And there's Vickars writing to me, as if I was a fool, about all the old clap-traps that we used to think were kept for the election dinner; and these chaps, like him, always spoil a good argument when they get hold of it. Now, when a parson has n't tact enough to write his sermons, he buys a volume of Tillotson or Blair, or any other, and reads one out as well as he can; but your member--God bless the mark!--must invent his own nonsense. How much better if he 'd give you Peel, or Russell, or Ben Disraeli in the original! There are skeleton sermons for drowsy curates; I wish any one would compose skeleton speeches for the county members. You 'll say that I 'm unreasonably testy about these things; but I 've got a letter this instant from Vickers, expressing his hope that I 'll be satisfied with the view he has taken on the "question of free-labor sugar." Did I ever dispute it, Tom? I drink no tea,--I hate sweet things, and, except a lump, and that a small one, that I take in my tumbler of punch, I never use sugar; and I care no more what 'a the color of the man that raises it than I do for the name of the supercargo that brought it over. Don't put cockroaches in it, and sell it cheap, and I don't care a brass farthing whether it grew in Barbary or Barbadoes! Not, my dear Tom, but it's all gammon, the way they discuss the question; for the two parties are always debating two different issues; one crying out cheap sugar, the other no slavery! and the consequence is, they never meet in argument As to the preference Vickars insists should be given to free-labor sugar, carry out the principle and see what it comes to. I ought to receive eight or ten shillings a barrel more for my wheat than old Joe M'Curdy, because _I_ always gave my laborers eight-pence a day, and _he_ never went higher than sixpence, more often fourpence. Is not that free labor and slavery, just as well exemplified as if every man in the barony was a black?