Zephaniah Pringle agreed with Mr Kipperson in the grand principle that there were too many consumers for the corn, and too much corn for the consumers. There was the great evil, he thought, in these two troubles existing at once; were they in existence separately they might soon be got rid of. The consumers might consume an extra quantity, and soon settle matters in that way, or the want of corn might thin the consumers, and soon settle matters that way. But, while the two evils operated together, they were dreadful calamities. Those of our readers who are not agriculturists, or political economists, cannot understand this reasoning, or, more properly speaking, they will not; they are blinded by their own interested feelings; they have prejudices which agriculturists have not. But though Zephaniah Pringle agreed with Mr Kipperson, that the people were starving because there was too much corn, and that the corn could not find consumers because there were so many people to eat it, yet he thought that there were more serious evils in the country yet. He thought that those obscure seditious newspapers and vile trumpery publications, which nobody reads and which everybody despises, which are published by a set of needy miscreants, who spare no expense in circulating them all over the kingdom, had corrupted the minds of all the people in this once happy land. He thought that the nation was in a most prosperous condition, and that nothing was wanting to render it more prosperous, than an additional number of bishops, and an increase in the numbers of the yeomanry cavalry. Mr Primrose listened with polite and pleased attention to these dextrous and acute politicians, and he thought that his Majesty need never be at a loss for a prime minister, or for two, if he wanted them, while Zephaniah Pringle and Mr Kipperson should live. But, as Mr Primrose was neither an agriculturist, nor a political economist, he felt himself a little puzzled to reconcile the apparent contradiction which was contained in Mr Kipperson's statement of the agricultural grievances. Mr Kipperson was very properly angry with Mr Primrose for expressing a doubt on the subject; and the scientific agriculturist immediately and satisfactorily explained that all the superfluous population was pennyless, and could not pay for the corn which they would like to consume. Whereupon Mr Primrose understood that in the good old times people were born with money in their pockets. Zephaniah Pringle almost feared that Mr Primrose was a radical, at least he thought he was in the high road to become so, unless he should resist that foolish propensity of wishing to understand what he talked about.