He then opens an attack upon the Eng lish statutes of conspiracy and champer ty: — "They were the lineal descendants, the lawful and immediate issue, of pestilence and public calamity, and they do not hide their origin; for by them and their consequences the most useful class in England is rendered the most miser able, and grows poor as its oppressors grow rich. Throughout the habitable world, luxury, vanity, and even fancy is satiated by the production of their industry; but like the worm that spins its bowels, and perishes in the act, so they whose hands impart to the tissue its luster and its hue, to flatter the voluptuous and the gay, pine themselves, and decay in obscurity and want. ... In a nation expending thirteen millions sterling yearly upon the instruments for the destruction of men, one million out of nine are beggars, receiving alms!!! And are these the benefits the prosecution are now, for the first time, about to visit upon our happy community? . . . If we begin to adopt these stupid acts of oppres sion, we shall find it difficult to stop. There are others of the same family, so connected in kind, that they hang together like tape- worms — you cannot take one but you must pull all with you." He then dilates upon the ancient trade and sumptuary laws, and of one he observes : "It is unfortunately in that fearful jargon called law French, which modern men cannot pronounce, for fear of dislocating their jaws. I would as soon crack so many butternuts as pronounce so many words of it." He goes on to speak of — "The hardship, for instance, of making justices, who never labored, the judges of the poor man's labor, its intensity, and its remuneration, is not equitable. They are not, in that respect, treated as free agents; they are not judged by their peers. The qualifications of those English justices are no qualifications for arbitration of such kind. They may be ' most sufficient knights and esquires, with freehold, copyhold, or customary estate '; they may be ' of the place, and of the quorum.' They may be loyal men to church and state; but such will be too apt to scorn a leather apron. It is not with their back to the fire, and their belly to the table, that they can perceive the poor man's
wants. When they have eaten their capon, and swallowed their sack, with their reins well warmed, and then turn round to take their nap, with their backs to the table and their belly to the fire, they are not the better qualified to judge the poor man's case. Sir Guttle may calculate that, if the lean rascals were to feed well, they might wax as fat as gentlemen. And justice Drowsy might conclude that as there was but a time for all things, if the handicrafts got more time to sleep, there would not be enough left for gentle folks. If justice Testy has the gout, and his shoe should pinch, it would be reason for putting all the ragamuffins in the stocks." Then succeeds a passage of great power and eloquence. "Shall we, then, second the intention of the oppressors? Shall we, by such prosecutions, drive from our hospitable shores those who increase our stock of industry, population, and revenue? Shall we, too, hunt the wanderers like frightened birds, that find no twig unlimed, no bough to light upon? Shall we, without law or precedent, and in the teeth of non-usage, as old as the annals of our country, rake up the embers of the English com mon law, to find a pretext for doing what never was done before, and never should be done? "If we do this, we must do more. We must also make statutes of labourers; for these persecutions will thin the artisans here as the great plague did formerly in Britain. Like birds of passage, no longer warmed by a genial sun, the instinct of their nature will warn them to depart. Unless restrained by bolts or penalties, they will flock to gether, even on the house tops, and take their flight, no man knows where; not like the summer swallows, for a season and to return again; but like the vital breath, which, when it quits its earthly residence, leaves it for ever to decay and moulder, and returns no more. "The avarice of the Patricians drove the people of Rome to the Mons Sacer. Who is the people hating Appius Claudius that would do so here? And if it be done, which of these sleek and pampered masters will it be, Mr. Gorwin, or Mr. Minard, that will take upon him the office of Agrippa, to cajole them with a parable, how he is all belly, and they all members; how his vocation is to eat and repose, theirs to work and starve. "Let not these allusions be thought foreign to
