‘Now for my question—A sum having been allotted in March, 1793, for the maintenance of a certain number of persons, of the lowest rank of life, in provisions, clothing, bedding, washing, firing, and lighting, how much, if anything, per cent. ought to be the additional allowance made at present in consideration of the intervening rise of prices? The calculation to be grounded not on the prices of a particularly bad year (such as the present), but on the probable average of a future term—say of twelve years. ‘P.S.—Relative to the "Annals"—I have got a titbit for your “Dragon” (the name Dr. Hawksworth used to give his magazine), some facts which to me are as new as they are interesting, relative to the effect of the rise of prices on the wages of the self-maintaining labourers in agriculture, and the mode of provision for the burthensome. The author, a very intelligent and respectable clergyman, Mr. North, Rector of Ashdon in Essex. They are contained in two or three letters:[198] the moral of them appears to lean to two practical results, both of them I believe as alien to your notions as to mine, viz. rating wages and restricting the size of farms. At the same time what they indicate is certainly a disease, the mischief of which, however, would, I am inclined to think, be much exceeded by that of the least mischievous of the above two remedies. But if capable of an answer, they are, at the same time, highly deserving of one; and this not only on account of the facts themselves, but on account of the good sense as well as candour with which they are delivered. ‘J. B.’ _From J. Symonds, Esq., to the Speaker of the House of Commons, &c._ ‘Euston: November 30, 1800.