At Hinckley, one-third of the inhabitants were paupers; more than a fifth of the houses stood empty; and there was not work enough in the place to employ properly one-third of the weavers.

In Dorsetshire a man and his wife had for wages 2s.6d.per week, and three loaves; and the ablest laborer had 6s.

or 7s.

In Wiltshire, the poor peasants held open-air meetings after work--which was necessarily after dark.
There, by the light of one or two flaring tallow candles, the man or the woman who had a story to tell stood on a chair, and related how their children were fed and clothed in old times--poorly enough, but so as to keep body and soul together; and now, how they could nohow manage to do it.

The bare details of the ages of their children, and what the little things could do, and the prices of bacon and bread, and calico and coals, had more pathos in them than any oratory heard elsewhere." "But all this came from the Corn Laws," is the ready reply of the American protectionist.