other half--according to
the philanthropy of the English landlords.

Although the conditions of life in the country, the isolated dwellings,
the stability of the surroundings and occupations, and consequently of
the thoughts, are decidedly unfavourable to all development, yet poverty
and want bear their fruits even here. The manufacturing and mining
proletariat emerged early from the first stage of resistance to our
social order, the direct rebellion of the individual by the perpetration
of crime; but the peasants are still in this stage at the present time.
Their favourite method of social warfare is incendiarism. In the winter
which followed the Revolution of July, in 1830-31, these incendiarisms
first became general. Disturbances had taken place, and the whole region
of Sussex and the adjacent counties has been brought into a state of
excitement in October, in consequence of an increase of the coastguard
(which made smuggling much more difficult and "ruined the coast"--in the
words of a farmer), changes in the Poor Law, low wages, and the
introduction of machinery. In the winter the farmers' hay and
corn-stacks were burnt in the fields, and the very barns and stables
under their windows. Nearly every night a couple of such fires blazed
up, and spread terror among the farmers and landlords. The offenders
were rarely discovered, and the workers attributed the incendiarism to a
mythical person whom they named "Swing." Men puzzled their brains to
discover who this Swing could be and whence this rage among the poor of
the country districts. Of the great motive power, Want, Oppression, only
a single person here and there thought, and certainly no one in the
agricultural districts. Since that year the incendiarisms have been
repeated every winter, with each recurring unemployed season of the
agricultural labourers. In the winter of 1843-44, they were once more
extraordinarily frequent. There lies before me a series of numbers of
the _Northern Star_ of that time, each one of which contains a report of
several incendiarisms, stating in each case its authority. The numbers
wanting in the following list I have not at hand; but they, too,
doubtless contain a number of cases. Moreover, such a sheet cannot
possibly ascertain all the cases which occur. November 25th, 1843, two
cases; several earlier ones are discussed. December 16th, in
Bedfordshire, general excitement for a fortnight past in consequence of
frequent