new system pursued all over the island; and, when any cumbrous edifice is seen rising in the shape of a manufactory, a warehouse, a wharf, &c. poor John Bull has lately been taught to fly into raptures, and to hail these appearances as pledges of his prosperity! However, the unpre cedented situation of the lower order of tradesmen and mechanics is evident from the decay of the Benefit Clubs, commonly called Friendly Societies. The deficiency of the members in making good their payments is alarming, and must either arise from uncommon depravity, or absolute inability; as men, it is supposed, if able, they would certainly act the best for their own interest.

The preamble of the Bill now before Parliament, for the encouragement and relief of friendly societics, proceeds to enact, that a certain number of justices of the peace, on complaint, may enforce the observance of the rules, and levy any arrears (of payment, it is supposed) by distress and sale. That orders of justices for payment of money shall specify the time and manner of payment. Orders of justices to be made on officers of the society by name, and served on them. And that all such orders shall be final, and not be removeable into any court of law. Whereas, be fore, it was usual in some cases, when money was

supposed to be due to the club or stewards, to have recourse to the Courts of Request, &c.

Sir Francis Burdett, though, perhaps, many have long thought with him, has been the first to express his disapprobation of the new-fashioned habits of so many of our noblemen descending from the dignity of their birth to become graziers, &c. or, according to modern phrase, “Agriculturists.' But, while there are so many new modes of torturing the earth, with the man and the beast that it used to maintain liberally, under the pretext of improvements, are not poverty and depopulation insidiously gaining upon us, though the capital swarms?

In many places, where small families used to maintain themselves, are not these dispersed and gone. And, of the altered character and condition of too many, who still remain in the country, does not the following article, which has lately appeared in the public papers, present but too faithful a picture?

"The farmers in the West of England, (says a correspondent,) who are in general very opulent, contrive to get themselves chosen overseers, constables, churchwardens, &c. for their respective parishes; and, wherever this is the case, the poor's rates are very high; for not one married labourer can be found in these parishes who is not a pauper, his wages being inadequate to support a wife, and

even one child, although his wife may likewise earn something; so that the cunning, oppressive Overseer-Farmer (notwithstanding the great profit be gets by the labour of his husbandmen) contrives to make those persons of his parish, who follow other trades, and those who have no trade at all, but live upon their various incomes, pay, in addition to their other very heavy taxes, a very heavy poor's rate, which is in fact paying a great part of his labourers' wages; and yet the paupered labourers, by the sweat of their brow, enable these farmers, or Overseer-Farmers, to drink their wine, keep their hunters and their gigs, although they in return are not honest or humane enough to reward them sufficiently to prevent their becoming a heavy burthen to the other description of parishioners.

And can it possibly be owing to the high price of provisions, that, within a few weeks past, we have heard of repeated disturbances among the Local Militia in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire? Have these men, as it is represented, really been several days in a starving condition in the midst of plenty? The first disturbance at Norwich was quelled by promises, without violence; but a letter from Bury St. Edmunds, of the 23d of June, speaks very indignantly of the German cavalry, being understood to be sent after these militia men at Ely in Cambridgeshire.

These Germans are a body of troops, of which our Constitution has no knowledge. These accounts, it seems, have been exaggerated; otherwise it might have been said, "corruption had already begun to destroy itself."

If there has been such an increase of paupers, as has just been intimated, then the increase of prisoners or persons confined for debt all over the kingdom cannot be questioned. This, in fact, rests upon the authority of the legislature itself: In the late Act for the relief of certain Insolvent Debtors, the preamble itself expresses "the crowded state of the prisons and gaols in England and Wales." And a late newspaper estimate of bankruptcies states the number of bankrupts in the year 1808, from January 1st to December 31st inclusive, at eleven hundred and two!

Corruption and abuses, not confined to the country or the court, have at length been avowed, though not defended, in the city. In a Court of Common Council of the City of London, holden on Wednesday, June 21, 1809, several resolutions were founded, and passed on the Report of the Finance Committee, upon Alderman Domville's motion, "That the abuses, that had crept into every branch of the City expenditure, called for the interference of that Court."

But, further, the spirit of speculation in this great metropolis, which is only another word for

taking all advantages, is active and sanguine be yond all precedent, being no longer under any apprehension of receiving any check either from the precepts or the examples of those who partake of the common spoil. The numerous taxes lawfully levied for the support of the King and his government are favours, compared with the unconscionable extortion of those who deal in artiticles of prime necessity; and others, who con. tinue to levy their thousands with the greatest case, by buying street after street, and purchasing the houses over the heads of those tenants who had not the good fortune a few years since to secure good long leases. Hence but too many families, in the middling classes, that used to occupy houses to themselves, have been pushed up from the first and second floors to the garrets; or precipitated from thence into the cellars. And this by no means for the public benefit, but merely for the gratification of private vices.

By a refinement in villany, we have speculating depredators, who not only purchase great numbers of houses belonging to tradesmen; but, knowing their dependence on the situations they occupy, frequently extort a premium or good-will to permit them to stay, and this in addition to an increased rent.

The plentiful harvest thus obtained by rackrenting in the metropolis, is the reason why the