Miscellaneous Papers | Page 3

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This etext was prepared from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company
edition by David Price, email [email protected]

MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS BY CHARLES DICKENS

Contents:
The Agricultural Interest Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood from an
Ancient Gentleman Crime and Education Capital Punishment The
Spirit of Chivalry in Westminster Hall In Memoriam--W. M.

Thackeray Adelaide Anne Procter Chauncey Hare Townshend On Mr.
Fechter's Acting

THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST

The present Government, having shown itself to be particularly clever
in its management of Indictments for Conspiracy, cannot do better, we
think (keeping in its administrative eye the pacification of some of its
most influential and most unruly supporters), than indict the whole
manufacturing interest of the country for a conspiracy against the
agricultural interest. As the jury ought to be beyond impeachment, the
panel might be chosen among the Duke of Buckingham's tenants, with
the Duke of Buckingham himself as foreman; and, to the end that the
country might be quite satisfied with the judge, and have ample
security beforehand for his moderation and impartiality, it would be
desirable, perhaps, to make such a slight change in the working of the
law (a mere nothing to a Conservative Government, bent upon its end),
as would enable the question to be tried before an Ecclesiastical Court,
with the Bishop of Exeter presiding. The Attorney-General for Ireland,
turning his sword into a ploughshare, might conduct the prosecution;
and Mr. Cobden and the other traversers might adopt any ground of
defence they chose, or prove or disprove anything they pleased, without
being embarrassed by the least anxiety or doubt in reference to the
verdict.
That the country in general is in a conspiracy against this sacred but
unhappy agricultural interest, there can be no doubt. It is not alone
within the walls of Covent Garden Theatre, or the Free Trade Hall at
Manchester, or the Town Hall at Birmingham, that the cry "Repeal the
Corn-laws!" is raised. It may be heard, moaning at night, through the
straw-littered wards of Refuges for the Destitute; it may be read in the
gaunt and famished faces which make our streets terrible; it is muttered
in the thankful grace pronounced by haggard wretches over their felon
fare in gaols; it is inscribed in dreadful characters upon the walls of
Fever Hospitals; and may be plainly traced in every record of mortality.
All of which proves, that there is a vast conspiracy afoot, against the
unfortunate agricultural interest.
They who run, even upon railroads, may read of this conspiracy. The

old stage-coachman was a farmer's friend. He wore top-boots,
understood cattle, fed his horses upon corn, and had a lively personal
interest in malt. The engine-driver's garb, and sympathies, and tastes
belong to the factory. His fustian dress, besmeared with coal-dust and
begrimed with soot; his oily hands, his dirty face, his knowledge of
machinery; all point him out as one devoted to the manufacturing
interest. Fire and smoke, and red-hot cinders follow in his wake. He has
no attachment to the soil, but travels on a road of iron, furnace wrought.
His warning is not conveyed in the fine old Saxon dialect of our
glorious forefathers, but in a fiendish yell. He never cries "ya-hip", with
agricultural lungs; but jerks forth a manufactured shriek from a brazen
throat.
Where is the agricultural interest represented? From what phase of our
social life has it not been driven, to the undue setting up of its false
rival?
Are the police agricultural? The watchmen were. They wore woollen
nightcaps to a man; they encouraged the growth of timber, by
patriotically adhering to staves and rattles of immense size; they slept
every night