int glrobintes.
Meetings of agricultural societies continue a feature of provincial move- ments; and the discussions at them are various in topic and tone.
In the Grantham Agricultural Society, Mr. Healey, the Secretary, dis- played a stout adherence to the forsaken policy of protection, and upbraided the tenant-farmers for their loss of that spirit and pluck which they once had, and for not taking care to be better represented in the House of Com- mons—
They must send better men to Parliament. Was it reason'able or right that the representation of a county like Lincoln should be settled in the drawingroom of any nobleman? The tenant-farmers had got rights, and had not got pluck enough to exercise them; they would therefore be trampled under foot—if they lay down, any man might put his foot on their neck. Let them up then, put their shoulders to the wheel, and turn out the beggarly Whigs ; and then mark the man who dared propose a Free-trader on the hustings at the next election. (Great cheer- ing.) Sir John Trollope, one of the County Members, protested goodhumour- edly against the insinuation that the representation of the county was settled in any drawingroom; and as to protection the Members had pro- tested enough; the responsibility does not rest with them. They are a minority; and if the constituencies want the tide stemmed, they must take the matter into their own hands and send more Members of their way of thinking into the House of Commons.
At the meeting of the Saffron Walden Society, Lord Braybrooke repre- sented the prospects of fanning in a more favourable light— Perhaps it might be said that the worst was past, as everybody imagined that the "transition state" would be the worst. On that point he had the opinion of Lord Yarborough—a good agriculturist and a rnan of high character: so far from despairing, he thought farming was beginning to go ahead, and be instanced some of his own tenantry as proving the fact. Lord Braybrooke had great faith in the reviving effects of an increased consumption of wheat, as happened in the reign of James the First. " When, in the year 1622, corn was so cheap that the poorer orders began generally to consume wheaten flour, the consequence was that in the next year (which was probably a short crop) wheat rose to its former price."
Dr. Bucicland had of course some geological advice; which, given with dogmatic good-humour and practical reference to instances, was well re- ceived— In the Midland districts of England, where the spirit of improvement had tra- velled to the banks of the Trent, in that fine manly country where God and Na- ture had done so much, there man had done the least. Let them look to the country between Birmingham and Derby, and see the state of the fields; to the Vale of Taunton Dean, where he saw lands that would produce forty-six bushels an acre if drained, but they were undrained, and did not produce more than twenty-three, for the farmers were as stupid as their oxen. (Laughter.) He was not disposed to take a gloomy view. They had before them the means of in- creasing, by the application of science, the produce of the land; for if they could get forty bushels an acre instead of twenty, that must tend to relieve their diffi- culties. If they looked at the geological map of England, they would find that one-third of the whole was made up of clay, and there was not a single acre of that land the produce of which, if properly drained, would not after five years be doubled. He had bought a farm of 200 acres, and, instead of acting like a foolish squire and attempting to lay wilderness to wilderness, he had spent 6001. on it in drainage in six weeks; before it only produced nine or ten ricks of corn, and now it produced twenty or thirty. The parts that were drained produced double the quantity produced on the land not drained, though they were only separated by a thorn hedge put up for an enclosure. This was not to be sneered at as theory, it was real practice. This was better than keeping their money in their breeches- pockets and saying they could not employ the labourers. If they had not the money in their own pockets for drainage, it was their own fault, because 200000/. had been voted by Parliament to be lent for that purpose, at reasonable inte- rest, and to be repaid in twenty years. If by good management in these mat- ters, drainage and skilful farming, they got better crops, that would tend to re- lieve the agricultural distress which undoubtedly prevailed in the country.
Major Beresford was as desponding in regard to the resources of agri- culture as Mr. Healey at the Grantham meeting; but referred with some gleam of hope to other help— They might talk of good times coming, and might cling to hopes of such, but he expected no better days till some superior star should open to them a brighter horizon. He believed that, in the equalization of local taxation, Mr. Disraeli had found out a plan for materially relieving the agricultural interest. (Great cheer- ing.) Mr. Disraeli had never stated the details of that plan, but merely showed broadly that real property has more to pay than any other property, and more than it ought. "That he was prepared with those details," Major Beresford "was certain."
At the Loughborough Society's meeting, the Marquis of Granby glanced at Lord Braybrooke's topic of "transition" from quite another point of view—
Those who had deprived them of protection, who had brought them to their present unparalleled condition of distress, told them that such distress was na- tural; that it was incident to the state of transition in which they were placed. A state of transition indeed! Yes, it was a state of transition from comparative ease and comfort to want and alarm and unmitigated distress. In 1846 they heard but little of this state of transition. Why were they not then told—and why were they not told who were deluded—those who voted for a repeal of the Corn-laws without knowing what they were doing—to be prepared for this state of transition, to expect wheat to fall down to 42s. or 44s? Why were they not told, that though wheat ought to be 56s. per quarter, yet if they would only vote ter their measure a transition would bring it down to 42s.? The farmers were told to increase their knowledge and their exertions: but the means to do the former are crippled by the very measures which render the exertions necessary; and as to education, knowledge is a tree of very slow growth; while the sous are studying science and increasing their knowledge, the parents are ruined by the " state of transition." Moreover, they were not to suppose that the foreigner would sit still. Why, was it consistent with human nature, that they who were no longer cultivating their land at a profit were to be the people who were to be stimulated to acquire fresh knowledge, and that the foreigner, stimulated by high prices, should sit still and do nothing? There was a second means by which they might compete with the foreigner— by reduction of prices. Now this resolved itself into reduction of wages. No man, however—though undoubtedly the tendency of free trade was to lower the wages of the labourer—with a heart in his breast, could really recommend them to take that course in order to relieve themselves. Therefore, if lowness of prices and reduction of cost are the only remedy these gentlemen have to propose, it will prove as futile as their first act, and disappointment and disgust will be the result. A return to an effectual system of protection to the industry of our countrymen could alone enable the rulers to reduce taxation in this country. He did not wish to create a reaction by the means resorted to by the Free-traders—by clamour, noise, offensive insinuations, and denunciations which contained no truth; but he entreated every man in the country to ask himself, what had been gained and what had been lost by the Free-trade measures.
The Duke of Bedford is building a set of model cottages for his labeler_ era, near the entrance of the town of Tavistock. They are constructed on the plan communicated by his Grace to the Royal Agricultural Society some time ago, and will be a credit to the landlord and the estate. Another useful work is being executed here, under his Grace's auspices—the appli- cation of the sewerage of Tavistock as a manure. This has been tried on sixty acres of land, with such success that forty more are to be added.— Devonshire Chronicle.
John Barnsley, a boiler-maker, has been committed for trial by the Manchester Magistrates for attempting to murder his wife. In a fit of drunkenness, he as- sailed her with a table-knife, and inflicted wounds one of which narrowly escaped being fatal ; and it was only when his wife feigned to be dead, while lying at the foot of the stairs where he had thrown her, that he desisted. The family suffered from poverty. In one part of her evidence, the poor wife said—" When he got me down stairs, he got his knee on my stomach, and kept cutting away at my poor throat; I held my hand up against it, and he cut it—he thought it was my throat. He thought he had done all—but he's my husband, mind. He looked at me, and I closed my eyes; but first I looked at him, and said, 'Lord, spare me, for my poor little child's sake-'" Barnsley said his wife had angered him, and he was drunk and knew not what he did.
The refractory soldiers of the Third Dragoon Guards, who behaved so out- rageously at Nottingham, were not all taken for many days: the whole "were reported to be in barracks" on Saturday night. Some of the offenders had been summarily treated, but about fourteen were then in the guardhouse. The inquiry instituted by the Colonel of the regiment, Earl Cathcart, has resulted in applica- tions to the Commander-in-chief for three general and six district courts-martial.
The boiler of Messrs. Bataan and Co.'s brewery, at Bevington Bush in Liverpool, exploded at one o'clock OD Saturday morning. The whole buildingwas destroyed, and numbers of the surrounding houses were more or less damaged, some very extensively. A clear opening was made through the basement of one house; yet the family sleeping above were not hurt. Three persons in the brewery were wounded, but not dangerously.
A number of fires are reported in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire said to have been wilful. A farm which was partly consumed in March last has been en- tirely ruined by a second fire: seven valuable horses were burnt to death in a stable.
A very destructive fire occurred last week at Mr. William Peto's farm, near Maidenhead; the damage is rated at 3,0001. The neighbourhood contains many bad characters.
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