igher
wages."

In this manner were the people led first into folly, and ultimately
into rioting and crime; for it is not, in point of fact, those who are
suffering most severely that take a prominent part in these senseless
tumults, or who are the first to trample upon law and order. The evil
example is set to those who do suffer by these factious vagabonds;
and, under such circumstances, and betrayed by such delusions, the
poor people join the crowd, and find themselves engaged in the outrage,
before they have time to reflect upon their conduct.

At the time of which we write, however, the government did not consider
it any part of its duty to take a deep interest in the domestic or
social improvement of the people. The laws of the country, at that
period, had but one aspect--that of terror; for it was evident that the
legislature of the day had forgotten that neither an individual nor a
people can both love and fear the same object at the same time. The laws
checked insubordination and punished crime; and having done this, the
great end and object of all law was considered to have been attained.
We hope, however, the day has come when education, progress, improvement
and reward, will shed their mild and peaceful lustre upon our
statute-books, and banish from them those Draconian enactments, that
engender only fear and hatred, breathe of cruelty, and have their origin
in a tyrannical love of blood.

We have said that the aspect of the country was depressing and gloomy;
but we may add here, that these words convey but a vague and feeble
idea of the state to which the people at large were reduced. The general
destitution, the famine, sickness and death, which had poured such
misery and desolation over the land, left, as might be expected, their
terrible traces behind them. Indeed the sufferings which a year of
famine and disease--and they usually either accompany or succeed each
other--inflicts upon the multitudes of poor, are such as no human pen
could at all describe, so as to portray a picture sufficiently faithful
to the dreary and death-like spirit which should breath in it. Upon
the occasion we write of, nothing met you, go where you might, but
suffering, and sorrow, and death, to which we may add, tumult, and
crime, and bloodshed. Scarcely a family but had lost one or more.
Every face you met was an index of calamity, and bore upon it the
unquestionable impressions of struggle and hardship. Cheerfulness and
mi