have explained and enforced a hundred times over.
Mr. WILLIAM HANNING told the Committee that the labourers in his part of
Somersetshire were "almost wholly supplied with potatoes, _breakfast_ and
_dinner_, brought them _in the fields_, and nothing but potatoes; and that
they used, in better times, to get a certain portion of bacon and cheese,
which, on account of their "poverty, they do not eat now." It is
impossible that men can be _contented_ in such a state of things: it is
unjust to desire them to be contented: it is a state of misery and
degradation to which no part of any community can have any show of right
to reduce another part: men so degraded have no protection; and it is a
disgrace to form part of a community to which they belong. This
degradation has been occasioned by a silent change in the value of the
money of the country. This has purloined the wages of the labourer; it has
reduced him by degrees to housel with the spider and the bat, and to feed
with the pig. It has changed the habits, and, in a great measure, the
character of the people. The sins of this system are enormous and
undescribable; but, thank God! they seem to be approaching to their end!
Money is resuming its value, labour is recovering its price: let us hope
that the wretched potatoe is disappearing, and that we shall, once more,
see the knife in the labourer's hand and the loaf upon his board.

[This was written in 1821. _Now_ (1823) we have had the experience of
1822, when, for the first time, the world saw a considerable part of a
people, plunged into all the horrors of _famine_, at a moment when the
government of that nation declared _food to be abundant_! Yes, the year
1822 saw Ireland in this state; saw the people of whole parishes receiving
the _extreme unction_ preparatory to yielding up their breath for want of
food; and this while large exports of meat and flour were taking place in
that country! But horrible as this was, disgraceful as it was to the name
of Ireland, it was attended with this good effect: it brought out, from
many members of Parliament (in their places,) and from the public in
general, the acknowledgment, that the _misery_ and _degradation_ of the
Irish were chiefly owing to the _use of the potatoe as the almost sole
food of the people_.]

100. In my next number I shall treat of the _keeping of cows_. I have said
that I will teach the cottager how to keep a cow all the year round upon
the produce of a quarter o