Before the end of the year there were more riots at Brighton and Worcester, and a Commission sat at Derby, upon thirty-five persons charged with high treason. Three of them, Brandreth, Ludlam, and Turner were found guilty, and afterwards hanged and beheaded. The others, on withdrawing their plea of not guilty, were dealt with mercifully. The Chronicle of this year must not be closed without mention of Robert Owen, a Cotton Spinner at Lanark, who was a Social Reformer of somewhat peculiar views. He had a Plan for the better support and government of the poor, the outlines of which are as follows:--He proposed to make the poor National, and to raise funds by mortgaging the poor's rate to the amount of five or six years of its annual value. The money so raised, in sums as required, he would have applied in purchase of land, in portions of different magnitudes, and erect establishments thereon for the accommodation of from five hundred to fifteen hundred people. Of these buildings he furnished a plan, on a scale for twelve hundred persons--men, women, and children. The buildings were to be surrounded by a regulated quantity of land for _spade_ cultivation--say an acre for each person, including the site of erection--and they were designed for a pauper community, which was to supply everything for itself; and to be superintended on the principle of combining moral culture, and reformation, with industry and frugality. [Illustration: Robert Owen, August 21, 1817.] The occupants were both to farm and manufacture, and, consequently, to employ the faculties of each description of poor. Besides comfortable lodging rooms, the buildings were intended to contain a public kitchen, mess rooms, and all requisite accommodation attached to comfortable cookery and eating; a chapel, infant schools, schools for adults, grounds for exercise and recreation, planted and beautified with trees. The lodgings for the married poor, each to be sufficient to accommodate two children with their father and mother: dormitories for children above three years of age; manufactories and gardens; a complete farming establishment; malting, and brewing-houses, corn-mill, dairy, and, in short, all the constituents for self-support. To the men were assigned the labours of agriculture, and the heaviest part of the manufactures. To the women the care of their children and houses, the cultivation of vegetables, the making of clothes, and an attendance, in rotation, on the kitchen, mess-room, and dormitories. The children were to be trained in the lighter occupations until fit for manly or womanly employment, &c. The expense of such an establishment for twelve hundred people, Owen estimated at £96,000.