were well fed. I asked my foreman how the compositors in my office, whose wages had been the same sum weekly for a quarter of a century, were expending what they saved from the low price of food, and he said it was astonishing to see how much they were laying out on good clothes and good furniture, besides what they were laying past for future provision. And now again came the question from some: "Why should it not always be thus?" If a good harvest in England was productive of all this comfort, why should not the people of England have the advantage of a good harvest anywhere else? But then again came the question from others: "Why should we agitate for cheap food when wheat is only four shillings and sixpence a bushel?"
There were, however, some amongst those who were asking, "Why should it not always be thus?" who were also preparing to put the question emphatically to the country at large. In 1835 there had been sent to me, for publication in my paper, some admirably written letters. They contained no internal evidence to guide me in guessing as to who might be the writer, and I concluded that there was some new man amongst us, who, if he held a station that would enable him to take a part in public affairs, would exert a widely beneficial influence amongst us. He might be some young man in a warehouse who had thought deeply on political economy, and its practical application in our commercial policy, who might not be soon in a position to come before the public as an influential teacher; but we had, I had no doubt, somewhere amongst us, perhaps sitting solitary after his day's work in some obscure apartment, like Adam Smith in his quiet closet at Kirkaldy, one, inwardly and quietly conscious of his power, but patiently biding his time, to popularize the doctrines sent forth in the "Wealth of Nations," and to make the multitude think as the philosopher had thought, and to act upon their convictions. I
