and that when corn was dear wages wore high, and of course it naturally struck James Lankester that the best way to raise the price of wages was to raise the price of corn, and the best way to raise the price of corn was to make it scarce; and, acting upon that view, he went out and set tire to Farmer Hobb's stacks. (Laughter.) Let them not suppose that he (Mr. Cobden) was making up a story for the occasion, There was not in his account any addition of facts to those which appeared in the papers, and Barou Alderson, before whom the case was tried, stated, with his wig on (a laugh), and with all the gravity of a judge, that it was a most strange and extraordinary application of the doctrines of political economy. This man had evidently drawn that deduction from the philosophy of the Morning Post; for Lankester had no malice against Farmer Hobbs, and he, therefore, did not touch his cart horses or his saddle horses, or his dairy, but ho went to his stacks and set fire to them, to make corn dear, and, of course, in his opinion, to raise ways. That was the effect of carrying out practically the doctrines of the Morning Post; so what, from such a result, they might in future call the philosophy of that journal, the logic of the lucifer match. (Laughter and loud cheers.) But James Lankester was sentenced to be transported for the term of his natural life, to propagate the doctrines of the Morning Post in Australia. (Laughter.) Now, he (Mr. Cobden) wanted to know the difference in principle (for be knew there was a difference in law) between creating an artificial scarcity of that corn which the Almighty gave to all the nations of the earth—he wished to know what was the difference between making an Artificial scarcity of corn by preventing us from getting a supply from abroad, and making it scarce by setting fire to the stacks of Farmer Hobbs? (Cheers.) The plea in both cases was exactly the same, for Lankester's profession of faith was heard by the gaoler, who pretended to be asleep. Lankester stated to other prisoners in gaol, that the motive which induced him to burn the stacks was in order that he might make corn dear, and so raise wages; and what then, be would ask, was the difference in principle? (Hear, hear.) Where was the difference between those who made corn dear by artificial means, and Lankester, who took his own mode of making it dear? He much feared that half those who supported the present Corn Laws would stand less acquitted in the eyes of heaven than James Lankester, the unfortunate man who set fire to those stacks. (Hear, hear.) He repeated, that men who know what they were doing, and notwithstanding that knowledge supported the Corn Laws for their own selfish purposes, were more to blame than the wretch who burned that corn, if in doing so be did not know how really guilty he was in the sight of heaven."
Mr. Fox delivered a brilliant address, continued to a
