plements, instead of being put under
cover, were left exposed to the influence of wind and weather, where
they soon became crazy and useless.

Such, however, were only the slighter symptoms of his bootless struggle
against the general embarrassment into which the agricultural interests
were, year after year, so unhappily sinking.

Had the tendency to general distress among the class to which he
belonged become stationary, Owen would have continued by toil and
incessant exertion to maintain his ground; but, unfortunately, there was
no point at which the national depression could then stop. Year after
year produced deeper, more extensive, and more complicated misery; and
when he hoped that every succeeding season would bring an improvement
in the market, he was destined to experience not merely a fresh
disappointment, but an unexpected depreciation in the price of his corn,
butter, and other disposable commodities.

When a nation is reduced to such a state, no eye but that of God himself
can see the appalling wretchedness to which a year of disease and
scarcity strikes down the poor and working classes.

Owen, after a long and noble contest for nearly three years, sank, at
length, under the united calamities of disease and scarcity. The father
of the family was laid low upon the bed of sickness, and those of his
little ones who escaped it were almost consumed by famine. This two-fold
shock sealed his ruin; his honest heart was crushed--his hardy frame
shorn of its strength, and he to whom every neighbor fled as to a
friend, now required friendship at a moment when the widespread poverty
of the country rendered its assistance hopeless.

On rising from his bed of sickness, the prospect before him required his
utmost fortitude to bear. He was now wasted in energy both of mind and
body, reduced to utter poverty, with a large family of children, too
young to assist him, without means of retrieving his circumstances, his
wife and himself gaunt skeletons, his farm neglected, his house wrecked,
and his offices falling to ruin, yet every day bringing the half-year's
term nearer! Oh, ye who riot on the miseries of such men--ye who roll
round the easy circle of fashionable life, think upon this picture! To
vile and heartless landlords, who see not, hear not, know not those to
whose heart-breaking toil ye owe the only merit ye possess--that of
rank in society--come and contemplate this virtuous man, as unfriended,
unassisted, an