ed to them;
all the rest is downright _fraud_. It is horrible to call them "the
_once happy_ laborer."

Whether what may be called the moral or philosophical happiness of the
laborious classes is increased or not, I cannot say. The seat of that
species of happiness is in the mind; and there are few data to ascertain
the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. Philosophical
happiness is to want little. Civil or vulgar happiness is to want much
and to enjoy much.

If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere
towards the happiness of the rational man) be the object of our
estimate, then I assert, without the least hesitation, that the
condition of those who labor (in all descriptions of labor, and in all
gradations of labor, from the highest to the lowest inclusively) is, on
the whole, extremely meliorated, if more and better food is any standard
of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but they have the
advantage of their augmented labor: yet whether that increase of labor
be on the whole a _good_ or an _evil_ is a consideration that would lead
us a great way, and is not for my present purpose. But as to the fact of
the melioration of their diet, I shall enter into the detail of proof,
whenever I am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of
contenting them with anything but bread made of the finest flour and
meat of the first quality is proof sufficient.

I further assert, that, even under all the hardships of the last year,
the laboring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from
charity, (which it seems is now an insult to them,) in fact, fare better
than they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty years ago,--or
even at the period of my English observation, which is about forty-four
years. I even assert that full as many in that class as ever were known
to do it before continued to save money; and this I can prove, so far as
my own information and experience extend.

It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal
price of provisions. I allow, it has not fluctuated with that
price,--nor ought it; and the squires of Norfolk had dined, when they
gave it as their opinion that it might or ought to rise and fall with
the market of provisions. The rate of wages, in truth, has no _direct_
relation to that price. Labor is a commodity like every other, and rises
or falls according to the demand. This is in the nature of things;
h