The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1831-1858, 1832-02-08

ments, and are yet mean enough to recommen
that we should consume British caIicoes, thoug
! b:italn VIII not receive our best superfne fou
IN exchange for the least important of The product
/ OF her labor-nor accept a hogshead of Virgigi
| hams in part pay for a keg of Jews-harps! TIN
party, this q free trade party'-in some of III
States called " THE republican party" Though e,
! cry British agent is member of it, would py
down the working people of the United States
| the condition of those in Great Britain and Ire
land-where l6 hours labor in every "a will &C
secure to mans family sufiiciency of " herring
and potatoes" with little oat meal, to make
thin cruel for establishment being hardly see
once IN week within the miserable tenement
which they inhabit. But this is not all-thes
british semi-paupers have hope of bettcrin
their condition at home. As they themselves wea
out weary life of base servitude and scanty sui
slsionce-so must their children. As they are 10
norant, and rejected from what are called the re
spectacle classes of society-so must their dc
scendants be Ne sutor ultra crepid4n-" let th
cnbbier stick to his last" is stamped upon tn
forehead Of every British laborer-rhough now an
then one OF them rescues himself from his ca.t,
and takes rank among his fellow beings as a MAN
And what is the result of all this About a sew
enth or eighth part Of the whole population ar
ACTUAL paNpers-hard worked and vet not filIer
with the cheapest and coarsest food such ofals a
free laborers dog rejects srtth ,ssorn in America
This is only faint outline of things as they are il
Great Britain and Ireland. 1t is notorious, thai
the working people, in large districts of that corn.
try, are often almost in a state of starvation
though the poor-houses had before relieved fiom
ten to twenty-three Of ecery hundred of the gross
population 1t is difficult for the full fed Amer.
can to apprehend condition so miserable-but If
is often officially made known to us through the
British papers. And withal, this remarkable fact
Is presened-a fact which we desire may be care
fully remembered-the distress is generally more
severe, more agfid in the agricultural than in the
manufacturing counties. Can the farmers of the
rlch lands of Loudoun in Virginia, Frederick, in
Maryland, lancaster, in Pennsylvania. Monroe in
New York, Berkshire, in Massachusetts, &c. &C.
&C. oeleve 1T possible that more than one half of
all their inhabitants could be actually suffering for
want OF suhciency of potatoes, turnips or cab
pages. or other like vegetables-or such meats as
sneep heads and trotters, to keep life a-gcinp
Yet such has been, and is, the case in British and
irish counties, as much blest by nature, and in
much higher state of cultivation than those lust
above named. The laborers in husbandry in Enq-
land, are regarded among the most unhealthy
ciasses and entirely because their means of sub
slstence are inadequate to their wants as OBJ.
served by Mr. Thackrah late and highly esteem
ed British writer health He SAYS" A man
VINO mas himself, his wife and family to support on
twelve or sixteen shillings week cannot be well
led. Hence this body of men are far less robust
IN Inquire, than we should expect from the nature
OF their employ. They are subject to disorders of
the digestive organs, and generally suffer also
greatly from epidemics." The average, fourteen
shililngs week, at the present rate of exchange
is equal to about $40 cents in the United States
and the cost OF provisions ard house-reat almost
twice as much as like American aborers are charg-
ed Tor like things. And thus the mouth Of the
OK that treadeth out The corn is muzzled" Those
VINO plough, and sow and reap the wheat, are not
allowed to consume grain of it. And tohu
are these mings-aye, why is there so much misery
II. the land of our ancestors will tell you my
trends 1t is because the British working people
have suffered their kings md lords and gentry and
priests to manage the affairs of government, and
divide the profits on labor at their own will and
they, poor things intoxicated with politics. and re-
JoIcng in the result of battles in which they had
no interest, except because of the slaughter of
some OF their brothers or children have thrown
up their old and ragged and greasy caps and hug
saed for general, the duke of wellington, to whom
four millions Of dollars Of their money had been
IesenIed-and who, with his legion-famy his
mother and children, uncles and a,tnts brothers
and sisters, 6rothers-in-laD by the half dozen,
cousins by the score, and the sons of ccomodating
women SO far as ne has them, holds an interest
in them, are fattened at the public crib being
" splendid paupers," at a knoDn cost to the people
of about too hundred and sirty thousand dollars a
gear !; and no small part OK this latter enormous
sum Is totally Independent of services rendering
by any of the family and also fastened in perpetu-
ity on British labor These sums together 1.-THE
latter estimated at per cent interest, the highest
value of money in England,) make a capital of
more than ten millions of dollars, bestowed on one
successful general, wrung from the wretched and
hungcred and naked and shoe-less " white slaves"
of Great Britain and Ireland. And what flourish
es of trumpets" have had, when the British
government, out of its great humanity has grant
ed twentieth part of such sum, in any one year,
to relieUe thousands from actual Starvation j! Even
now, we just learn that the king of Englands wife,
Adelaide, twho, by the bye, seems to be very
good sort of a woman,l is greatly lauded in the
British papers, because that she has given up some
small portion ofthe enormous amount of the peo-
pies money, (which she receives only because she
happened to marry William Henry Guelph to
the relief of the hungry population of several
counties in lreland-a less sum perhaps than has
been expended at a single evenings entertainment
in her house-or else, perchance, has been paid
for green peas, peaches, and other like important
articles, provided for one meal. And, while the
public charity is thus excited by piteous tales of
excessive suffering of whole families swept to the
grave for the want of food-the half pay and re-
tired Allowances paid in Britain in 1880, were
follows