There, Dick, is a leader for you cut and dry; and I think you must admit that it will answer every purpose. In the first place, you won't hear any more of Hawbuck. Men of his class cannot bear to be laughed at, so that his only revenge will be a muttered vow to break your head, if it should ever come knowingly within the sweep of his cudgel. In the second place, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have raised a laugh, which is at all times equivalent to a triumph in argument. The majority of your readers will esteem you a very clever fellow, and henceforward the name of Hawbuck will be the signal for general cachinnation. It is quite true that Hawbuck's statement is in no way refuted, or the cause of his distress investigated--but how can you possibly be expected to occupy your time with his affairs? As a "special commissioner," indeed, you may treat him more minutely. You may pry into his pigsty, investigate his stable, criticise his mode of drainage, disapprove of his rotation of crops, inquire into the wages which he pays, and decidedly object to his turnips. You may hold him up as a lamentable victim of that species of wretched farming which, under the baneful shadow of protection, could do no more than render British agriculture by far the finest and the most productive in the world. You may exhort him to lay out more capital--you need not care about the amount, as he is not likely to ask you for a loan, nor would you be willing to advance it, if he did, on such dubious security; and you may abuse him as an obstinate ass, because he does not plough with a steam-engine. All this you may do with impunity, (provided you never visit the district again;) and you will be hailed by your own party as a genuine national benefactor, and as an oracle of agricultural progress. But don't mix up the two characters--that is, keep statistics for your report, and general assertions for your leading article. Hold hard by the doctrine of "exploded fallacies." It will apply to everything, and every system, which was ever hatched under the influence of the sun. You may adapt the term to physics quite as appropriately as to opinions. If you are inclined to set forward as an exploded fallacy the dogma that climate has any influence upon crops, you are perfectly entitled to do so, on the authority of the Huxtables of the present generation.