among the aristocracy will be ready and eager to join them in contributing towards the worthy object we have named.

"A German's Opinion of Mr. Oastler.

"Whilst the Conservatives limit themselves, more or less exclusively, to the defence and advancement of those interests which lay the nearest to them, overlooking that which regards the welfare of the whole community, there are amongst that party men possessed of a deeper insight into the real state of things. These men, ascribing the fall of the Whigs to their incapacity of enacting measures beneficial to the great mass of the population, desire to establish a Tory administration on the broad basis of appropriate measures enacted for the benefit of the working class, which, living without any object and aim, is advancing in a hopeless manner towards a daily more and more lowering futurity. The condition of that class, which, particularly in the manufacturing districts, is entirely disjointed from the existing institutions of the country, attracts the notice of the Government only when, being deprived of all means of subsistence, it falls into the hands of the Poor Law Commissioners (a case which but too frequently occurs, by its want of organization, and the fluctuations of trade, which necessarily affect the manufacturers), has much contributed to the downfall of the Whigs. Those few provident men perfectly understand the difficulties presented by the task of regulating, in a satisfactory manner, the condition of the working class, but they will not liberate from its performance the leading men of their own party. A characteristic conversation in that respect, about Sir Robert Peel, took place between Richard Oastler and Lord Ashley. My Lord,' said Oastler in the course of that conversation, alluding to the melancholy condition of the working class, and describing their distress in affecting words, after all those victories which the Conservatives have gained at the last elections, and which have equally surprised friends and foes, your party thinks perhaps that it has attained the goal of its wishes, and that it has got an immoveable possession of the administration. You are, nevertheless, standing on the verge of an abyss, which will swallow you, if you do not enact something essentially beneficial for the great mass of the population, which has hitherto been neglected in such a sinful manner. If the Tories now misunderstand their theme (duty)--if they show themselves as incapable as the Whigs to enter into the feelings, wishes. and wants of the people, they will be not only driven from office in a short time, but they will never emerge from that abyss, into which they may be precipitated by their own fault. R. Oastler is generally considered as a Conservative, and still nobody is better acquainted than himself with the real condition of the working class. He has made the object of his life to devote his best energies for the benefit of that class; and neither the persecution of Government, nor the injury to his private interests, could ever induce that man of earnestness and stern principles to swerve from his path. His influence is enormous.

*

*

The performances of that man, who moves the springs of these events from a debtor's prison, whither his opposition to the New Poor Law has brought him, are indeed extraordinary. He sends forth from that prison his weekly publication, the Fleet Papers, in thousands of copies over all the country, and his room is a gathering place of Chartists, Tories, and Liberals, who come to get his advice. His former activity in the manufacturing districts, and his opposition to the New Poor Law, deserve a particular notice, because they are most intimately connected with these great questions which now agitate all England, and have much more importance than the party interests of Whigs and Tories; they shall be, therefore, the subject of a series of articles.-Leipsic Gazette,"

(From The Morning Herald, January 11, 1842.)

"To all who sympathize in the amendment of the law regulating factory labour, and the protection of women and children from the licence of capital, and in a mitigation of the cruelties of the New Poor Law, the present position of Mr. Richard Oastler is one of interest and commiseration. Mr. Oastler, many years ago, became acquainted, by personal observation, with the miseries inflicted on his poorer fellow country women and their helpless offspring in the factories, and in conjunction with the late Mr. M. T. Sadler, he commenced an uncompromising and most disinterested agitation for their legal protection. He devoted years of indefatigable labour, and rare and untiring energy, to the cause he advocated, which he also materially aided by contributions from his private means. When partially successful, a fresh subject of legal oppression, in the New Poor Law, sprung into existence, and against its enormities Mr. Oastler has incessantly directed all his energies and abilities. For the last ten years he has laboured, in season and out of season, to promote the welfare and prosperity of the working classes, not by giving to them worth, less political privileges, but by improving their material condition. During the entire course of his public career, he has been found on the side of the weak and oppressed against the powerful and the strong. For upwards of twelve months Mr. Oastler has been imprisoned for debt in the Fleet Prison, at the suit of his former employer, Mr. Thornhill. Several of his friends and admirers have, we rejoice to observe by an advertisement in this day's Herald, combined to raise a fund to provide for himself and family; and they now appeal to the public for support and assistance to carry out their benevolent design. The claims of Mr. Oastler are set forth in the address clearly and forcibly; they are thus pithily summed up: - Mr. Oastler's constant endeavour has been to maintain the principles upon which the British constitution is founded; uniting the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the entire body of the people in a mutual and just support of each other, that boud of union being the church of Christ.' The names of Lord Feversham and Sir George Sinclair, as two of the trustees of the Oastler Testimonial,' are sufficient guarantees that the charges which have been showered forth against his character are unfounded and calumnious."

(From The Standard, January 13, 1842.)

"TESTIMONIAL TO MR. OASTLER.

"We have very great pleasure in calling the attention of our readers to an address which appears in the advertising portion of our columns this day. The address to which we allude is au appeal to the justice and generosity of the country in the case of a zealous, highly talented, and patriotic servant of the public-we mean Mr. Oastler. Deeply imbued with a love of his country,

and of mankind, this gentleman has devoted his talents and his property to the noble purpose of counteracting soine of the most formidable evils which arise from the abuse of social institutions, Having been called upon to take an active part in the public management of most difficult and momentous questions, chiefly affecting the welfare of the weakest of his countrymen-such, for instance, as the regulation of Factory labour and the Poor Laws-he has pursued an undeviating course of just principle; for whilst, on the one hand, he has enforced, in clear and energetic language, the duties which the strong are bound to observe towards the weak, so, on the other, he has been equally unreserved and resolute in placing before the attention of the poor the duties which they owe to others who are richer than themselves. The great influence which Mr. Oastler has acquired by the public advocacy of important questions, has never been used for his own advantage, either of emolument or ambition, for singleness of purpose has been most conspicuous throughout the whole of his career; and this is a rare feature in the case of those who devote their talents to the cause of the public, and which entitle him to the admiration, gratitude, and support of all good men, who will not fail to discern how much advantage they have derived from such services. "In those excellent essays, the Fleet Papers, which Mr. Oastler has published weekly during the last twelve months, we have seen a full exposition of his ideas and principles. as in these Papers he has dilated on the most interesting questions of public concernment. Within the gloomy confines of a prison his spirit has been even stronger than before in the cause of good government and the welfare of his country; and having become acquainted, by personal observation, as well as by reflection, with the miseries and wants of his poorer fellow countrymen, he has proved himself to be an uncompromising and influential opponent of that school of weak and unprincipled reasoners, who, having already carried destruction and misery into most of the labouring families of the empire, are now attempting to inflict on the country the enormous evils of more free trade, by injuring and destroying agricultural employment. Mr. Oastler has thus given his support to the cause of civil law in contradistinction to civil licentiousnees, which, under the specious title of civil liberty, is sought to be palmed upon the country, for the purpose of reinstating in power a party wholly degraded in public estimation.

"We refer to the address itself for an explanation of those Christian and constitutional prin ciples, of which Mr. Oastler has ever been the consistent and zealous advocate. If any of our readers should feel a doubt as to the propriety of supporting this cause, we can assure them, that this can have its origin only in misrepresentations which have been industriously and designedly circulated; and to dispel all doubt, we need only to direct attention to the example shown by such noblemen and statesmen as those who are leading supporters of this cause.

"For ourselves we hold it to be both a national disgrace and a national misfortune that such a man should be where he is and how he is-in prison and in want. We wish full success to the project."

THE QUEEN'S PRISON BILL,

for consolidating the three Prisons, Fleet, Marshalsea, and the Queen's Bench, into one. The following observations on "The Queen's Prison Bill" are from the pen of one whose opinion should have some weight with the Legislature.

"While reflecting on the measure proposed to be carried into a law, the writer of the following observations could not divest himself of the idea that it is an unjust intrusion on the rights of the subject, which ought to be resisted, foreseeing the length to which an ex post facto law may be carried, inflicting the excess of injustice on an individual, as. by the present laws of debtor and creditor, enabling the plaintiff to seize on the property of the defendant who had been imprisoned twenty-five years under a judgment, which no one conversant with the spirit of the Constitution can hesitate to pronounce an arbitrary proceeding, unprecedented in the annals of our laws. Every infringement on the right of the subject ought to be scrupulously watched and guarded against by all legal means, there being no measure more dangerous than a retrospective law. The measure proposed either is or is not an unjust proceeding; and if a prisoner is to be forcibly removed from the Fleet to the Queen's Prison, with equal justice may not every individual prisoner be sent to a different jail?—for instance, to York, Edinburgh, &c., dispersing them from the Land's End to the Hebrides.

"It appears that the objection here started may be easily avoided, (especially when the importance of the proposed violation of the right of the subject is taken into consideration,) without any material inconvenience, in the following manner, viz.-Pass a law that all future judg ments from the Pleas and Chancery shall be executed by committal to the Queen's Prison, leaving the imprisonments of the Fleet and Marshalsea Prisons to run out, which it is presumed (with a few exceptions) would be accomplished in a few months, with no expense whatever to the Government. Were no fresh committals made to the Fleet and Marshalsea Prisons, they would soon be reduced to one half, by settlements made between debtors and creditors; and the inmates of the Fleet Prison would, in all probability, be reduced to fewer than twenty before Christmas. By application to the plaintiffs, many discharges would be readily granted gratis, or a few pounds would satisfy the parties; some would avail themselves of the assistance of being carried through the Court free of expense; and if, at the expiration of nine months, there should remain twenty prisoners, and the prison should be required for any other purpose, the prisoners (twenty persons) may be removed, as the law at present exists, (and without any violation of the rights of the subject or the spirit of the Constitution,) into a house within the rules of the prison, and continue under the Warden's care, to which they have, from the first, been committed. The prisoners would, in that case, be within “the rules," and subjected to such regulations as may at present be made, with the penalties already in force, Straying beyond the rules" is a misdemeanour.

Would not the trifling expense thereby incurred be infinitely preferable to a legalized breach of faith with the subject? "A.B."

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.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

E. EASTWOOD, Cragg. Mythomroyd, Halifax.-His letter has been handed to the gentleman named. The horrible cruelties, and the abominable knaveries. of the masters of Cragg dale, are no novel topic with Mr. Oastler. Saturday, August 24, 1833, will long be remembered in that neighbourhood: it was then that Mr. Oastler met the tyrants of Cragg-dale face to face-it was then that they slunk from his presence and from daylight and hid themselves in dark recesses, from human gaze! GEORGE HINCHLIFFE may fume and bluster now, when Richard Oastler is far away in prison; if the latter were in Cragg-dale, the former would be mute as a mouse.

"A POOR LABOURER, A CONSTANT READER OF THE FLEETERS," near Taunton, Devon.-The "poor widow above seventy years of age, who has been deprived of the parish pay by the New Poor Law Tyrants, for the purpose of driving her into the Bastile, which she much dreads," has no alternative, as the Statute Law of England now stands!-Formerly, the poor had a RIGHT to relief AND LIBERTY-that RIGHT has been destroyed by the New Poor Law, and the officers. under that infamous Act of Parliament, may bargain for that poor old widow's LIBERTY, OR LEAVE HER TO STARVE! Thus hath this nation denied the God that is above!" Such is the Law in England in the nineteenth century! Petitions to Parliament against such robbery and cruelty, are the only legal weapons with which the Monster can be subdued. "AN ADMIRER AND CONSTANT READER," Bristol.-Mr. Oastler has not seen Blackwood's Magazine for this month.

THE FLEET PAPERS,

BY

RICHARD OASTLER,

Are published every SATURDAY, in NUMBERS, at 2d. each; also in PARTS, containing four weekly numbers, with Ornamental Covers, at 9d. each,

BY

PAVEY, Holywell Street, Strand, and STEILL, Paternoster Row, London.

Back Numbers and Parts are always on sale.

The Fleet Papers may be had of any Bookseller in the United Kingdom. Many complaints are made that the Fleet Papers cannot be obtained in the Provinces. If persons who wish to have them WILL ORDER THEM OF THEIR REGULAR BOOKSELLERS, they will be sure to obtain them.

A few copies of the first volume of the Fleet Papers may be lad, at 10s. each, by applying to Mr. Oastler, in the Fleet Prison.

The following details will be read with astonishment by those who have been habituated to glory in our manufacturing system. They are extracted from the Leeds Intelligencer of April 2, 1842:

"CHAMBERS & CO., OF CARLISLE, versus DEVIL'S DUST.

(From the Cumberland Pacquet.)

"We have often had occasion, in our capacity of a public journalist, to expose the conduct of master manufacturers, and we have never shrunk from the task of laying bare before the world the evil workings of a system which we are satisfied has spread more misery and immorality throughout this land than any other with which it can possibly be placed in competition. Great and manifest as the evils of the factory system are-extensive as they were hitherto known to be-we are constrained to admit, that Mr. Ferrand, during the present session of Parliament, has presented the evil workings of that baneful system in even a more odious light than they had hitherto appeared in the public eye; and as the honourable gentleman has not yet closed his labours, we are not without hope that the result of them will be such an exposure as to compel Parliament (urged to the task by the public voice raised in behalf of suffering humanity) to extend to the unfortunate suferers under this wicked traffic the protecting shield of legislative interference. It is our earnest convietion that wealth was never amassed, nor the pecuniary interests of man promoted by more tyrannical and cruel means than have from time to time been developed in the exposures of the factory system. These introductory remarks have been called forth by an exposure of a most heart-rending nature which took place yesterday week before the Guardians of the Cockermouth Union, and we pace it on record with the conviction that it is not unworthy of being classed among the many instances of heartless and selfish cruelty under this system, which the persevering exertions of Dr. Holland and Mr. Ferrand have lately brought to light.

On the day above nentioned a poor cotton-weaver, named Irwin, applied to the Cockermouth Board of Guardians for relief. The poor miserable looking man stated that he was by trade a weaver, and that he was in great distress. On inquiry being made into the particulars of his case, it was ascertained that Irwin was in the employ of the firm of Messrs. Chambers & Co.. of Carlisle, and that he had work; but such was the nature of the material given out by his employers that he could scarcely work it at all; it was so wretchedly bad that it took the men six weeks to work up a quantity, which, had the material been good, could have been wrought in three weeks.

"As a matter of course, these statements were considered most extrordinary, and an inquiry was immediately instituted into them, and two gentlemen present, conversant with this process of manufacturing, were requested to examine the nature of the material, and to inquire into the truth or falsehood of Irwin's remarkable declarations.

On their return to the Board of Guardians, the two gentlemen brought with them a sample of the material, which they exhibited, and pronounced to be extremely bad. The two gentlemen on their return also stated, that the men really were incapable of working the material, entirely owing to the badness of its quality; and that the overseer whom they had questioned about the matter, admitted all the facts precisely as Irwin had stated them. The two gentlemen thus deputed further stated, that the unfortunate workmen had declared to them that they dared not make a complaint to a Magistrate, lest they should be turned off!!!

"The above statement, as we have recorded it, was publicly made before the Cockermouth Board of Guardians yesterday week; and we have just been given to understand that a representation of the affair is about to be transmitted to a higher quarter. What explanation the firm of Chambers & Co. may think proper to furnish to the charges contained in the above inquiry we know not; but we do know that a public explanation is looked for by those who heard the affair discussed at the Board, and who so far interested themselves in the matter as to make the nature and bearing of the whole transaction fully known to the public.

We by no means accuse Messrs. Chambers & Co. with being any worse than their neighbours in the same line of buisness; but we contend that this conduct towards their workmen (to say nothing of the imposition upon the public by the vending of such a frail and worthless fabric) is in perfect keeping with the general mass of fraud, injustice, oppression, and tyrannical bearing of the factory system-a system by which more wealth has been amassed by the employer, and under which more oppression and injustice has been borne by the emyloyed, than under any other buisness by which the desire of mankind to obtain wealth has ever been promoted. The West India Planter, whose inhumanity became proverbial, no doubt exacted his due in labour; but his negroes were well fed and well clothed. How widely different in this respect are they from the factory slaves, whose condition, in every way, is as far inferior, and much more hopeless, than that of the West India negro, even prior to the date of his emancipation.”

LETTER XIII.

ON THE "POPULATION PRINCIPLE" OF MALTHUS.

"To J. R. M⭑CULLOCH, Esq.,

"SIR-How many, and what conflicting, oppressive, and painful emotions arise in the mind on the bare mention of the Lame of Malthus! What mighty and important interests are involved in the questions on which he dilated! How reluctant the mind is to enter,

in any degree, upon the consideration of these subjects! To penetrate the motives, to define the duties, and to fix limits to the gratification of the dearest affections of the human heart:-to scrutinize the particular laws, as well as the general governing princples, of an omniscient and just God:-o determine, by the power of human judgment alone, the extent, the applicability, and the truth of these laws-such is the labour which Malthus undertook to perform; and the question for us to consider and resolve is, How HAS he performed this great, this awful task?

"Many good men may be of opinion that it would be wise not to enter at all upon an investigation of questions which are so far above the reach of human capacity. But I submit that we are no longer justified in entertaining this opinion, for Malthus having entered these difficult paths of research, and our legislators having adopted the conclusions of his mind for the guidance of our national practice, hence it follows that we are bound in duty to examine carefully, and with all our power, those ways which he has not only opened, but also fearlessly pursued. To refuse to follow those paths of investigation in which he has led the way, and to try his arguments and conclusions by the aid of that light which is given to us, would now be an abandonment of duty, a refusal to exercise that talent which has been entrusted to our care. It is my intention, therfore, to place before you that which I conceive to be the erroneous nature of the system for which Malthus has contended; and I hope to perform this duty with such a degree of strictness, candour, and truth as the important and awful nature of the subject demands.

"The candour which pervades the works of this unhappily influential writer, incites me to perform my undertaking with an unsparing hand. If, from that abode which his spirit now inhabits, he were permitted to hold communion with me at the present moment, I feel assured that he would give me words of encouragement. He would declare to me that his object while on earth was the welfare of his fellow creatures, and that if he has erred in pointing out the way to this great and divine end, he will rejoice greatly over the detection of his errors, and that my spirit will work together with his spirit, if I shall succeed in making clear the truth of divine laws, even though it shall be by the overthrow of all which he himself has written. Under this conviction I proceed upon my work.

Before I commence an analysis of the writings of Malthus, it is desirable to describe the nature of the subject-matter which he undertook to investigate and to decide. Now this consists of TWO distinct subjects, the one being Population, and the other being the means of sustaining population, which is expressed by the general term Capital. The question propounded for solution is, a discovery of the principles which facilitate the increase of BOTH, in order to define which of the two is constituted by the law of nature to increase in the most rapid degree. The subject then will be one of comparative proportionate progression, as issuing out of the principle of the increase of population on the one side, and as issuing from the principle of the increase of capital on the other

"Now, in order to solve the proposition thus submitted for consideration, it will be evident that he who undertakes to do this, must be able to define the rate of increase of BOTH the subjects which the proposition includes. Thus, to determine the fact of a population increasing at a quicker or slower rate as compared with the rate of increase of capital, the rate of increase of capital must be PROVED; and to determine the power, as well as the fact, of capital being formed at a quicker or slower rate as compared with the power and the fact of increasing population, the principle as well as the actual rate of increase of population must be PROVED; for to draw an inference from a comparison of any TWO things, without the nature and result of BOTH being ascertained, would be a self-evident absurdity.

With regard, then, to the predicate which Malthus has laid down respecting the first portion of his proposition, which is Population, in order to discover a principle he has entered upon an extensive range of inquiry. Of his large work, on the Principle of Population,' about 700 pages, or nearly half, are occupied by statistical compilations, showing the POSSIBLE rate of increase of the human species, the facts having been collected from various countries. By these he has PROVED that it is POSSIBLE for the human race to increase its species in a degree equal to that of doubling its numbers in twenty-five years. Consequently, he has inferred, that there is infused into the nature of man a generative force adequate to such a degree of production. This he has assumed as his hypothesis, calling it a geometrical ratio of increase, in contradistinction to another principle of increase applicable to capital, which he denominates an arithmetical ratio. At page 15 of his work, he sets out his two principles of increase thus:-'The human species would increase as the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and subsistence as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.`

"On a very slight examination of these two rates of progression, the mind is led to discern the vast difference there is between them, and to perceive, that if the matter of the former is to be sustained by the matter of the latter, that the former must soon be left without any support at all. I have already allowed that Malthus has succeeded in proving that the geometrical rate of progression is POSSIBLE with respect to the increase of population; but this possible rate is not the question with which we have to deal. The question is, the ACTUAL rate. We have not to argue upon what might have been, but upon what is; and it is the having made a wrong selection on this point that constitutes the false foundation on which Malthus has raised his superstructure. He has made a great parade of statistical matter, occupying, as I have before remarked, about 700 pages, all which is needless, because the inference which he deduces might have been conceded to him without any such matter being advanced at all. But this is not the question for consideration. The first question for consideration is,-At what rate do we really find population to be increased? and the second,-Is this actual rate of increase of population greater than the actual rate of increase of means calculated for its support?

"Now, in order to show how far the issues of the geometrical principle of Malthus are from being coincident with the practical natural result, a paper was read before the Statistical Society