youngest of them of a marriageable age, only four of whom married farmers. Thus, of the whole seventy-nine, only eight had any direct interest in agriculture. The farm was but the nest, from which the birds were to fly to find their food elsewhere. The instances were taken from families which held rather extensive farms, and the sons, by emigration, or by seeking other employment, had sustained their fathers' station in society, and some had risen considerably above it. But the children of the smaller farmers had sunk to the class below that of their fathers. They had become farm-labourers, masons, joiners, smiths, or weavers, and the daughters had married into the same class. The landowner had other means of providing for his sons; the bar, the church, the army, the navy, the colonies, and government offices were all open to them. " But how," I asked," are you, the farmers of Great Britain and Ireland, to find employment for your sons? Humble excisemen they may starving, like Robert Burns, on less than the salary of a valet humble curates they may be, like the author of 'The Sabbath,' with little other reward than the consciousness of discharging their sacred duties; post-office clerks, stamp-office clerks they may be, with such remuneration as was offered to John Critchley Prince, and refused by the poet, as pay not equal to that of a Manchester porter but while trade is depressed—while the capital employed in it yields little or no return,—and while the labour and skill exercised in it,receive no adequate reward, farmers' families must either sink into poverty or tear themselves from all they have held dear, and seek for independence in foreign lands."
In accordance with the resolution passed by the League at its formation in London, an organ of the new movement, designated The Anti-Corn-Law Circular was published in Manchester, the first number appearing in April. In a few weeks it had a circulation of 15,000, with an unusual number of readers, for almost every one who
