precise but newly-discovered value of the crow, asked the witness, If a boy was worth ninepence per day, and a crow worth fifty boys, how much was the crow worth to the farmer in sterling money? Paper, pen, and ink were handed to him, and he was assisted in his calculations, when it appeared that a crow was worth to the farmer very nearly £2 per day. At this rate per day, Mr. Berkeley was then asked the yearly value of the bird, which turned out to be the amazing sum of £700. He had before said that fifty would be a low average for the number of crows in some districts upon each farm, and the last problem which was put to him was, What was the aggregate value per year to the farmer of his proper quota of these useful birds? This evolved the most startling conclusion of all, for it appeared that the farmer was a gainer of £35,000 from his fifty crows. Happy man! what a pity he could not pay his rent in crows! The scene altogether was most amusing, the rage of the discomfited Mr. Grantley Berkeley contrasting well with Mr. Bright's imperturbability.

A personal friend of Mr. Bright, who used to reside in Rochdale many years ago, has related to us an anecdote worthy of repetition. “I remember," said the narrator, “asking Mr. Bright, on his return from one of his lecturing tours with Mr. Cobden, whether, seeing that they met with so much opposition, he really thought they would be successful at last. Mr. Bright replied:- One day lately I was going along the road, and I saw a man breaking stones; he was hammering away at a very large stone with a hammer that had a long handle but a very small head. Well, I thought, what a simpleton this man is-why does he not use a sledge-hammer and break it at once? However, he kept knocking and knocking for some time, when at last the stone flew in pieces; and I at once saw that if we kept persevering in our attacks the Corn Laws would go just as suddenly."" With what patience, and industry, and courage they led the struggle has already been gleaned from these pages, and, like other brave men, they at length found all things round them coming to their help.

Mr. Bright's illustration is a confirmation of the opinion expressed by Buffon, that "Genius is Patience." Patience must first explore the

BRIGHT ON COMING EVENTS.

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depths where the pearl lies hid before Genius boldly dives and brings it up full into light. Nothing great or durable has ever been produced with ease. Labour is the parent of all the lasting wonders of this world, whether in improving the condition of the people, whether in verse or stone, whether in poetry, prose, or eloquence.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE END OF THE CORN LAWS APPROACHES.

Dreadful Destitution in Oxfordshire-Important Letter from Lord John Russell to his Constituents-Sir Robert Peel's Conversion to Free Trade-Increased Exertion on the Part of the League-Bright and Cobden again visiting Manchester, Bolton, Birmingham, Burnley, Sheffield, Preston, Gloucester, Bath, and London-Remarkable Meetings at Goatacre and other places.

HILE Conservative statesmen were toying with the question of the Corn Laws, which they felt they must sooner or later abolish, the elements themselves had pronounced their doom. The weather during the summer months of 1845 was unfavourable for the growth of corn, as rain fell often, and the beneficent power of the sun seldom reached the grain. When it became known that all over Europe the harvest would be below the average there was consternation, and lamentations were frequently heard in the streets as well as at public meetings. The potato crop in Ireland was also a failure, and famine, with its pinched and meagre face, threatened the homes of the Irish peasantry. The leaves which had enriched the summer were dropping from the trees, and this was the season when the men who had toiled upon the land were in great numbers turned adrift. Gaols and workhouses began again to be crowded, yet this was the time when the landlords and many of the legislators, who had always shown a disposition to legislate for themselves, retired into the country, and enjoyed themselves by shooting game and feasting at tables always well spread. Still it must not be forgotten that they gave prizes to the industrious, the honest, and those who, although they had always the workhouse in view, managed to avoid its portals. Yet after all this prize-giving was not an affair of

the heart and "good feeling," or philanthropy, but it had a mercantile aspect, and was a masterpiece of craft. The contingent reversion of a 30s. or 40s. prize, to fall due some time in the course of thirty or forty years, with the accompaniment of a framed and glazed testimonial, guaranteed the virtues of a lifetime; kept the prospective and possible recipient off the parish books; preserved the landlord's game from unlicensed sporting; and ensured a willing and hearty, a sober and steady, labourer for the landlord's domain. Those who were compelled by poverty to seek sustenance within the walls of a workhouse escaped from the stupid regulations of the place as soon as convenient. The able-bodied escaped to kill game, steal sheep, rob hen-roosts-to do anything, to take any chance, rather than be punished in the workhouse for seeking parish relief; they escaped from the dietary of the unions to the better fare of the prisons and the hulks, and the better-fed convict gangs of the Bermudas, Gibraltar, and New South Wales; but the old-the venerable fathers and mothers of the villages-could not escape, save into their graves; and, that even the hope of the grave might not be too comfortable to them in the imprisonment of their old age, they had the certainty placed before them that, since they were such vile creatures as to be old and poor, they would not be buried in the churchyard with their kindred, but consigned to the paupers' ground, within the walls of the workhouse, in the same way as murderers were interred in prisons.

The Rev. William Ferguson, minister of the Congregational Church, Bicester, Oxfordshire, on the 23rd of December (1845), reported to the League thirty-six cases of shocking destitution in his district, and was supplied with bedding, &c., by the League for their relief. He remarked in his letter:

"The facts are more than sufficient to demonstrate the extent to which the peasantry of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire have been reduced and degraded by Corn and Provision Laws, yearly tenancy, and low wages. Your readers may fully rely on the accuracy of the whole of my statements. Twenty-seven of the families who have received the beds have been examined by myself, and the other nine have been examined, at my request, by the dissenting minister at Brill, and a respectable inhabitant of Marsh Gibbon. I can assure both you and your readers that my task has been an arduous and trying one. It has been trying to both body and

mind. I have had to walk from house to house, from village to village, for several days, under a pelting rain, up to the ankles in mud and water, and wet through from head to foot, searching out the most needy and deserving objects of charity. The nakedness, afflictions, and poverty which I have witnessed, during my investigation of the present state of so many of my fellowmen in the neighbourhood of Bicester, have been such as I cannot describe. At this moment there are many of the peasantry in our province living upon swedes, and a scanty share of THAT BREAD for which they have toiled and laboured. There they are, huddled together, male and female, in numbers from five to ten, or even eleven, in one small room over the damp and fireless room in which they suffer, pine, and die! No intelligent person can wonder that too many of the field-labourers are immoral, dishonest, and ruined. Oh! that some wealthy and benevolent person who may happen to read my statistics would put it into my power to purchase forty or fifty smock-frocks, of different sizes, for the most naked and degraded of the peasantry in our neighbourhood. A good smock-frock would be a handsome New Year's gift to a poor field-labourer. If I had the money, I could buy the frocks in Bicester. I have not thrown out this hint to others until I have, for the time being, beggared myself. I am still at work searching for the most wretched of the labouring classes of our own locality, and thus distributing the beds which I have in hand. I am very anxious to have the whole of the beds promised to me; and hope you will forward them as soon as convenient, that I may dispose of them at once. I shall not trouble you, sir, with any additional facts for publication. Not, however, because I have no more particulars of a soul-harrowing nature to communicate, but because the state of things which I have now made known to the public is more than enough to convince the most hardened and sceptical lord of the soil that the peasantry are a degraded and ruined race. I wish it to be distinctly understood that only five of the beds which I have distributed have been given away among the poor of my own congregation. The parties who have received the greater number of the beds are members of the Established Church, and a few of them are Wesleyans. I have described some of the peasantry's beds as flock beds, but strictly speaking they are not flock beds, but something in the shape of beds made up of pieces of old mops, old carpets, old cloth, and rotten rags; and their bed-ticks are a bundle of old patches. In one hovel I found only one bed for seven persons, including husband, wife, and children!! In another hovel, in Upper Arncott, I saw the corpse of a child laid out on a small table at the fire-side. It was laid there because there was no room for it in the place in which the wretched family sleep!! Three men, who have received each a bed, walked five miles to thank me, and to thank the Council of the League for the beds. These men and their families can now rest on comfortable beds, and consequently they will be better able to cultivate that portion of land in Buckinghamshire on which they toil and starve."

The League at once set vigorously to work, and decided to raise funds amounting to £250,000.

The Cabinet at last saw the serious position of affairs, and as many as five meetings a week were held to consider the distress and the disasters which had fallen upon the country. Sir Robert Peel knew that it was not a time for half measures, and he was favourable to the opening of the ports by an order in council. At the same time he was