KENT MACHINE-BREAKERS.
A CORRESPONDENT in the Morning Herald computes, that dur- ing the disturbances in Kent, one hundred thrashing-machines have been destroyed. It appears that threatening letters have been in many cases sent round signed " Swing is not so well instructed as Rock ; the epistles of the latter used to be bet- ter spelt. Of all the machines ever invented, the thrashing. machine is the last that the poor man should object to. It in- creases. the quantity of the grain nearly 21 per cent, by the accuracy with which it Separates it from the straw, and thus lowers the price in a similar ratio. Other machines lower the price of their respective productions, but the thrashing-machine lowers the price and increases the quantity at the same time. A pound of cotton spun by hand gives as much yarn as when spun by a jenny —the latter only Spins it sooner ; with the thrashing-machine the work of ten days is finished in one, and the stack- which in the old way gave 50 bushels yields 51. The invention adds to every fifty acres of arable surface in England an acre and a half; which the boors of Kent would now give back to the ignorance from which they have been reclaimed. We heard a great deal about the brave men of Kent—the enlightened men of Kent—some two years ago: it is indeed a fine sample of courage and. intelligence to set fire to out-houses by night, for the purpose of destroying the most useful invention that distinguished the last quarter of the eighteenth century!
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