THE FLEET PAPERS. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN PAVEY, 47, HOLYWELL STREET, STRAND, AND BENJAMIN STEILL, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. FRANCIS THORPE, Knaresborough. His "Junction of the fixed and sliding duty," is received. Before Mr. Oastler is required to give an opinion on either, or on both scales of duty, it should be proved that we cannot grow as much corn as we want. That point being settled, Mr. O. has no objection to travel into the next-namely, the question of Duty. Mr. O. demurs to Mr. Thorpe's mode of settling that question, when he says, "The fact that we have every year to import more or less wheat, shows that we cannot grow enough for our wants." That fact only proves that we DO NOT : now, CANNOT and no not, have two very different significations, as Mr. Thorpe will easily perceive. Mr. Oastler is decidedly of opinion that we CAN grow as much corn as we want, and have plenty to spare. Surely that question should be settled, before the question of Duties is entered upon! JOHN PERCEVAL, Kensington.-His letter to the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., next week. P.D., Farringdon Street.-Mr. Oastler will be most happy, if the insertion of the following melancholy tale, furnished by him, shall result in benefit to the distressed family :— "A CASE OF MISERY, DESERVING THE ATTENTION OF THE BENEVOLent. "THOMAS WITT, aged 30, a journeyman shoemaker, of remarkable steady and industrious habits, has been a patient in the Bethlem Lunatic Asylum twelve months. He has a wife, aged 35, and 7 children, all under 14 years of age. She resides, with six of the children, in a room at No. 3, Cock Court, Snow Hill. The oldest girl is taken, more out of charity than for any use that she can be, by a person who was made acquainted with the distressed condition of the family. "They belong to Lynn, in Norfolk, from which town they receive 4s. a week. The wife receives 28. a week, for waiting upon two single men, who lodge in the same house, and, on an average, she earns about 2s. a week more, by charing. She pays 3s. a week rent, for the room, and has consequently 5s. a week for fire, food, and clothes for herself and six children! Such is her pecuniary situation—but her mental agony may be guessed at, by the following facts. "Her husband was affectionate, sober, and industrious. His work was uncertain; when he had it, he would work late and early, and sometimes, to procure bread, even on Sundays. He was often observed, by his wife, to be weeping at his work. She would ask-Why those tears?' He put her off, by replying-Nothing, my dear; I was only thinking of former days. She did not hear him complain, but he was very much dispirited. One night, when in bed, she was disturbed by a strange noise. He was ruling in his throat. She started, and found, that, with shreds of the sheet, he had endeavoured to strangle himself!-With much difficulty, she disentangled the knots, and he recovered. She questioned, 'Why he did that rash act?'-The dreadful secret was then revealed. I have borne it as long as I can,' said the wretched husband; I have been industrious, sober, steady, and fond of you all-but now, that it is come to one poor meal a day, and that not certain, I can bear it no longer. I resolved to try God's mercy in the next world, I could not bear to see you starve! She gently reproved him, urged him, 'to trust in God, who, after all, might, in mercy, find them bread! Till then, he had never shown any symptoms of insanity. Soon after, however, while in bed, he became suddenly ill. He had taken laudanum! She ran for a doctor (Lynch), who, after using proper means, in fourteen days recovered him. Again, he tried to strangle himself in bed with his handkerchief; and afterwards, when she was returning home from work, she saw him suspended from a crook, by his handkerchief!-all but dead! Her state may be conceived-it cannot be described. Confirmed madness ensued. The poor man does not evince symptoms of recovery; and, destitute as the wife is, her chief dread is, lest she should be removed to her parish—' and then,' as she weeping says, in all probability I shall see him no more!" Insanity caused by want, anxiety, and at times, long stretches of labour, with little nourishment-a wife, of most respectable character, with seven children, as described above -is a case which the humane and benevolent will not require bidding to relieve. 66 "The FLEET PAPERS. We cannot be altogether so very anxious to commence our own new year with due accessions of friends and readers, as to forget that contemporary publications, in which the progress of what we devoutly consider to be sound opinion is equally bound up, have arrived with us at the same stage, and demand our notice, as a compliment of the season. We beg to remind our readers that the New Year has just commenced with Mr. Oastler's Fleet Papers; and we are sure that most of them will guess what we would add. The emphatic diction of this fearless advocate of political truth, gives an impulse of faith to the principles he supports, which, as it is strong, so it must be enduring. Mr. Oastler teaches an absolute faith in Constitutional principles. Swift once said, that positiveness was a good quality in a preacher, as he could infallibly convince others, the more he appeared to be convinced himself. The emphasis of Mr. Oastler exemplifies the kindred quality in a public writer, attended by its corresponding effects. When he has finished the rent roll' which he is now recording, we trust he will next give a similar list of the conversions and convictions which, within his own knowledge, have been effected for the cause of the Constitution by the Fleet Papers. The following brief extract from the latest number will show whereabouts he has got with these inimitable lucubrations." Berwick and Kelso IVarder, Jan. 8th, 1842. "The FLEET PAPERS for DECEMBER. London: Pavey, Holywell Street; and Steill, Paternoster Row.-This part concludes the year, and the volume, of the Little Fleeters. Much good must they have done in their progress, and as making an uncompromising war on the atrocious New Poor Law, the author ought to be honoured and respected by every friend of the poor. Two of the numbers for December are occupied with Sir James Graham's speech on the 28th of September upon the New Poor Law, and in defence of the Commissioners; and they contain much matter worthy of attention. We think, with Mr. Oastler, that a Minister of the Crown should not have defended men who, he admitted, had evaded one of the most essential provisions of an act of parliament:and we confess our feelings with regard to the Commissioners very much assimilate with Mr. Oastler's. * In the number for December 25, there are some appropriate reflections on the day, and the circumstances of the writer; to whom we wish many years of life and health, to enable him to send forth his Fleeters."-Hull Packet, January 21, 1842. "The FLEET PAPERS.-Mr. Oastler, in the current number of his excellent Fleet Papers, has graphically drawn a very popular distinction between the manufacturers and the agitating Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers. He thus points out the error of supposing that they are the same parties:- * "-Sheffield Mercury, Feb. 5th, 1842. 66 My dear Sir, read "who." TO MR. OASTLER, FLEET PRISON. "In Cover of No. 50, Vol. 1, page 2, last line but one on the page, for "also," "In page 3, I had represented poor widows as lamenting their confinement on the Lord's Day to workhouse walls. Some, perhaps, will be ready to cry out, as usual, this is wilful exaggeration. Let them call to mind how the Poor Law Commissioners argued against any such liberty as that of attending public worship (for workhouse worship is not public worship,) in St. George's parish. They alleged, that some had abused that liberty, and therefore, said they, Make a general rule, to debar all. This is not the spirit of sincere reverence to the worship of God. This is not a spirit fit for men who are set up to rule over all the poor of the kingdom, and to rule subject to no controul of an effective kind, save that of the Secretary of State. It is a spirit only such as secret and disguised infidelity could breathe forth-it is a spirit which, once evinced, should for ever disqualify the parties from occupying public offices, and those of the highest responsibility. "But the board of St. George's, Southwark, resisted; and as the late Government stood upon popularity, of course the Commissioners and their theories of religion were overruled in that instance. But it has not always proved so. On April 17, 1837, the Marquess of Bute expressed his regret that the inmates of workhouses were not allowed to go to the parish church.* "On the 1st of June, 1837, this subject gave rise to a debate, when the Bishop of Exeter very nobly maintained the right of the inmates of workhouses to attend their parish church, and adverted to the sneers that had been cast upon the Church of England collectively in regard of her form of worship, by the letter of Mr. Tuffnell, the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, in their second Annual Report, in which that functionary had affirmed, that there was no difference between the workhouse and public parochial worship-as though there, in the workhouse chapel, the rich and the poor met together to join their hearts in one common sympathy, and to own themselves equally dependent upon one and the same Father and Lord. Upon this topic, the Bishop of Exeter spoke at some length, and spoke as became the spiritual father as well of the poor as of the wealthy in his diocese. And certain it is, that we hear less and less of that scornful detractation which was wont once to follow upon the mention of that prelate's name. The world has not seen him shifting about with the wind of expediency, and has begun to be ashamed of speaking against one who has outlived its little minded opposition. "The Bishop of Exeter was, on the occasion alluded to, followed by the Earl of Malmsbury, who also deprecated the punishing of the many for the misconduct of the few, and the prohibiting the privileges of public worship to the poor of our workhouses, on such a ground as that alleged by the Commissioners.+ • Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Vol. XXXVII., p. 1301. ↑ Vol. XXXVIII., p. 1144. "Any unsophisticated person would, on finding such a quiet sneer at the worship of God as that which is copied from the Poor Law Commissioners' own report, (see p. 2, Cover of No. 48, Vol. 1, of your Papers,) conclude at once that it was not upon religious principles that the Poor Law Commissioners proceeded. Will any individual favourable to those gentlemen, and grieving to see their names, as those of public officers, constantly brought before the public as great public grievances will any one individual seriously affirm that Mr. Tuffnell's language is not rather that of the disguised follower of a Gibbon, than of a sincere professor of the religion established by law in this kingdom-a religion which is its greatest glory and defence? Some of the paupers, I was assured, had complained that they had too much divine service-a complaint which seems to me extremely likely to arise, &c., and which ought to render us extremely cautious, lest by giving more of what is already distasteful, we help to turn religion into a mockery.' Such are the Commissioners in whom our Government has placed a mistaken, an abused, and an unhallowed confidence, -men who can publish, without any note of disapprobation, language far more in consonance with open infidelity, than with that religion whose boast it is that it is The riches of poverty, and the strength of man in his hour of trial, and the support of his age, as it is fitted to be the guide of his youth and the safeguard of his riper years.' I, for one, can feel no respect to a system which can show so little respect to God; for this is the truth, and nothing short of it. This manner of dealing with His worship, and of endeavouring to debar the poor from attending it, because, say they, with Pharaoh,This people is asking for one thing, and intending another,'* as it is a part of Pharaoh's arbitrariness, so it is a part of Pharaoh's profanity. So much for the religious principles of the Poor Law Commissioners. They are not the principles of that religion by which the poor are nourished up, amidst all their privations, to that blessed inheritance which awaits that multitude of them of whom an apostle saith, God hath chosen then heirs of his kingdom.'+ "I remain, dear Sir, very truly yours, "A. T. R." LETTER IX. ON COMMERCIAL ECONOMY. "To J. R. MCULLOCH, Esq., "SIR-In my preceding letters, I have adverted to the most important points which exist in the whole range of the science of Political Economy; and I think that I have stated fully and fairly the great matter of controversy which subsists between advocates of the two conHicting principles of trade-namely, the free and the restrictive. I have shown, that with regard to the ancient constitutional practice of England, which is that of a regulating, or restrictive policy. it has been discussed with considerable minuteness by the writer who is looked up to as the chief authority on the side of free trade. I have shown, that in the course of Adam Smith's examination of the restrictive policy, he has admitted, that its operation was highly beneficial in two of the most extensive and important instances which could be adduced. These are, firstly, the general home trade; and, secondly, the colonial trade. I will now show you, that when he came to reason on the effects which the restrictive policy produced upon labour and the wages of labour, that his conclusion was of a similar character to that which he has admitted in the two important instances already adduced. "In the 1st book, and the 10th chapter, of The Wealth of Nations,' the writer dilates on the law of apprenticeship, and on the institution of corporations; and there occur the following passages: Long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary. The arts which are much superior to common trades, such as those of making clocks and watches, contain no such mystery as to require a long course of instruction. The first invention of such beautiful machines, indeed, and even that of some of the instruments employed in making them, must, no doubt, have been the work of deep thought and long time, and may justly be considered as among the happiest efforts of human ingenuity. But when both have been fairly invented, and are well understood, to explain to any young man, in the completest manner, how to apply the instruments, and how to construct the machines, cannot well require more than the lessons of a few weeks-perhaps those of a few days might be sufficient. In the common mechanic trades, those of a few days might certainly be sufficient. The dexterity of hand, indeed, even in common trades, cannot be acquired without much practice and experience. But a young man would practice with much more diligence and attention, if, from the beginning, he wrought as a journeyman; being paid in proportion to the little work which he could execute, aud paying, in his turn, for the materials which he might sometimes spoil through awkwardness or inexperience. His education would generally, in this way, be more effectual, and always less tedious and expensive. The master, indeed, would be a loser. He would lose all the wages of the apprentice, which he now saves for seven years together. In the end, perhaps the apprentice himself would be a loser. In a trade so easily learnt, he would have more competitors; and his wages, when he came to be a complete workman, would be much less than at present. The same increase of competition would reduce the profits of the masters, as well as the wages of the workmen. The trades, the crafts, the mysteries, would all be losers. But the public would be a gainer, the work of all artificers coming, in this way, much cheaper to market.' “It is to prevent this reduction of price, and consequently, of wages and profils, by re • Exodus, 5-8, "They be idle." + St. James, ch. ii, v. 5. straining the free competition which would most ccrtainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation laws, have been established.' The government of towns corporate were altogether in the hands of traders and artificers; and it was the manifest interest of every particular class of them to prevent the market from being overstocked, as they commonly express it, with their own particular species of industry-which is, in reality, to keep it always understocked. Each class was eager to establish regulations proper for this purpose, and, provided it was allowed to do so, was willing to consent that every other class should do the same. In consequence of such regulations, indeed, each class was obliged to buy the goods they had occasion for from every other within the town, somewhat dearer than they otherwise might have done. But in recompence, they were enabled to sell their own just as much dearer; so that, so far, it was as broad as long, as they say; and in the dealings of the different classes within the town with one another, none of them were losers by these regulatious. But in their dealings with the country, they were all great gainers; and in these latter dealings consists the whole trade which supports and enriches every town.' "I think, Sir, you will admit that the evidence I have just adduced from the work of Adam Smith is as strong as it need be in favour of the regulating or restrictive, and consequently against the free principle. With reference to the question of an alteration of the law of apprenticeship, he says, The master himself would be a loser.' And again he says, In the end perhaps the apprentice himself would be a loser. In a trade so easily learnt, he would have more competitors, and his wages, when he came to be a complete workman, would be much less than at present. The same increase of competition would reduce the profits of the masters, as well as the wages of the workmen. The trades, the crafts, the mysteries, would all be losers. But the public would be a gainer, the work of all artificers coming, in this way, much cheaper to market.' "Now, here is a distinct and most important admission, showing that competition would reduce the profits of the masters as well as the wages of the workmen; and that the trades, the crafts, and mysteries would all be losers. But here, as I have shown also in other instances, the writer would not abandon his prejudice in favour of the free principle, for he proceeds to declare, that although the trades, the crafts, and the mysteries would all be losers, yet that the public would be a gainer. It will be evident to every reflecting and generous-minded person, that the trades, the crafts, and the mysteries which are here alluded to. comprise the great bulk of the people, and especially those of the people who are most in need of the assistance of good laws-I mean, the poorest and the weakest. If we were to reckon up completely all who, either directly or remotely, are interested in these trades, crafts, and mysteries.-including, as the writer says, both masters and workmen,the portion of the community which Adam Smith has chosen to denominate the public would be reduced almost to a non-entity. “Again. In another paragraph, the writer reiterates that all-important admission, that free competition would most certainly occasion a reduction of both wages and profits. Now, no sentence can convey a more complete condemnation of the free principle than this, for it embraces the whole subject of the physical well-being of a community-namely, capital or profit on the one hand, and the wages of labour on the other. "I have now placed before you evidence from the work of Adam Smith, showing the value and the truth of the restrictive or regulating principle of trade, as it has affected three most important branches of the national commerce. The first is, the home trade; the second, the colonial trade; the third, the wages of labour. I have only to hope, that on questions touching so vitally the dearest interests of our common country, the evidence which I have thus collected and commented on may, without loss of time, be taken into the most careful, serious, and unprejudiced consideration of yourself and others. THE FLEET FIFT PAPERS May be had of the Publishers, in FIFTY-TWO NUMBERS, AT 2d. EACH, OR THIRTEEN PARTS, AT 9d. EACH. PAVEY, 47, HOLYWELL STREET, STRAND, AND STEILL, 20, PATERNOSTER Row. A few Volumes, bound in cloth, may be had, at 10s. each, by applying to Mr. Oastler, in the Fleet. Mr. PAVEY is supplied with Title-pages, which, on application, will be given to those who wish to bind the volume. Printed by Vincent Torras & Co., 7, Palace Row, New Road, London. THE FLEET PAPERS. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN PAVEY, 47, HOLYWELL STREET, STRAND, AND BENJAMIN STEILL, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW. THESE Papers are principally intended for the perusal of the friends of Christianity and the Constitution; particularly the Clergy and the Aristocracy, and of all persons who are possessed of Property. The object of the writer will be to explain the reason for the present alarming state of English society, and the consequent insecurity of life and property; also to offer some remarks upon the folly and wickedness of attempting to uphold our Institutions, particularly that of Private Property, by the unconstitutional means of Centralization, Commissioning, Espionage, and force; finally, to state his own views on the best mode of restoring Peace, Contentment, Security, and Prosperity, to every rank of the people of England. The author is perfectly aware of the fact, that every Parliamentary leader is now only attempting to legislate for the present moment-putting off the evil day -making laws" from hand to mouth," in the hope that some unforeseen, fortunate event may enable succeeding Statesmen to legislate for permanency. He is also convinced that there is a mode of successfully re-establishing our Institutions upon their original foundation-Christianity;-and that that is the only way to preserve them from the encroachments of political partisans, who are now paving the way to universal Ruin, Anarchy, and Despotism. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. F. R., London. His obliging and interesting communication is received, and shall be inserted shortly. Thanks to him. JONATHAN LUPTON, London, (late of Leeds).-It appears, that Sir Robert Peel is indebted to my old townsman and neighbour, for the principle of his new sliding scale scheme. It is but fair, to put the saddle on the right back. TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART, &c. "Kensington, Jan. 27-8, 1842. "SIR,In a former letter, I made a few observations upon the disrespect which had been shown to the Clergy of the Established Churchy the New Poor Law, in separating them entirely, as ministers, from the management of the paupers of their own parishes-a disrespect which is almost equal to a sentence of degradation, inasmuch as they were not merely slighted and passed over, but deprived of that authority and influence which their office very properly conferred upon them heretofore; and I asked you how you could reconcile that disrespect towards the ministers of religion, with your imagination that the New Poor Law would improve the morals of the rising generation, unless you deny that religion has anything to do with morality, or unless you believe the religion of the state to be founded on error, or unless the ministers of that religion are unworthy of the confidence of the Laity; in which case, the manner of their appointment requires inquiry and reforın. In that letter, I observed also on the consequences that had flowed, as might have been expected, (though not to so glaring an extent as they have been carried.) from this disrespect of the legis lature, in not recognizing the wholesome superintendence of the Clergy in matters of this nature. Consequences which have been exhibited in the disgusting regulations of the Commissioners whereby the paupers are separated upon mere animal distinctions of age and sex, without regard to previous habits, to maral character, or to physical temperament, and herded in beds and rooms together: whereby also, one of the ordinances of the Church has been violated, and the word of Life brought into question and into contempt. I argued, also, that no man could reasonably |