Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
its notes in cash, and yet wheat has risen nearly 40 per cent."
Here is a tissue of falsehoods! But only think of a country being
"_frightened_" by the prospect of a low price of provisions! When such
an idea can possibly find its way even into the shallow brain of a
cracked-skull lawyer; when such an idea can possibly be put into print
at any rate, there must be something totally wrong in the state of the
country. Here is this lawyer telling his readers that I had frightened
the kingdom by saying that wheat would be sold at four shillings a
bushel. Again I say that there must be something wrong, something
greatly out of place, some great disease at work in the community, or
such an idea as this could never have found its way _into print_. Into
the head of a cracked-skull lawyer it might, perhaps, have entered at
any time; but for it to find its way into print there must be something
in the state of society wholly out of joint. As to the rest of this
article, it is a tissue of downright lies. The writer says that the
price of wheat is sixty-five shillings a quarter. The fact is that, on
the second instant, the price was fifty-nine shillings and seven-pence:
and it is now about two shillings less than that. Then again, this
writer must know that I never said that wheat would not rise above four
shillings a bushel; but that, on the contrary, I always expressly said
that the price would be affected by the seasons, and that I thought that
the price would vibrate between three shillings a bushel and seven
shillings a bushel. Then again, Peel's Bill has, in part, been repealed;
if it had not, there could have been no small note in circulation at
this day. So that this lawyer is "_All Lie_." In obedience to the wishes
of a lady, I have been reading about the plans of Mr. Owen; and though I
do not as yet see my way clear as to how we can arrange matters with
regard to the young girls and the young fellows, I am quite clear that
his institution would be most excellent for the disposal of the lawyers.
One of his squares would be at a great distance from all other
habitations; in the midst of _Lord Erskine's estate_ for instance,
mentioned by me in a former ride; and nothing could be so fitting, his
Lordship long having been called _the father of the Bar_; in the midst
of this estate, with no town or village within miles of them, we might
have one of Mr. Owen's squares, and set the bob-tailed brotherhood most
effectually at work. Pray can any one pretend to say that a spade or
shovel would not become the hands of this blunder-headed editor of
_Bell's Messenger_ better than a pen? However, these miserable
falsehoods can cause the delusion to exist but for a very short space of
time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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