Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/236

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228
Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.

powerful men in the dress of sailors advancing towards me. I had in my pocket about fifty pounds which I had, just before I left London, drawn out of my bankers for my travelling expenses, and I had not so large an account at my bankers as to render the loss of this sum of money a matter of indifference to me. However, I resolved to make the best of it, and when the two sailors came close to me and said that they were travelling on foot from Liverpool to Poole, to seek for employment, I gave them a shilling, with which fortunately they appeared satisfied, thanked me, and continued their journey.

To return to the particular village before mentioned. Walking down hill towards this village some fifty or sixty years later than the day when Arthur Young walked up that hill in France, I encountered some sights and some scenes, which those witnessed by Arthur Young in France in that bygone time could hardly exceed in the materials they afforded for "taking the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt."

What is this? A cottage built of wood and without a chimney, the smoke ascending through what appears a large hole in the roof. The chimney fell down, I learned on inquiry, some time since,