Such is the case with regard to this cloth-making. The machines are at Upton-Level, Warminster, Bradford, Westbury, and Trowbridge, and here are some of the hands in the Valley of Avon. This Valley raises food and clothing; but, in order to raise them, it must have _labourers_. These are absolutely necessary; for without them this rich and beautiful Valley becomes worth nothing except to wild animals and their pursuers. The labourers are _men_ and _boys_. Women and girls occasionally; but the men and the boys are as necessary as the light of day, or as the air and the water. Now, if beastly Malthus, or any of his nasty disciples, can discover a mode of having men and boys without having women and girls, then, certainly, the machine must be a good thing; but if this Valley must absolutely have the women and the girls, then the machine, by leaving them with nothing to do, is a mischievous thing; and a producer of most dreadful misery. What, with regard to the poor, is the great complaint now? Why, that the _single man_ does not receive the same, or anything like the same, wages as the _married_ man. Aye, it is the wife and girls that are the burden; and to be sure a burden they must be, under a system of taxation like the present, and with no work to do. Therefore, whatever may be saved in labour by the machine is no benefit, but an injury to the mass of the people. For, in fact, all that the women and children earned was so much clear addition to what the family earns now. The greatest part of the clothing in the United States of America is made by the farm women and girls. They do almost the whole of it; and all that they do is done at home. To be sure, they might buy cheap; but they must buy for less than nothing, if it would not answer their purpose to _make_ the things. The survey of this Valley is, I think, the finest answer in the world to the "Emigration Committee" fellows, and to Jerry Curteis (one of the Members for Sussex), who has been giving "evidence" before it. I shall find out, when I can get to see the _report_, what this "Emigration Committee" would be _after_. I remember that, last winter, a young woman complained to one of the Police Justices that the Overseers of some parish were going to transport her orphan brother to Canada, because he became chargeable to their parish! I remember, also, that the Justice said, that the intention of the Overseers was "premature," for that "the Bill had not yet passed"! This was rather an ugly story; and I do think that we shall find that there have been, and are, some pretty propositions before this "Committee." We shall see all about the matter, however, by-and-by; and, when we get the transporting project fairly before us, shall we not then loudly proclaim "the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world"!