that of the class to which he belonged, worthy of being recorded, because during my tour I have met it a thousand times in a thousand shapes. It was this, that the distressed operative's condition is greatly aggravated by his believing that he has a right to a better condition, inasmuch as he has taken a part in raising society to the condition which establishes a higher average of comfort than that to which he can attain. It is not to be supposed that the suffering operatives express themselves in these precise words, but a very slight analysis of their complaints will exhibit this sentiment imperfectly conceived, but still very influential in their thoughts.

In a former letter I stated what I now repeat, that in my opinion the actual destitution of the agricultural labourer is greater than that of the manufacturing operative, but I am still more fully persuaded that the sufferings of the latter are infinitely the greater.

Little more need be said to show that destitution is a relative term; but there is one remark on the subject which must not be omitted. It is sometimes said by careless persons," The claims of the poor are much larger and more extravagant than they used to be; they ought to be satisfied with the same amount of relief which was sufficient for their class in the reign of Elizabeth!" Would the persons who use this language be satisfied with the same amount of comforts and luxuries which was sufficient for their

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class in the reign of Elizabeth? Again, I have heard it said that the operatives of Lancashire cannot be distressed so long as their rate of wages is higher than that of agricultural labourers. Why not go farther, and require that they should be content with a handful of rice like the Hindoos, or eat grubs and worms like the savages of Australia? The error of such persons must not be ascribed entirely to obliquity of intellect or hardness of heart: it results from the very common mistake of confounding the positive with the relative. And this mistake is made as frequently by Fustian-jacket as by Broad-cloth: the rich require to be taught that whatever raises the standard of comfort in the class below will raise the standard of enjoyment in the class above; and the poor have to learn that a depreciation of the latter will at once lower the former.

Destitution being relative, misery, which is the moral perception of destitution, must be relative likewise; but it is so in a double sense, since it has to be measured not merely by the amount of existing wants, but by the acuteness with which these wants are felt. It would be very amusing to make a collection of the physiological facts of which many who pass for wise men are ignorant: one of them is, that the poor have hearts as well as stomachs." The philanthropy which would measure its exertions purely by physical wants deserves to be stigmatised as the worst form of inhumanity. True repentance was

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described by the prophet to be "the rending of the hearts and not of the garments:" with the same propriety true benevolence might be termed an opening of the heart-strings as well as the purse-strings. "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?"

Take, as an example, the remarkable man whose conversation I have been recording, and he is not an isolated wonder, but rather a representative of his class, differing from his fellows chiefly in the faculty of being able to think aloud;—would any man say that to him the moral degradation of pauperism, to which indeed he is not as yet exposed, would not be a greater source of misery than the severest sufferings of physical destitution? I find on my notes a sentence which I believe to be his, and a reply to some remark I made on his extraordinary powers and great versatility in conversation: "Every improved faculty of the mind is new strength of muscle to help us forward when times are prosperous, but in such seasons as this each improved faculty is a new raw on which the whip descends more painfully and bitterly."

We remained in conversation until a very late hour, and I parted with some regret from a man who had worked out for himself, and from his own observation, those principles of economic science which seem to be unknown to many who have had the advantage of a university education.

LETTER X.

The Oaks, Turton, near Bolton,- 1842.

As I had to return to Manchester this day, I devoted the morning to a further examination of the social economy of a country mill, and I am confirmed in my conviction that in no place does labour exist under such favourable conditions. The interest of the proprietor in the health, morals, and prosperity of those he employs is obvious and immediate; most are connected with him in the double relation of workmen and of tenants, two divisions of his capital are invested in each family, and any injustice committed in the mill would soon show its effects on the rent of the cottages. These circumstances also compel many country manufacturers to go on working their mills at a disadvantage in seasons of commercial distress; because, if they stopped, they would have to endure a double loss-there would be no return from the capital invested in their factory and machinery ;—the value of their cottage property would be deteriorated and ultimately destroyed. As a necessary consequence, there is a more patriarchal relation between master

and man in the country than can possibly exist in large towns. I repeat what I have already stated, that the geographical limits of non-intercourse established in Manchester are the greatest of the special evils connected with that town.

The isolation of classes in England has gone far to divide us into nations as distinct as the Normans and the Saxons in our wisdom we have improved on the proverb, "One half of the world does not know how the other half lives," changing it into "One half of the world does not care how the other half lives." Ardwick knows less about Ancoats than it does about China, and feels more interested in the condition of New Zealand than of Little Ireland. Now I hold it to be an undeniable truth that a reduction of sympathy is not less severely felt, and is in itself not less injurious to the operative, than a reduction of wages. Away with that material philosophy which looks man as a mere machine, compounded of thews and sinews! He has affections, sympathies, and aspirations, which his superiors have no more right to crush than they have to drive their chariot-wheels over his body, or trample his limbs beneath the hoofs of their horses. Every outward sign of contempt or suspicion which they display is an injury and a wrong it degrades man in his moral being, and such is the mysterious sympathy between mind and matter that it even deteriorates his physical condition.

upon

I love the men of Manchester, but I will not flatter