Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
under which men enjoy such blessings! On such a subject it is impossible
(under Six-Acts) to trust one's pen! However, this I will say; that here
is much more than enough to make me rejoice in the ruin of the farmers;
and I do, with all my heart, thank God for it; _seeing, that it appears
absolutely necessary, that_ the present race of them should be totally
broken up, in Sussex at any rate, _in order to put an end to this
cruelty and insolence towards the labourers, who are by far the greater
number and who are men, and a little better men too, than such employers
as these, who are, in fact, monsters in human shape_!'"
I had not the Register by me, and could not detect the garbling. All the
words that I have put in Italics, this HITCHINS left out in the reading.
What sort of man he must be the public will easily judge.--No sooner had
Hitchins done, than up started Mr. Ingram, a farmer of Rottendean, who
was the second person in the drama (for all had been duly prepared), and
moved that I should be _put out of the room_! Some few of the Webb
Hallites, joined by about six or eight of the dark, dirty-faced,
half-whiskered, tax-eaters from Brighton (which is only eight miles off)
joined in this cry. I rose, that they might see the man that they had to
put out. Fortunately _for themselves_, not one of them attempted to
approach me. They were like the mice that resolved that a bell should be
put round the cat's neck!--However, a considerable hubbub took place.
At last, however, the Chairman, Mr. Kemp, whose conduct was fair and
manly, having given my health, I proceeded to address the company in
substance as stated here below; and, it is curious enough, that even
those who, upon my health being given, had taken their hats and gone out
of the room (and amongst whom Mr. Ellman the younger was one) came back,
formed a crowd, and were just as silent and attentive as the rest of the
company!
[NOTE, written at _Kensington, 13 Jan._--I must here, before I insert
the speech, which has appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, the Brighton
papers, and in most of the London papers, except the base sinking _Old
Times_ and the brimstone-smelling _Tramper_, or _Traveller_, which is, I
well know, a mere tool in the hands of two snap-dragon Whig-Lawyers,
whose greediness and folly I have so often had to expose, and which
paper is maintained by a contrivance which I will amply expose in my
next; I must, before I insert this speech, remark, that Mr. Ellman the
younger has, to a gentleman whom I know to be incapable of falsehood,
disavowed the proceeding of Hitchins; on which I have to observe, that
the disavowal, to have any weight, must be public, or be made to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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