rights, but they cannot !drain
from observing, that fit the various financial measures introduced
since the war, he appears to have been dealt with solely as a claim-
ant on the public resources of the country, without regard to his
responsibilty for the debt as a member of the community : as a
proof of which they would notice the fact, that the funded property
has increased in value in the same ratio that land has diminished ;
thus, in effect, relieving the fundholder from his due share of the
burdens of the war, and pressing them with increased severity on
the landed interest. They feel it also to be worthy of remark,
that notwithstanding the Government derives a large revenue from
the sale and transfer of landed property, no duties are payable on
similar transactions in the funds, the whole management of which
is conducted free from charge to the landholder.
" Your petitioners humbly request your Honourable: House to
take into your consideration, at an early period of the Session, the
Present state of the aviculturists and the labouring classes, and to
adopt such measures for their relief as to your Honourable House
shall seem meet."

IMPROVEMENT OF TRADE.—The loose way in which
" improvement" is proclaimed, even by papers of eminence, is ex-
em, lified by the following paragraph from the Tieses:—" As a
proof that the trade of the sister kingdom is improving, sixty-seven
vessels arrived at Liverpool on Friday last, and twenty on Satur-
day, as per lists received at Lloyd's." The feet is that these vessels
bare been detained in Ireland by an easterly wind for nearly a fort-
night, and arrived together because each seized the earliest oppor.
tunity presented by a change.
' THE Tr( Aw.—lt may be useful to observe, that per-
sons are more likely to be afflicted with pulmonary complaints, par-
ticularly when a thaw commences, than during a frost, and there-
fore, as many are now suffering from the present change of wea-
ther, they should pay great'atteotion to their state of health, and by
proper regimen and good medical advice, guard against inflamma-
tion and pleurisy, for if they should neglect this advice, they may
probably be afflicted throughout the winter. It should be remem-
bered, that a cold treated in time may be considered half cured, but
if neglected, the consequence may be very serious.
The Northern Whig, a Belfast newspaper, lately pub
fished some severe animadversions on a practice said to be resorted
to on the Marquis of Hertford's estates in the North of Ireland,
for getting rid of the forty-shilling freeholders, now that they can
no longer vote for the nominee of their landlord, which was stated
to be effected by requiring each tenant to pay some years' rent in
advance, for which an abatement in the rent was to be allowed;
but as few forty-shilling freeholders could conform to this regula-
tion, ejection was the eon.eqsena, The Rev. James Scanners
has published a defence of his Lordship, in which be says, the fact
and truth is, that there is no estate on which the rights and in-
terest of the tenant have been more liberally observed, and that
net one instance of hardship on the entire estate, as to fining or
other grounds, can hitherto be shown, which has not been occa-
sioned by the tenant himself.
The general distress that-pervades almost all classes of
the community has extended to the medical profession, particularly
country practitioners, In a degree of which there is no parallel in
former times. The tradesmen, they say, are without business, and
the fumes are subsisting on their little remaining capital. Debts
from either clan are not to be collected, yet the medical praeti•
tioner is called upon almost hourly to attend patients who reside,
in some Instances, eight or ten miles distant, from whom he can
have scarcely any expectation of ever receiving a farthing for the
exercise of his talents, his attendance.. or his medicines. Great
numbers of country practitioners, urged to it by the distress of the
times. have recently embarked for America and the settlement on
the Swan River, in the hope of obtaining some sort of subsistence
for themselves and their familles.--Observer.
We understand that a seizure of several pucka of play-
ing cards, with an imitation ace of spades, bearing the name of
" Ludlow and Co. Patent Knights' Cards,' has been lately made
by the Commissioners of Stamps, at the Rowe of Henry Wheeler,
of Grevffle-street, Harton-garden, London, a licensed card-maker;
and that a prosecution has been commenced against him In the Court
of Exchequer, for the recovery of penalties incurred for having such
cards in his possession. The public may not be aware that by a
recent /kit (the nth Geo. 4, cap. is,) which reduced the duty on a
pack of cards from £s. 6d. to Is. and permitted second-hand cards,
with Stamp ace ace of spades, to be sold, it is provided that if any
playing cards, not stamped as by law required, shall be found, or
shall be used in the house or shop of any person, the same may be
seined and serried away, to any officer of Stamps ; and the person
in.whose hews or shop the same may be found or used, is liable to
spindly elf All for every pack of such cards.
Lord Tenterden will resume the Nisi Prius Sittings,
at GOMA. on Thursday next. The list contains between four
and See kindred causes, among which is the action for libel again.t
" The Times" N , at the suit of Mr. Aiaric Watts, which
=lvpm .4 bet t', , on the application of the defendant's
is esmieqessee of the absence of a material witness for
the The ease is appointed for trial on Wednesday the
I t. Mr. Denman is engaged for the plaintiff, and the
A ney-General for the defendants. The Sittings, at Guildhall,
stiutme.
will be condoned front the 7th Inst. until the commencement of
Hilary Term. There will be no Sittings in Middlesex until Fe-
bruary. In the Middlesex list there are upwards of these hundred
causes entered for trial, among which Is the case of " Faire, the
lion. Mr. Eiglibutone," the Governor of Bombay, which arises
out of the removal of Mr. Fair, the Editor of "The Bombay Ga-
sate," on. account of some alleged improper publications in that
Paper, of certain proceedings which took place in the Supreme
Court of Judicature at Bombay, in July and' Anon, 1414.- Thu
Crown prosecution against "'llse Age" Newspaper (" the King
v. Ann Durham and others") and the fifth Information against
4. The Morning Journal," stand over
.till the Sittings after neat
Ti rm.