d. And that a new movement is already beginning among
the agricultural labourers is proved by a meeting which Earl Radnor, a
Liberal landlord, caused to be held in October, 1844, near Highworth,
where his estates lie, to pass resolutions against the Corn Laws. At
this meeting, the labourers, perfectly indifferent as to these laws,
demanded something wholly different, namely small holdings, at low rent,
for themselves, telling Earl Radnor all sorts of bitter truths to his
face. Thus the movement of the working-class is finding its way into the
remote, stationary, mentally dead agricultural districts; and, thanks to
the general distress, will soon be as firmly rooted and energetic as in
the manufacturing districts. {269} As to the religious state of the
agricultural labourers, they are, it is true, more pious than the
manufacturing operatives; but they, too, are greatly at odds with the
Church--for in these districts members of the Established Church almost
exclusively are to be found. A correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_,
who, over the signature, "One who has whistled at the plough," reports
his tour through the agricultural districts, relates, among other things,
the following conversation with some labourers after service: "I asked
one of these people whether the preacher of the day was their own
clergyman. "Yes, blast him! He is our own parson, and begs the whole
time. He's been always a-begging as long as I've known him." (The
sermon had been upon a mission to the heathen.) "And as long as I've
known him too," added another; "and I never knew a parson but what was
begging for this or the other." "Yes," said a woman, who had just come
out of the church, "and look how wages are going down, and see the rich
vagabonds with whom the parsons eat and drink and hunt. So help me God,
we are more fit to starve in the workhouse than pay the parsons as go
among the heathen." "And why," said another, "don't they send the
parsons as drones every day in Salisbury Cathedral, for nobody but the
bare stones? Why don't _they_ go among the heathen?" "They don't go,"
said the old man whom I had first asked, "because they are rich, they
have all the land they need, they want the money in order to get rid of
the poor parsons. I know what they want. I know them too long for
that." "But, good friends," I asked, "you surely do not always come out
of the church with such bitter feelings towards the preacher? Why do you
g