Some may say that this is a case which does not apply to us; because we are free men, and cannot be compelled to perish, up to our necks in mud, upon a pittance of horse-beans, doled out by a tyrant. Exactly so. But what has made us free? Knowledge. Knowledge,--which, in raising the moral and intellectual character of every Englishman, has raised up barriers to oppression which no power can ever break down. Knowledge,--which has set ingenious men thinking in every way how to increase the profitable labour of the nation, and therefore to increase the comforts of every man in the nation. The people of England have gone on increasing very rapidly during the last fifty years; and the average length of life has also gone on increasing in the same remarkable manner. Men who have attended to subjects of political economy have always been desirous to procure accurate returns of the average duration of life at particular places, and they could pretty well estimate the condition of the people from these returns. Savages, it is well known, are not long livers; that is, although there may be a few old people, the majority of savages die very young. Why is this? Many of the savage nations that we know have much finer climates than our own; but then, on the other hand, they sustain privations which the poorest man amongst us never feels. Their supply of food is uncertain, they want clothing, they are badly sheltered from the weather, or not sheltered at all, they undergo very severe labour when they are labouring. From all these causes savages die young. Is it not reasonable, therefore, to infer that if in any particular country the average duration of life goes on increasing; that is, if fewer people, in a given number and a given time, die now than formerly, the condition of that people is improved; that they have more of the necessaries and comforts of life, and labour less severely to procure them? Now let us see how the people of England stand in this respect. The average mortality in a year about a century ago was reckoned to be one in thirty, and now it is one in forty-six. This result is, doubtless, produced in some degree by improvement in the science of medicine, and particularly by the use of vaccination. But making every allowance for these benefits, the fact furnishes the most undeniable truth, that the people of England are much better fed, clothed, and lodged than they were a century ago, and that the labour which they perform is far less severe.