t do so, whence come beggary, deceit of all sorts,
ending in fully developed craftiness. If he were so inclined, he yet
has not the courage which makes of the more energetic of his class
wholesale poachers and smugglers. But he pilfers when occasion
offers, and teaches his children to lie and steal. His abject and
submissive demeanour towards his wealthy neighbours shows that they
treat him roughly and with suspicion; hence he fears and hates them,
but he never will injure them by force. He is depraved through and
through, too far gone to possess even the strength of despair. His
wretched existence is brief, rheumatism and asthma bring him to the
workhouse, where he will draw his last breath without a single
pleasant recollection, and will make room for another luckless wretch
to live and die as he has done."

Our author adds that besides this class of agricultural labourers, there
is still another, somewhat more energetic and better endowed physically,
mentally, and morally; those, namely, who live as wretchedly, but were
not born to this condition. These he represents as better in their
family life, but smugglers and poachers who get into frequent bloody
conflicts with the gamekeepers and revenue officers of the coast, become
more embittered against society during the prison life which they often
undergo, and so stand abreast of the first class in their hatred of the
property-holders. "And," he says, in closing, "this whole class is
called, by courtesy, the bold peasantry of England."

Down to the present time, this description applies to the greater portion
of the agricultural labourers of England. In June, 1844, the _Times_
sent a correspondent into the agricultural districts to report upon the
condition of this class, and the report which he furnished agreed wholly
with the foregoing. In certain districts wages were not more than six
shillings a week; not more, that is, that in many districts in Germany,
while the prices of all the necessaries of life are at least twice as
high. What sort of life these people lead may be imagined; their food
scanty and bad, their clothing ragged, their dwellings cramped and
desolate, small, wretched huts, with no comforts whatsoever; and, for
young people, lodging-houses, where men and women are scarcely separated,
and illegitimate intercourse thus provoked. One or two days without work
in the course of a month must inevitably plunge s