by this time had little else than the axle tionist's hook, and a parcel of graveand wheels left. Mr. Bell was soon clothes were found, and on reaching the joined by some others, who assisted him coffin it was found to contain a woman's in keeping possession of the wreck. petticoat only. The examination was The mob having thus gone over the continued till about half-past five at most part of the town, and having lost night, when the whole coffins buried their main object of attraction, began there, 80 in number, were gone over,. to thin considerably, but a number of and the bodies were found in the whole them went down to the county build-of them, with the exception of three. ings, where a party of the military from the barracks and the staff of the Renfrewshire militia had by that time assembled to pacify them. At this time we understand that the sheriffs and magistrates made an offer of paying a party of labourers to go over the whole of the burying-ground to inspect the graves, under the direction of a committee which the crowd had chosen at the burying-ground.

RURAL AFFAIRS.

In the last Trash, just published, I have given full directions for planting, cultivating, and applying COBBETT'S CORN, as far as LABOURERS, or persons growing small quantities, are concerned. Those who grow large quantities must refer to my "TREATISE ON COBBETT'sIn the course of the riot a party, CORN," and particularly to the ADDITION headed by two chimney-sweeps of the which I made to it last autumn, when I name of Green and Welsh, broke the published a new edition of the book. windows of the hospital, struck the Some Registers back I said, that when dying patients, forced the doors, and I got home, I would give an account of broke open and plundered the spirit- my mangel-wurzel beer. I find that it store. A meeting of special constables took has been rummaged about in my abplace in the Court Hall in the evening, at sence; and that, at any rate, it would which it was resolved that they should have been but rather bad small beer. do duty over the hospital and other I suppose that it was not made in the places where there was any likelihood proper manner; and so the reader will of a disturbance taking place. At this suppose, when he has read the followmeeting it was also stated that the peo- ing letter, the signature to which I do ple employed in examining the graves not put, because it is not necessary; had gone over a considerable number, because I have not the leave of the writer and that in every case the body was to publish his name, though I dare say found in the coffin. It was accordingly he would have no objection to it. Now resolved that this notice, with the names of those engaged as labourers, and that of the committee who had superintended them, should be instantly published to allay the public excitement, and that the examination should be continued till the whole of the graves were gone over.

This party accordingly resumed their labours next day, and when they had gone over 21 graves, every one of which had the body in the coffin, at the suggestion of a member of the Board of Health, who was on the spot, the ground in the immediate vicinity of the grave, where the first empty coffin was found, was examined, and on going a short way into the next grave, on the south to the one in question, a resurrec

I beg this gentleman to have the goodness to write me a letter, telling me very exactly how he makes his beer. I know the qualities well of the mangel wurzel: for horses, cows, pigs, sheep, I know it to be the most valuable root of all. I have some sugar recently made from it in Essex; and very beautiful sugar it is. I shall soon, I hope, have a complete treatise ready to publish on the subject; but, in the mean while, I want the information from this gentleman, in order that I may set the labouring men to work upon it all over the kingdom.

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"in mangel-wurzel seed, addressed to which others, under the same name, me here. Let it be sent to Carron have been applied. That which is in "Wharf, to be shipped per smack.- London, is a mere tool of the Govern"Last April I purchased at your shop ment. WILMOT HORTON lectured in its "20lbs. of the seed, which turned out theatre, in favour of a scheme for sendexceedingly well, being all of the right ing the working people out of the coun"sort, and yielded a produce at the ratery; and he, in his lectures, censured me "of 45 tons per acre.-I have brewed by name for my opinious on the subject; "beer from this root regularly, for the this was not politics; but when I "last three years: and find it very good. wanted to hire the theatre, in order to "It will produce the strength of Lon-answer him, it was a rule of the Institute "don porter, at a cost not exceeding not to permit politics to be discussed in four-pence per gallon, calculating the the theatre! I hope that this Institute "root at 25s. a ton, which price it sold of Manchester will be preserved from "at here last season.-I observe you in- uses like this. I most cordially agree "tend giving a treatise on this subject in Mr. WHITTLE'S Opinions on the subsoon, which I am confident will be of ject: I am for no doctrines that teach great value to farmers and others who working people to be content with empty may cultivate the plant.-I remain, bellies: I do not like “intellectual" pay"Sir, ment for bodily labour; a proof of real ignorance" is, in my mind, quiet submission to tyranny: I despise the man

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"William Cobbett, Esq."

N.B. My friends, Mr. JOSEPH JOHN-who, when children cry for bread, gives 66 them nice little moral books :" I deSTONE, of Manchester ; Mr. ABEL HELLWELL, of Huddersfield; and Mr. test the hypocrite who, when the peoWM. MARTIN, of Birmingham (or Cotteridge Farm); have some of all my seeds, which they will be so obliging as to let anybody have at the prices specified by me, and which are not quite half so high as the seedsmen's prices. They, I am told, accuse me of underselling them; with more reason I might accuse them of overselling me! I am told that they reproach me with selling MANGEL-WURZEL seed at 71⁄2d. a pound, while they sell it for 184. I wanted to sell all to them, but I could find none of them who would GIVE ME FOUR-PENCE A POUND FOR IT! As to the quality, it is the best that I ever saw.

very

MECHANICS' INSTITUTES. THE following letter, by Mr. WartTLE, the editor of the Manchester and Safford Advertiser, my readers will thank me for inserting. The intentions of the far greater part of those who are engaged in these establishments, are excellent; and, I hope, that this establishment will be preserved from the uses to

tells them first to reform themselves: I
ple call for good and cheap government,
say that that man is a fool as well as a
knave, who pretends to seek public
liberty by the means of teaching men
that they are never to resist oppression :
I assert, that all associations, be they
what they may, which teach "passive
obedience and non-resistance," are base
and detestable: I know it to be a mon-
strous error to suppose, that the chop-
stick (who, in fact, have produced all
of what they have been doing, or of the
the recent changes) have been ignorant
consequences, remote as well as near, of
their acts. In Mr. WHITTLE's senti-
n.ents with regard to Mr. HETHERING-
TON I heartily concur, and I beg leave to
be understood as here repeating his
words.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE NEW
MECHANICS' INSTITUTION.

Gentlemen,-On the evening of your third anniversary, which I had the great pleasure of celebrating with you, it was stated by one of your members that you had departed from a resolution originally taken to exclude works on politics from your library;-certainly politics

were not excluded from your evening's Lord BROUGHAM and VAUX, who is entertainment. There were several po- now the champion of that church estalitical allusions made in the course of blishment; I knew that Captain BASIL the evening, and several principles of HALL, who wrote an article in the politics stated, on which I should have Quarterly Review, to prove that France' been disposed to offer a few observa could not get on without a parliament tions, particularly as I then, for the first controlled by an aristocracy; to pretime, had the pleasure of meeting you pare the English people for the ordias a body, had not the lateness of the nances of POLIGNAC, and to justify hour to which your evening was pro- Charles the Tenth, for repealing the tracted, before any opportunity of ad- charter, in order to save the French dressing you presented itself to me, people from themselves; I knew that the made it unbecoming in me to detain Sierra Leone jobber, ZACHARY MAyou longer than the purpose for which CAULAY-I knew that the recent attorI rose seemed imperatively to demand. ney-general, Sir JAMES SCARLETT, and On referring, however, to the report of his every-way worthy brother and sucthe addresses on that very interesting cessor, Sir THOMAS DENMAN,-I knew evening, it appears to me to contain so that the great pawnbroking silk-mermuch to invite commentary, that I can-chant, JAMES MORRISON, Esq., who' not forbear taking this opportunity of recalling your attention to it.

within these few years has accumulated' a fortune of millions by his honest inIt has sometimes been made matter dustry, and soared from the counterof reproach to me, that I have seemed side to a seat in Parliament,-I knew not to interest myself warmly in the that that spawn of a loanmonger, BINGsuccess of either of the Mechanics' In- HAM BARING, for striking whom Cook stitutions in Manchester. That I should of Micheldever was hanged,-I knew have felt little interest in the success of that GEORGE WILLIAM WOOD, Esq., the first, is naturally accounted for by the worthy president of our Manchester the same motives which have induced Chamber of Commerce,-I knew that' you to establish a second. Tirose mo- each and all of these had been officers tives I have always regarded with the of the Society for diffusing USEFUL highest respect, as reflecting the great- KNOWLEDGE,-I knew that each and est honour on those who had the virtue fall of these were active patrons of meto feel them, and the spirit to act upon chanics' institutions, and I knew, as I them; and, in proportion to the interest hope you know too, that there is not a which I am sure you will give me man amongst them who would not see the credit for taking in the liberty and in people really "taking their affairs into the well-being of the working man, was their own hands," with about the same my wish to see that virtue and that complacency with which Satan looked spirit crowned with the success which down upon the bowers of Paradise,-and they deserved. My interest in your suc- who does not tender to the people his cess was not, however, altogether un- useful knowledge" with about the mixed with anxiety. I felt the import- same benevolent intentions with which ant influence which mechanics' institu- the tempter invited Eve to the forbidden tions might exercise on the political re-fruit. It was not, therefore, without lations of society; I saw corruption anxiety that I watched even your sowatching over their birth, for the pur-ciety, based though it was on principles pose of vitiating and debasing them, of the purest democracy; and I confess for the purpose of converting them into that I felt my anxiety increased, when engines of hostility to the just rights of I found that your society was to be the labouring man; I knew that the graced with the name of a political church establishment itself, and all its patron.

abuses, subsist on the pretence of It is a common maxim with the shalgiving instruction, of giving useful low praters about abstract liberty, that instruction to the people; I knew that the arts and sciences cannot flourish

where liberty is wanting. It is a maxim government does wrong, instead of coras common with tyrants, and a maxim recting them, we must reproach ourmuch more sound, that the true policy selves. All these are the sophistries of of crafty tyrants is, to give the utmost tyranny; and all these, down even to encouragement to arts and sciences, in the question of passive obedience, aporder to divest the minds of quick-witted peared to me to receive a sort of indirect men from prying into the abuses of go- admission from some quarter or other, vernment. This is the account to which in the course of the evening. the above-named friends of liberty have Let it not be supposed that these obhoped to turn the establishment of me- servations are offered in that spirit of chanics' institutes; and, while they re- captious criticism, which some of the tain upon the statute-book laws which speakers so unnecessarily deprecated. I were passed to deprive the people of assent most fully to the justice of cheap publications; laws for which the observations made by your chairLord PLUNKETT voted, on the ground man in the course of the evening, that the people were becoming too in- that the members acquitted themtelligent, and ought to be placed, by selves as speakers, better than the law, at a greater distance from secrets visitors. I found, in all I witnessed, of state; while they thus indirectly se- additional motives for feeling proud of cure to themselves a monopoly of school- the advocacy of the people's rights. I masters, and all the positive advantages not only believe that the attachment of of a censorship; they circulate, partly the members to those rights is as cordial at the expense of the public revenue, as my own; but I have the satisfaction those cheap publications which are so of knowing that many of them concur much applauded; and not satisfied with in all my views of the exact nature of the old trick of tyrants, of diverting the those rights, and of the parties and the attention from politics, they endeavour men, who are likely to restore us to their to make their cheap publications the full enjoyment. I hope, therefore, that channels of perverted politics, of every you will not deem it either invidious or sophistry, by which the principles of presumptuous, if I seem to assume that, liberty can be undermined, its nature without possessing a better knowledge obscured, and its practical restoration in England retarded.

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of first principles, my closer attention to the views of parties, and my more constant observance of the characters and conduct of public men, have put me more upon my guard than some of you, against the reception of specious sophistry, and against reliance upon worthless allies.

One doctrine they preach openly, and that is passive obedience; not, however, as a matter of duty, but as a proof of wisdom. Others they advance more covertly, under the shelter of some wellsounding general proposition. As, for instance, ignorance is the cause of The first speech to which I shall misery." The conclusion which it is more particularly revert is that of Mr. hoped we will draw is, that we must BEARD. "What! do you object to not look to Government to relieve our that?” I do. "Do you place him miseries, till our ignorance is first re- among our WORTHLESS allies?" In the moved; and as ignorance must be re-sense in which I use the word, I do moved very slowly from amongst a peo-place him among the worthless allies; ple who are over-worked and under-I do place him among the allies who paid, and who have, therefore, neither will not serve us in our struggle for time, opportunity, nor spirits for ac- liberty. And that you may not start at quiring knowledge of any kind, this this, know that with those high-soundprocess will give tyranny a very distant ing professions of attachment to theoday of account. Or, to give another retic liberty and popular rights, Mr. instance," All nations have as good BEARD can contrive to unite the closest governments as they deserve;" from intimacy with Mr. JoHN EDWARD TAYwhich the deduction is, that when the LOR, can contrive to unite support,

applause, and admiration of his paper. What, then, means this absurdity? It

Do I affect to discover in these circumstances a proof of Mr. BEARD's insincerity Far from it. But I do discover in them the proof, that the admission of general principles is not, of necessity, a practical love of freedom,-is not, of necessity, an active scorn of consummate political and personal baseness. I do discover in it the proof that Mr. BEARD will be but a useless ally of the people.

But what I object to in Mr. BEARD'S speech is this

"Much as the doctrine was recognised, that the Government could work out for the people its good, his opinion was, that the people must work out good for themselves; it was not a good Government that made a nation happy; but honest hearts and active minds made the government good, and the people being placed, by their moral and intellectual power, in the position which they ought to occupy, they will, in the elevation of the base of society, raise the whole structure."

means that Mr. BEARD is a worthless ally of the people; it means that he is the hood-winked disciple of the Changeally philosophers; it means that the people ought not to expect any immediate benefit from reform; that they must educate themselves first, and improve the government afterwards.

But that this will not do, what further proof need we than the facts stated in the speech of your member, Mr. RICHARDSON

"The Mechanics' Institution had few members who worked in the factories of this town; and of those few the greater part came to their classes so much fatigued with their daily labour, that it was with the greatest difficulty they were prevented going asleep."

"

We shall make but slow progress, then, if scientific knowledge is to come before freedom. No! we must plant the tree of liberty first, and pluck its fruit afterwards. And, indeed, if such Now if good government be not knowledge were to lead to the results capable of making a people happy, why which Mr. RICHARDSON anticipated; should good government be an object of if it were really true that in all cases of desire? Why is any thing desirable on" riot" and "violation of property," this earth but as conducing to secure the persons so outraging the law, were individual or general happiness? Or persons of inferior intellect and informadoes it mean only that the good people tion; that such outrages did not take must come first, and the good govern- place," where education was more gement come afterwards? How does it neral; if this were true, this is exactly happen, then, that Rome, the asylum of the result which Lord BROUGHAM and run-away slaves, commenced by estab- VAUX anticipates from the establishment lishing a good government; and that, of Mechanics' Institutions. But before under the institutions of those fugitive a reformer condemns an outrage of the vagabonds, grew up the severe morality law, he should ask whether the law which laid the broad foundations of the be just. It has been the law of EngRoman empire? How comes it to pass, land more than once in this century, that then, that America, peopled in great the minister should have the power of part by the refuse of jails and the out- imprisoning any person for any time, casts of society, presents an example of without preferring any charge against national morals, which puts to shame such person. If the Reform Bill be the decendants of the moral people who thrown out, and if the Duke of WELcut off those outcasts from their com- LINGTON again come into power, this munity? How comes it, but because must again be the law of England this the purity of American institutions has very year. And will none resist that purified the morals of her people; and law but persons of inferior intellect and because the corruption of our govern- information? Then perish intellect and ment here has spread its poison through information; and live the manly spirit the community? How comes it, but of the people; live their hatred of from the all-important truth that the tyrants, live their scorn of passive institutions of every country are the obedience ! But this sentiment of fountains of the morals of the people? Mr. RICHARDSON does not do justice