Rural Rides Part 16

_Winchester, Sunday noon, Oct. 30._

We came away from Farnham about noon on Friday, promising Bishop Prettyman to notice him and his way of living more fully on our return.

At Alton we got some bread and cheese at a friend's, and then came to Alresford by Medstead, in order to have fine turf to ride on, and to see, on this lofty land that which is, perhaps, the finest _beech-wood_ in all England. These high down-countries are not garden plats, like Kent; but they have, from my first seeing them, when I was about _ten_, always been my delight. Large sweeping downs, and deep dells here and there, with villages amongst lofty trees, are my great delight. When we got to Alresford it was nearly dark, and not being able to find a room to our liking, we resolved to go, though in the dark, to Easton, a village about six miles from Alresford down by the side of the Hichen River.

Coming from Easton yesterday, I learned that Sir Charles Ogle, the eldest son and successor of Sir Chaloner Ogle, had sold to some _General_, his mansion and estate at Martyr's Worthy, a village on the North side of the Hichen, just opposite Easton. The Ogles had been here for _a couple of centuries_ perhaps. They are _gone off now_, "for good and all," as the country people call it. Well, what I have to say to Sir Charles Ogle upon this occasion is this: "It was _you_, who moved at the county meeting, in 1817, that _Address to the Regent_, which you brought ready engrossed upon parchment, which Fleming, the Sheriff, declared to have been carried, though a word of it never was heard by the meeting; which address _applauded the power of imprisonment bill, just then pa.s.sed_; and the like of which address, you will not in all human probability, ever again move in Hamps.h.i.+re, and, I hope, nowhere else.

So, you see, Sir Charles, there is one consolation, at any rate."

I learned, too, that Greame, a famously loyal 'squire and justice, whose son was, a few years ago, made a Distributor of Stamps in this county, was become so modest as to exchange his big and ancient mansion at Cheriton, or somewhere there, for a very moderate-sized house in the town of Alresford! I saw his household goods advertised in the Hamps.h.i.+re newspaper, a little while ago, to be sold by public auction. I rubbed my eyes, or, rather, my spectacles, and looked again and again; for I remembered the loyal 'Squire; and I, with singular satisfaction, record this change in his scale of existence, which has, no doubt, proceeded solely from that prevalence of mind over matter, which the Scotch _feelosofers_ have taken such pains to inculcate, and which makes him flee from greatness as from that which diminishes the quant.i.ty of "_intellectual_ enjoyment;" and so now he,

"Wondering man can want the larger pile, Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."

And they really tell me, that his present house is not much bigger than that of my dear, good old grandmother Cobbett. But (and it may not be wholly useless for the 'Squire to know it) she never burnt _candles_; but _rushes_ dipped in grease, as I have described them in my _Cottage Economy_; and this was one of the means that she made use of in order to secure a bit of good bacon and good bread to eat, and that made her never give me _potatoes_, cold or hot. No bad hint for the 'Squire, father of the distributor of Stamps. Good bacon is a very nice thing, I can a.s.sure him; and, if the quant.i.ty be small, it is all the sweeter; provided, however, it be not _too small_. This 'Squire used to be a great friend of Old George Rose. But his patron's taste was different from his. George preferred a big house to a little one; and George _began_ with a little one, and _ended_ with a big one.

Just by Alresford, there was another old friend and supporter of Old George Rose, 'Squire Rawlinson, whom I remember a very great 'squire in this county. He is now a _Police_-'squire in London, and is one of those guardians of the Wen, respecting whose proceedings we read eternal columns in the broad-sheet.

This being Sunday, I heard, about 7 o'clock in the morning, a sort of a jangling, made by a bell or two in the _Cathedral_. We were getting ready to be off, to cross the country to Burghclere, which lies under the lofty hills at Highclere, about 22 miles from this city; but hearing the bells of the cathedral, I took Richard to show him that ancient and most magnificent pile, and particularly to show him the tomb of that famous bishop of Winchester, William of Wykham; who was the Chancellor and the Minister of the great and glorious King, Edward III.; who sprang from poor parents in the little village of Wykham, three miles from Botley; and who, amongst other great and most munificent deeds, founded the famous College, or School, of Winchester, and also one of the Colleges at Oxford. I told Richard about this as we went from the inn down to the cathedral; and, when I _showed him the tomb_, where the bishop lies on his back, in his Catholic robes, with his mitre on his head, his shepherd's crook by his side, with little children at his feet, their hands put together in a praying att.i.tude, he looked with a degree of inquisitive earnestness that pleased me very much. I took him as far as I could about the cathedral. The "service" was now begun.

There is a _dean_, and G.o.d knows how many _prebends_ belonging to this immensely rich bishopric and chapter; and there were, at this "service,"

_two or three men and five or six boys_ in white surplices, with a congregation of _fifteen women_ and _four men_! Gracious G.o.d! If William of Wykham could, at that moment, have been raised from his tomb! If Saint Swithin, whose name the cathedral bears, or Alfred the Great, to whom St. Swithin was tutor: if either of these could have come, and had been told, that _that_ was _now_ what was carried on by men, who talked of the "_d.a.m.nable_ errors" of those who founded that very church! But it beggars one's feelings to attempt to find words whereby to express them upon such a subject and such an occasion. How, then, am I to describe what I felt, when I yesterday saw in Hyde Meadow, a _county bridewell_, standing on the very spot, where stood the Abbey which was founded and endowed by Alfred, which contained the bones of that maker of the English name, and also those of the learned monk, St. Grimbald, whom Alfred brought to England _to begin the teaching at Oxford_!

After we came out of the cathedral, Richard said, "Why, Papa, n.o.body can build such places _now_, can they?" "No, my dear," said I. "That building was made when there were no poor wretches in England, called _paupers_; when there were no _poor-rates_; when every labouring man was clothed in good woollen cloth; and when all had a plenty of meat and bread and beer." This talk lasted us to the inn, where, just as we were going to set off, it most curiously happened, that a parcel which had come from Kensington by the night coach, was put into my hands by the landlord, containing, amongst other things, a pamphlet, sent to me from Rome, being an Italian translation of No. I. of the "_Protestant Reformation_." I will here insert the t.i.tle for the satisfaction of Doctor Black, who, some time ago, expressed his utter astonishment, that "_such_ a work should be published in the _nineteenth_ century." Why, Doctor? Did you want me to stop till the _twentieth_ century? That would have been a little too long, Doctor.

Storia Della Riforma Protestante In Inghilterra ed in Irlanda La quale Dimostra Come un tal' avvenimento ha impoverito E degradato il grosso del popolo in que' paesi in una serie di lettere indirizzate A tutti i sensati e guisti inglesi Da Guglielmo Cobbett E Dall' inglese recate in italiano Da Dominico Gregorj.

Roma 1825.

Presso Frances...o...b..urlie.

Con Approvazione.

There, Doctor Black. Write _you_ a book that shall be translated into _any_ foreign language; and when you have done that, you may _again_ call mine "pig's meat."

RURAL RIDE: FROM WINCHESTER TO BURGHCLERE.

_Burghclere, Monday Morning, 31st October 1825._

We had, or I had, resolved not to breakfast at Winchester yesterday: and yet we were detained till nearly noon. But at last off we came, _fasting_. The turnpike-road from Winchester to this place comes through a village called Sutton Scotney, and then through Whitchurch, which lies on the Andover and London road, through Basingstoke. We did not take the cross-turnpike till we came to Whitchurch. We went to King's Worthy; that is about two miles on the road from Winchester to London; and then, turning short to our left, came up upon the downs to the north of Winchester race-course. Here, looking back at the city and at the fine valley above and below it, and at the many smaller valleys that run down from the high ridges into that great and fertile valley, I could not help admiring the taste of the ancient kings who made this city (which once covered all the hill round about, and which contained 92 churches and chapels) a chief place of their residence. There are not many finer spots in England; and if I were to take in a circle of eight or ten miles of semi-diameter, I should say that I believe there is not one so fine. Here are hill, dell, water, meadows, woods, corn-fields, downs: and all of them very fine and very beautifully disposed. This country does not present to us that sort of beauties which we see about Guildford and G.o.dalming, and round the skirts of Hindhead and Blackdown, where the ground lies in the form that the surface-water in a boiling copper would be in if you could, by word of command, _make it be still_, the variously-shaped bubbles all sticking up; and really, to look at the face of the earth, who can help imagining that some such process has produced its present form? Leaving this matter to be solved by those who laugh at mysteries, I repeat that the country round Winchester does not present to us beauties of _this sort_; but of a sort which I like a great deal better. Arthur Young calls the vale between Farnham and Alton _the finest ten miles_ in England. Here is a river with fine meadows on each side of it, and with rising grounds on each outside of the meadows, those grounds having some hop-gardens and some pretty woods. But though I was born in this vale I must confess that the ten miles between Maidstone and Tunbridge (which the Kentish folks call the _Garden of Eden_) is a great deal finer; for here, with a river three times as big, and a vale three times as broad, there are, on rising grounds six times as broad, not only hop-gardens and beautiful woods, but immense orchards of apples, pears, plums, cherries and filberts, and these, in many cases, with gooseberries and currants and raspberries beneath; and, all taken together, the vale is really worthy of the appellation which it bears. But even this spot, which I believe to be the very finest, as to fertility and diminutive beauty, in this whole world, I, for my part, do not like so well; nay, as a spot to _live on_, I think nothing at all of it, compared with a country where high downs prevail, with here and there a large wood on the top or the side of a hill, and where you see, in the deep dells, here and there a farm-house, and here and there a village, the buildings sheltered by a group of lofty trees.

This is my taste, and here, in the north of Hamps.h.i.+re, it has its full gratification. I like to look at the winding side of a great down, with two or three numerous flocks of sheep on it, belonging to different farms; and to see, lower down, the folds, in the fields, ready to receive them for the night. We had, when we got upon the downs, after leaving Winchester, this sort of country all the way to Whitchurch. Our point of destination was this village of Burghclere, which lies close under the north side of the lofty hill at Highclere, which is called Beacon Hill, and on the top of which there are still the marks of a Roman encampment. We saw this hill as soon as we got on Winchester Downs; and without any regard to _roads_, we _steered_ for it, as sailors do for a land-mark. Of these 13 miles (from Winchester to Whitchurch) we rode about eight or nine upon the _green-sward_, or over fields equally smooth. And here is one great pleasure of living in countries of this sort: no sloughs, no ditches, no nasty dirty lanes, and the hedges, where there are any, are more for boundary marks than for fences. Fine for hunting and coursing: no impediments; no gates to open; nothing to impede the dogs, the horses, or the view. The water is not _seen running_; but the great bed of chalk _holds it_, and the sun draws it up for the benefit of the gra.s.s and the corn; and, whatever inconvenience is experienced from the necessity of deep wells, and of driving sheep and cattle far to water, is amply made up for by the goodness of the water, and by the complete absence of floods, of drains, of ditches and of water-furrows. As _things now are_, however, these countries have one great drawback: the poor day-labourers suffer from the want of fuel, and they have nothing but their _bare pay_. For these reasons they are greatly worse off than those of the _woodland countries_; and it is really surprising what a difference there is between the faces that you see here and the round, red faces that you see in the _wealds_ and the _forests_, particularly in Suss.e.x, where the labourers _will_ have a _meat-pudding_ of some sort or other; and where they _will_ have _a fire_ to sit by in the winter.

After steering for some time, we came down to a very fine farmhouse, which we stopped a little to admire; and I asked Richard whether _that_ was not a place to be happy in. The village, which we found to be Stoke-Charity, was about a mile lower down this little vale. Before we got to it, we overtook the owner of the farm, who knew me, though I did not know him; but when I found it was Mr. Hinton Bailey, of whom and whose farm I had heard so much, I was not at all surprised at the fineness of what I had just seen. I told him that the word _charity_, making, as it did, part of the name of this place, had nearly inspired me with boldness enough to go to the farmhouse, in the ancient style, and ask for something to eat, for that we had not yet breakfasted. He asked us to go back; but at Burghclere we were _resolved to dine_.

After, however, crossing the village, and beginning again to ascend the downs, we came to a labourer's (_once a farmhouse_), where I asked the man whether he had any _bread and cheese_, and was not a little pleased to hear him say "_Yes_." Then I asked him to give us a bit, protesting that we had not yet broken our fast. He answered in the affirmative at once, though I did not talk of payment. His wife brought out the cut loaf, and a piece of Wilts.h.i.+re cheese, and I took them in hand, gave Richard a good hunch, and took another for myself. I verily believe that all the pleasure of eating enjoyed by all the feeders in London in a whole year does not equal that which we enjoyed in gnawing this bread and cheese as we rode over this cold down, whip and bridle-reins in one hand, and the hunch in the other. Richard, who was purse bearer, gave the woman, by my direction, about enough to buy two quartern loaves: for she told me that they had to buy their bread _at the mill_, not being able to bake themselves for _want of fuel_; and this, as I said before, is one of the draw-backs in this sort of country. I wish every one of these people had an _American fire-place_. Here they might, then, even in these bare countries, have comfortable warmth. Rubbish of any sort would, by this means, give them warmth. I am now, at six o'clock in the morning, sitting in a room, where one of these fire-places, with very light _turf_ in it, gives as good and steady a warmth as it is possible to feel, and which room has, too, been _cured of smoking_ by this fire-place.

Before we got this supply of bread and cheese, we, though in ordinary times a couple of singularly jovial companions, and seldom going a hundred yards (except going very fast) without one or the other speaking, began to grow _dull_, or rather _glum_. The way seemed long; and, when I had to speak in answer to Richard, the speaking was as brief as might be. Unfortunately, just at this critical period, one of the loops that held the straps of Richard's little portmanteau broke; and it became necessary (just before we overtook Mr. Bailey) for me to fasten the portmanteau on before me, upon my saddle. This, which was not the work of more than five minutes, would, had I had _a breakfast_, have been nothing at all, and, indeed, matter of laughter. But _now_ it was _something_. It was his "_fault_" for capering and jerking about "_so_."

I jumped off, saying, "_Here!_ I'll carry it _myself_." And then I began to take off the remaining strap, pulling with great violence and in great haste. Just at this time my eyes met his, in which I saw _great surprise_; and, feeling the just rebuke, feeling heartily ashamed of myself, I instantly changed my tone and manner, cast the blame upon the saddler, and talked of the effectual means which we would take to prevent the like in future.

Now, if such was the effect produced upon me by the want of food for only two or three hours; me, who had dined well the day before and eaten toast and b.u.t.ter the over-night; if the missing of only one breakfast, and that, too, from my own whim, while I had money in my pocket to get one at any public-house, and while I could get one only for asking for at any farm-house; if the not having breakfasted could, and under such circ.u.mstances, make me what you may call "_cross_" to a child like this, whom I must necessarily love so much, and to whom I never speak but in the very kindest manner; if this mere absence of a breakfast could thus put me _out of temper_, how great are the allowances that we ought to make for the poor creatures who, in this once happy and now miserable country, are doomed to lead a life of constant labour and of half-starvation. I suppose that, as we rode away from the cottage, we gnawed up, between us, a pound of bread and a quarter of a pound of cheese. Here was about _fivepence_ worth at present prices. Even this, which was only a mere _snap_, a mere _stay-stomach_, for us, would, for us two, come to 3_s._ a week all but a penny. How, then, gracious G.o.d!

is a labouring man, his wife, and, perhaps, four or five small children, to exist upon 8_s._ or 9_s._ a week! Aye, and to find house-rent, clothing, bedding and fuel out of it? Richard and I ate here, at this snap, more, and much more, than the average of labourers, their wives and children, have to eat in a whole day, and that the labourer has to _work_ on too!

When we got here to Burghclere we were again as _hungry_ as hunters.

What, then, must be the life of these poor creatures? But is not the state of the country, is not the h.e.l.lishness of the system, all depicted in this one disgraceful and d.a.m.ning fact, that the magistrates, who settle on what the _labouring poor_ ought to have to live on, ALLOW THEM LESS THAN IS ALLOWED TO FELONS IN THE GAOLS, and allow them _nothing for clothing and fuel, and house-rent_! And yet, while this is notoriously the case, while the main body of the working cla.s.s in England are fed and clad and even lodged worse than felons, and are daily becoming even worse and worse off, the King is advised to tell the Parliament, and the world, that we are in a state of _unexampled prosperity_, and that this prosperity must be _permanent_, because _all the_ GREAT _interests_ are _prospering_! THE WORKING PEOPLE ARE NOT, THEN, "A _GREAT_ INTEREST"!

THEY WILL BE FOUND TO BE ONE, BY-AND-BY. What is to be the _end_ of this? What can be the _end_ of it, but dreadful convulsion? What other can be produced by a system, which allows the _felon_ better food, better clothing, and better lodging than the _honest labourer_?

I see that there has been a grand _humanity-meeting_ in Norfolk to a.s.sure the Parliament that these humanity-people will _back_ it in any measures that it may adopt for freeing the NEGROES. Mr. Buxton figured here, also Lord Suffield, who appear to have been the two princ.i.p.al actors, or _showers-off_. This same Mr. Buxton opposed the Bill intended to relieve the poor in England by breaking a little into the brewers'

monopoly; and as to Lord Suffield, if he really wish to _free slaves_, let him go to Wykham in this county, where he will see some drawing, like horses, gravel to repair the roads for the stock-jobbers and dead-weight and the seat-dealers to ride smoothly on. If he go down a little further, he will see CONVICTS at PRECISELY THE SAME WORK, harnessed in JUST THE SAME WAY; but the convicts he will find hale and ruddy-cheeked, in dresses sufficiently warm, and bawling and singing; while he will find the labourers thin, ragged, s.h.i.+vering, dejected mortals, such as never were seen in any other country upon earth. There is not a negro in the West Indies who has not more to eat in a day, than the average of English labourers have to eat in a week, and of better food too. Colonel Wodehouse and a man of the name of Hoseason (whence came he?) who opposed this humanity-scheme talked of the sums necessary to pay the owners of the slaves. They took special care not to tell the humanity-men _to look at home for slaves to free_. No, no! that would have applied to themselves, as well as to Lord Suffield and humanity Buxton. If it were worth while to _reason_ with these people, one might ask them whether they do not think that _another war_ is likely to relieve them of all these cares, simply by making the colonies transfer their allegiance or a.s.sert their independence? But to reason with them is useless. If they can busy themselves with compa.s.sion for the negroes, while they uphold the system that makes the labourers of England more wretched, and beyond all measure more wretched, than any negro slaves are, or ever were, or ever can be, they are unworthy of anything but our contempt.

But the "education" canters are the most curious fellows of all. They have seen "education," as they call it, and crimes, go on increasing together, till the gaols, though six times their former dimensions, will hardly suffice; and yet the canting creatures still cry that crimes arise from want of what they call "education!" They see the felon better fed and better clad than the honest labourer. They see this; and yet they continually cry that the crimes arise from a want of "education!"

What can be the cause of this perverseness? It is not perverseness: it is _roguery_, _corruption_, and _tyranny_. The tyrant, the unfeeling tyrant, squeezes the labourers for gain's sake; and the corrupt politician and literary or tub rogue find an excuse for him by pretending that it is not want of food and clothing, but want of education, that makes the poor, starving wretches thieves and robbers.

If the press, if only the press, were to do its duty, or but a tenth part of its duty, this h.e.l.lish system could not go on. But it favours the system by ascribing the misery to wrong causes. The causes are these: the tax-gatherer presses the landlord; the landlord the farmer; and the farmer the labourer. Here it falls at last; and this cla.s.s is made so miserable that a _felon's_ life is better than that of a _labourer_. Does there want any _other cause_ to produce crimes? But on these causes, so clear to the eye of reason, so plain from experience, the press scarcely ever says a single word; while it keeps bothering our brains about education and morality; and about ignorance and immorality leading to _felonies_. To be sure immorality leads to felonies. Who does not know that? But who is to expect morality in a half-starved man, who is whipped if he do not work, though he has not, for his whole day's food, so much as I and my little boy snapped up in six or seven minutes upon Stoke-Charity Down? Aye! but if the press were to ascribe the increase of crimes to the true causes it must _go further back_. It must go to the _cause of the taxes_. It must go to the debt, the dead-weight, the thundering standing army, the enormous sinecures, pensions, and grants; and this would suit but a very small part of a _press_ which lives and thrives princ.i.p.ally by one or the other of these.

As with the press, so is it with Mr. Brougham and all such politicians.

They stop short, or, rather, they begin in the middle. They attempt to prevent the evils of the deadly ivy by cropping off, or, rather, bruising a little, a few of its leaves. They do not a.s.sail even its branches, while they appear to look upon the _trunk_ as something _too sacred_ even to be _looked at_ with vulgar eyes. Is not the injury recently done to about _forty thousand poor families_ in and near Plymouth, by the Small-note Bill, a thing that Mr. Brougham ought to think about before he thinks anything more about _educating_ those poor families? Yet will he, when he again meets the Ministers, say a word about this monstrous evil? I am afraid that no Member will say a word about it; but I am rather more than afraid that _he_ will not. And _why_? Because, if he reproach the Ministers with this crying cruelty, they will ask him first how this is to be prevented without a repeal of the Small-note Bill (by which Peel's Bill was partly repealed); then they will ask him, how the prices are to be kept up without the small-notes; then they will say, "Does the honourable and learned Gentleman _wish to see wheat at four s.h.i.+llings a bushel again_?"

B. No (looking at Mr. Western and Daddy c.o.ke), no, no, no! Upon my honour, no!

MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see Cobbett again at county meetings, and to see pet.i.tions again coming from those meetings, calling for a reduction of the interest of the...?

B. No, no, no, upon my soul, no!

MIN. Does the honourable and learned Gentleman wish to see that "_equitable_ adjustment," which Cobbett has a thousand times declared can never take place without an application, to new purposes, of that great ma.s.s of public property, commonly called Church property?

B. (Almost bursting with rage). How _dare_ the honourable gentlemen to suppose me capable of such a thought?

MIN. We suppose nothing. We only ask the question; and we ask it, because to put an end to the small-notes would inevitably produce all these things; and it is impossible to have small-notes to the extent necessary to _keep up prices_, without having, now-and-then, _breaking banks_. Banks cannot break without _producing misery_; you must have the _consequence_ if you will have the _cause_. The honourable and learned Gentleman wants the feast without the reckoning. In short, is the honourable and learned Gentleman for putting an end to "_public credit_"?

B. No, no, no, no!

MIN. Then would it not be better for the honourable and learned Gentleman to _hold his tongue_?

All men of sense and sincerity will at once answer this last question in the affirmative. They will all say that this is not _opposition_ to the Ministers. The Ministers do not _wish_ to see 40,000 families, nor any families at all (who give them _no real annoyance_), reduced to misery; they do not _wish_ to cripple their own tax-payers; very far from it. If they could carry on the debt and dead-weight and place and pension and barrack system, without reducing any _quiet_ people to misery, they would like it exceedingly. But they _do_ wish to carry on that system; and he does not _oppose_ them who does not endeavour to put an end to the system.

This is done by n.o.body in Parliament; and, therefore, there is, in fact, _no opposition_; and this is felt by the whole nation; and this is the reason why _the people_ now take so little interest in what is said and done in Parliament, compared to that which they formerly took. This is the reason why there is no man, or men, whom the people seem to care at all about. A great portion of the people now clearly understand the nature and effects of the system; they are not now to be deceived by speeches and professions. If Pitt and Fox had _now to start_, there would be no "Pitt.i.tes" and "Foxites." Those happy days of political humbug are gone for ever. The "gentlemen _opposite_" are opposite only as to mere _local position_. They sit on the opposite side of the House: that's all. In every other respect they are like parson and clerk; or, perhaps, rather more like the rooks and jackdaws: one _caw_ and the other _chatter_; but both have the same object in view: both are in pursuit of the same sort of diet. One set is, to be sure, IN place, and the other OUT; but, though the rooks keep the jackdaws on the inferior branches, these latter would be as clamorous as the rooks themselves against _felling the tree_; and just as clamorous would the "gentlemen opposite" be against any one who should propose to put down the system itself. And yet, unless you do _that_, things must go on in the present way, and _felons_ must be _better fed_ than _honest labourers_; and starvation and thieving and robbing and gaol-building and transporting and hanging and penal laws must go on increasing, as they have gone on from the day of the establishment of the debt to the present hour.

Apropos of _penal laws_, Doctor Black (of the Morning Chronicle) is now filling whole columns with very just remarks on the new and terrible law, which makes the taking of an apple _felony_; but he says not a word about the _silence_ of Sir Jammy (the humane _code-softener_) upon this subject! The "_humanity_ and _liberality_" of the Parliament have relieved men addicted to _fraud_ and to _certain other crimes_ from the disgrace of the pillory, and they have, since Castlereagh cut his own throat, relieved _self-slayers_ from the disgrace of the cross-road burial; but the same Parliament, amidst all the workings of this rare humanity and liberality, have made it _felony to take an apple off a tree_, which last year was a trivial trespa.s.s, and was formerly no offence at all! However, even this _is necessary_, as long as this bank-note system continue in its present way; and all complaints about severity of laws, levelled at the poor, are useless and foolish; and these complaints are even base in those who do their best to uphold a system which has brought _the honest labourer to be fed worse than the felon_. What, short of such laws, can prevent _starving men_ from coming to take away the dinners of those who have plenty? "_Education_"!

Despicable cant and nonsense! What education, what moral precepts, can quiet the gnawings and ragings of hunger?

Looking, now, back again for a minute to the little village of _Stoke-Charity_, the name of which seems to indicate that its rents formerly belonged wholly to the poor and indigent part of the community: it is near to Winchester, that grand scene of ancient learning, piety, and munificence. Be this as it may, the parish formerly contained ten farms, and it now contains but two, which are owned by Mr. Hinton Bailey and his nephew, and, therefore, which may probably become _one_. There used to be ten well-fed families in this parish at any rate: these, taking five to a family, made fifty well-fed people. And now all are half-starved, except the curate and the two families. The _blame_ is not the land-owner's; it is n.o.body's; it is due to the infernal _funding_ and _taxing_ system, which _of necessity_ drives property into large ma.s.ses in order to _save itself_; which crushes little proprietors down into labourers; and which presses them down in that state, there takes their wages from them and makes them _paupers_, their share of food and raiment being taken away to support debt and dead-weight and army and all the rest of the enormous expenses which are required to sustain this intolerable system. Those, therefore, are fools or hypocrites who affect to wish to better the lot of the poor labourers and manufacturers, while they, at the same time, either actively or pa.s.sively, uphold the system which is the manifest cause of it. Here is a system which, clearly as the nose upon your face, you see taking away the little gentleman's estate, the little farmer's farm, the poor labourer's meat-dinner and Sunday-coat; and while you see this so plainly, you, fool or hypocrite, as you are, cry out for supporting the system that causes it all! Go on, base wretch; but remember that of such a progress dreadful must be the end. The day will come when millions of long-suffering creatures will be in a state that they and you now little dream of. All that we now behold of _combinations_, and the like, are mere _indications_ of what the great body of the suffering people _feel_, and of the thoughts that are pa.s.sing in their minds. The _coaxing_ work of _schools_ and _tracts_ will only add to what would be quite enough without them. There is not a labourer in the whole country who does not see to the bottom of this _coaxing_ work. They are _not deceived_ in this respect. Hunger has opened their eyes. I'll engage that there is not, even in this obscure village of Stoke-Charity, one single creature, however forlorn, who does not understand all about the _real motives_ of the school and the tract and the Bible affair as well as b.u.t.terworth, or Rivington, or as Joshua Watson himself.

Just after we had finished the bread and cheese, we crossed the turnpike road that goes from Basingstoke to Stockbridge; and Mr. Bailey had told us that we were then to bear away to our right, and go to the end of a wood (which we saw one end of), and keep round with that wood, or coppice, as he called it, to our left; but we, seeing Beacon Hill more to the left, and resolving to go, as nearly as possible, in a straight line to it, steered directly over the fields; that is to say, pieces of ground from 30 to 100 acres in each. But a hill which we had to go over had here hidden from our sight a part of this "coppice," which consists, perhaps, of 150 or 200 acres, and which we found sweeping round, in a crescent-like form so far, from towards our left, as to bring our land-mark over the coppice at about the mid-length of the latter. Upon this discovery we slackened sail; for this coppice might be a mile across; and though the bottom was sound enough, being a coverlet of flints upon a bed of chalk, the underwood was too high and too thick for us to face, being, as we were, at so great a distance from the means of obtaining a fresh supply of clothes. Our leather leggings would have stood anything; but our coats were of the common kind; and before we saw the other side of the coppice we should, I dare say, have been as ragged as forest-ponies in the month of March.

In this dilemma I stopped and looked at the coppice. Luckily two boys, who had been cutting sticks (to _sell_, I dare say, at least _I hope so_), made their appearance, at about half a mile off, on the side for the coppice. Richard galloped off to the boys, from whom he found that in one part of the coppice there was a road cut across, the point of entrance into which road they explained to him. This was to us what the discovery of a ca.n.a.l across the isthmus of Darien would be to a s.h.i.+p in the Gulf of Mexico wanting to get into the Pacific without doubling Cape Horne. A beautiful road we found it. I should suppose the best part of a mile long, perfectly straight, the surface sound and smooth, about eight feet wide, the whole length seen at once, and, when you are at one end, the other end seeming to be hardly a yard wide. When we got about half-way, we found a road that crossed this. These roads are, I suppose, cut for the hunters. They are very pretty, at any rate, and we found this one very convenient; for it cut our way short by a full half mile.

From this coppice to Whitchurch is not more than about four miles, and we soon reached it, because here you begin to descend into the _vale_, in which this little town lies, and through which there runs that _stream_ which turns the mill of 'Squire Portal, and which mill makes the Bank of England Note-Paper! Talk of the Thames and the Hudson with their forests of masts; talk of the Nile and the Delaware bearing the food of millions on their bosoms; talk of the Ganges and the Mississippi sending forth over the world their silks and their cottons; talk of the Rio de la Plata and the other rivers, their beds pebbled with silver and gold and diamonds. What, as to their effect on the condition of mankind, as to the virtues, the vices, the enjoyments and the sufferings of men; what are all these rivers put together compared with the _river of Whitchurch_, which a man of threescore may jump across dry-shod, which moistens a quarter of a mile wide of poor, rushy meadow, which washes the skirts of the park and game preserves of that bright patrician who wedded the daughter of Hanson, the attorney and late solicitor to the Stamp-Office, and which is, to look at it, of far less importance than any gutter in the Wen! Yet this river, by merely turning a wheel, which wheel sets some rag-tearers and grinders and washers and re-compressers in motion, has produced a greater effect on the condition of men than has been produced on that condition by all the other rivers, all the seas, all the mines and all the continents in the world. The discovery of America, and the consequent discovery and use of vast quant.i.ties of silver and gold, did, indeed, produce great effects on the nations of Europe. They changed the value of money, and caused, as all such changes must, _a transfer of property_, raising up new families and pulling down old ones, a transfer very little favourable either to _morality_, or to real and _substantial liberty_. But this cause worked _slowly_; its consequences came on by slow _degrees_; it made a transfer of property, but it made that transfer in so small a degree, and it left the property quiet in the hands of the new possessor _for so long a time_, that the effect was not violent, and was not, at any rate, such as to uproot possessors by whole districts, as the hurricane uproots the forests.

Not so the product of the little sedgy rivulet of Whitchurch! It has, in the short s.p.a.ce of a hundred and thirty-one years, and, indeed, in the s.p.a.ce of the last _forty_, caused greater changes as to property than had been caused by all other things put together in the long course of seven centuries, though during that course there had been a sweeping, confiscating Protestant reformation. Let us look back to the place where I started on this present rural ride. Poor old Baron Maseres, succeeded at Reigate by little Parson Fellowes, and at Betchworth (three miles on my road) by Kendrick, is no bad instance to begin with; for the Baron was n.o.bly descended, though from French ancestors. At Albury, fifteen miles on my road, Mr. Drummond (a banker) is in the seat of one of the Howards, and close by he has bought the estate, just pulled down the house, and blotted out the memory of the G.o.dschalls. At Chilworth, two miles further down the same vale, and close under St. Martha's Hill, Mr.

Tinkler, a powder-maker (succeeding Hill, another powder-maker, who had been a breeches-maker at Hounslow), has got the old mansion and the estate of the old d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, who frequently resided in what was then a large quadrangular mansion, but the remains of which now serve as out farm-buildings and a farmhouse, which I found inhabited by a poor labourer and his family, the farm being in the hands of the powder-maker, who does not find the once n.o.ble seat good enough for him.

Coming on to Waverley Abbey, there is Mr. Thompson, a merchant, succeeding the Orby Hunters and Sir Robert Rich. Close adjoining, Mr.

Laing, a West India dealer of some sort, has stepped into the place of the lineal descendants of Sir William Temple. At Farnham the park and palace remain in the hands of a Bishop of Winchester, as they have done for about eight hundred years: but why is this? Because they are public property; because they cannot, without express laws, be transferred.

Therefore the product of the rivulet of Whitchurch has had no effect upon the owners.h.i.+p of these, which are still in the hands of a Bishop of Winchester; not of a William of Wykham, to be sure; but still, in those of a bishop, at any rate. Coming on to old Alresford (twenty miles from Farnham) Sheriff, the son of a Sheriff, who was a Commissary in the American war, has succeeded the Gages. Two miles further on, at Abbotston (down on the side of the Itchen) Alexander Baring has succeeded the heirs and successors of the Duke of Bolton, the remains of whose n.o.ble mansion I once saw here. Not above a mile higher up, the same Baring has, at the Grange, with its n.o.ble mansion, park and estate, succeeded the heirs of Lord Northington; and at only about two miles further, Sir Thomas Baring, at Stratton Park, has succeeded the Russells in the owners.h.i.+p of the estates of Stratton and Micheldover, which were once the property of Alfred the Great! Stepping back, and following my road, down by the side of the meadows of the beautiful river Itchen, and coming to Easton, I look across to Martyr's Worthy, and there see (as I observed before) the Ogles succeeded by a general or a colonel somebody; but who, or whence, I cannot learn.