Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
The liberal part of the press was so ignorant and so besotted as to vomit
forth its daily denunciations against the avariciousness of millers,
butchers, bakers, and farmers, and to endeavour to inflame the suffering
people, by teaching them that these persons conspired together to keep up
the price of provisions to an unnatural height, solely to put money in
their own pockets. The ministerial press of that day, under the controul
of Pitt, (and he was cunning enough to contrive to bribe almost all the
talent belonging to the press,) chimed in ding dong with their less
cunning opponents; for they knew that it was Pitt's policy to draw the
public attention from the real cause of the distress, from the real cause
of the high price of provisions, which they were well aware was the
enormous increase of the taxes; and by the joint efforts of the Whig and
Tory press, (for there was no other at that time,) they contrived to
_delude_ the poor people, the _lower orders_, to such a degree, that there
was seldom half a year passed away without a considerable number of
persons being consigned to an untimely end, for having been concerned in
wreaking their vengeance upon some miller, farmer, butcher, or baker, or
other dealer in human food. These poor fellows might truly be stiled the
_deluded multitude_; and the _deluders_, the conductors of the public
press, were but too successful in their efforts to continue them in
ignorance. Let any sober-minded, rational, sensible man only look back to
the columns of the public press, in the years 1795, and 96--the Times for
instance; let him take a file of the Times of that day, and for many many
years after that, even up to 1815 and 1816, and compare the language, the
stile, and the tenor of their articles with the language of the present
day in the same papers. How many riots, how many hangings, how many
special commissions we can trace back, all proceeding from the delusions
of the public press! How many persons have lost their lives for
plundering, pulling down, and burning the property of millers, butchers,
and bakers; how much blood has been spilt, every drop of which blood may
be fairly placed at the door of those who urged these poor fellows on, and
instigated them to acts of violence against those classes of persons, by
falsely accusing them of being the cause of the high price of provisions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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