tion even of economic laws. For five and twenty years he had, with more or less variation, been going from bad to worse. So much indeed was this the case, that the opening of 1872 found the actual tillers of English soil in a state of "depression" bordering on actual famine. Then it was that the Agricultural Laborers' Union took root, and Mr. Joseph Arch first became known to the public as the Moses who had been raised up to lead his down-trodden brethren out of the house of bondage. Like his prototype, he might have gone over to the oppressor, much to his own advantage, in the capacity of land steward to a local Pharaoh; but he had resisted the temptation, and, when the hour struck, the man was ready.
Joseph Arch, founder and president of the Agricultural Laborers' Union, was born in November, 1826, at Barford,—a beautiful village, of some eight hundred souls, about three miles from the historic town of Warwick. All about are stately mansions Of the great, and Shakespeare's Avon winds close by through lovely meadows studded with majestic' trees. Like himself. Arch's father and grandfather were industrious, ill-requited hewers of wood and drawers of water. Howbeit,—
"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor."
The life-story of Mr. Arch's father is short enough, and sad enough. Unlike his son, he was a man of peace, disposed in all things to conform to the behests of the powers that be; but he "drew the line somewhere," and not to his advantage. He was sufficiently
