price of wheat reached seventy shillings. The whole conduct of the delegation ought to have made a deep impression on ministers, had they ever looked beyond the limits of their parliamentary power. Mr. J. B. Smith began the conference in a modest and respectful but perfectly firm manner, and then called on Mr. E. Ashworth, who gave a deeply distressing account of the state of Bolton, and boldly advocated repeal, not as a manufacturers' question, but as a measure of justice and humanity. He was followed by the Rev. P. Brewster, of the Abbey Church, Paisley, whose position as a clergyman having disposal of the scanty parochial fund doled out to relieve the poor in Scotland, gave him ample opportunity of observing their wretched condition. The Mayor of Carlisle was next called forth, and gave an affecting account of the state of the working classes there. He said that its peace was preserved mainly by the hope that the Anti-Corn-Law deputies would be able to effect something for their relief, and if that hope should be disappointed, an agitation of a very different kind would no doubt commence. Mr. John Brooks, the worthy Boroughreeve of Manchester, followed, and stated, unmoved, many instances of serious depression in the property of men of his own class; but when he came to give a detail of the distresses of the working classes, and to describe one particular family, the members of which, after a life of economy and industry, had been compelled to pawn articles of furniture and clothes, one after another, till nothing was left but bare walls and empty cupboards, his feelings completely overpowered him, convulsive sobs choked his utterance, and he was obliged to pause till he recovered from his deep emotion. The tears rolled down the cheeks of Joseph Sturge; John Benjamin Smith strove in vain to conceal his feelings; there was scarcely a tearless eye in the multitude; and the ministers looked with perfect astonishment at a scene so unusual to statesmen and courtiers. Mr. Labouchere's
