"Mr. Chadwick first referred to the operation of the existing law upon _unsettled_ labouring men. 'The lower districts of Reading were severely visited with fever during the last year, which called attention to the sanitary condition of the labouring population. I was requested to visit it. While making inquiries upon the subject, I learned that some of the worst-conditioned places were occupied by agricultural labourers. Many of them, it appeared, walked four, six, seven, and even eight miles, in wet and snow, to and from their places of work, after twelve hours' work on the farm. Why, however, were agricultural labourers in these fever-nests of a town? I was informed, in answer, that they were driven in there by the pulling down of cottages, to avoid parochial settlements and contributions to their maintenance in the event of destitution. Among a group, taken as an example there, in a wretched place consisting of three rooms, ten feet long, lived Stephen Turner, a wife, and three children. He walked to and from his place of work about seven miles daily, expending two hours and a half in walking before he got to his productive work on the farm. His wages are 10_s._ a week, out of which he pays 2_s._ for his wretched tenement. If he were resident on the farm, the two and a half hours of daily labour spent in walking might be expended in productive work; his labour would be worth, according to his own account, and I believe to a farmer's acknowledgment, 2_s._ 6_d._ per week more. For a rent of £5 5_s._, such as he now pays, he would be entitled to a good cottage with a garden; and his wife and children being near, would be available for the farm labour. So far as I could learn there are between one hundred and two hundred agricultural labourers living in the borough of Reading, and the numbers are increasing. The last week brought to my notice a fact illustrative of the present unjust state of things, so far as regards the labourer. A man belonging to Maple-Durham lived in Reading; walked about four miles a day to his work, the same back, frequently getting wet; took fever, and continued ill some time, assisted by the Reading Union in his illness; recovered, and could have returned to his former employment of 10_s._ per week, but found he was incapable of walking the distance; the consequence was, he took work that only enabled him to earn 5_s._ per week; he is now again unable to work. Even in Lincolnshire, where the agriculture is of a high order, and the wages of the labourer consequently not of the lowest, similar displacements have been made, to the prejudice of the farmer as well as the labourer, and, as will be seen, of the owner himself. Near Gainsborough, Lincoln, and Louth, the labourers walk even longer