Cottage Economy, to Which is Added The Poor Man's FriendCobbett, William
General
Cottage Economy, to Which is Added The Poor Man's Friend
Cobbett, William
Agriculture; Home economics; Poor laws -- Great Britain
2. Nothing can be more common than to read, in the newspapers,
descriptions the most horrible of the sufferings of _the Poor_, in various
parts of England, but particularly in the North. It is related of them,
that they eat horse-flesh, grains, and have been detected in eating out of
pig-troughs. In short, they are represented as being far worse fed and
worse lodged than the greater part of the pigs. These statements of the
_newspapers_ may be false, or, at least, only partially true; but, at a
public meeting of rate-payers, at Manchester, on the 17th of August, Mr.
BAXTER, the Chairman, said, that some of the POOR had been _starved to
death_, and that _tens of thousands were upon the point of starving_; and,
at the same meeting, Mr. POTTER gave a detail, which showed that Mr.
BAXTER'S general description was true. Other accounts, very nearly
official, and, at any rate, being of unquestionable authenticity, concur
so fully with the statements made at the Manchester Meeting, that it is
impossible not to believe, that a great number of thousands of persons are
now on the point of perishing for want of food, and _that many have
actually perished from that cause_; and that this has taken place, and is
taking place, IN ENGLAND.
3. There is, then, no doubt of the existence of the disgraceful and horrid
facts; but that which is as horrid as are the facts themselves, and even
more horrid than those facts, is the cool and _unresentful_ language and
manner in which the facts are usually spoken of. Those who write about the
misery and starvation in Lancashire and Yorkshire, never appear to think
_that any body is to blame_, even when the poor die with hunger. The
Ministers ascribe the calamity to "_over-trading_;" the cotton and cloth
and other master-manufacturers ascribe it to "_a want of paper-money_," or
to the _Corn-Bill_; others ascribe the calamity to the _taxes_. These last
are right; but what have these things to do with the treatment of the
poor? What have these things to do with the horrid facts relative to the
condition and starvation of English people? It is very true, that the
enormous taxes which we pay on account of loans made to carry on the late
unjust wars, on account of a great standing army in time of peace, on
account of pensions, sinecures and grants, and on account of _a Church_,
which, besides, swallows up so large a part of the produce of the land
and the labour; it is very true, that these enormous taxes, co-operating
with the paper-money and its innumerable monopolies; it is very true, that
_these enormous taxes_, thus associated, have produced the ruin in trade,
manufactures and commerce, and have, of course, produced the _low wages_
and the _want of employment_; this is very true; but it is not less true,
that, be wages or employment as they may, the poor are not to perish with
hunger, or with cold, while the rest of the community have food and
raiment more than the latter want for their own sustenance. The LAW OF
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