s, fell from 13_s._ 1_d._ to 11_s._ 4_d._ Thus were the
people brought to the _pig-meat_! Food, fit for men, they could not have
with 11_s._ 4_d._ a week for five persons.

59. One would have thought, that to make a human being _live_ upon 4_d._
_a day_, and find _fuel_, _clothing_, _rent_, _washing_, and _bedding_,
out of the 4_d._, besides eating and drinking, was impossible; and one
would have thought it impossible for any-thing not of hellish birth and
breeding, to entertain a wish to make poor creatures, and our _neighbours_
too, exist in such a state of horrible misery and degradation as the
labourers of England were condemned to by this scale of 1795. Alas! this
was happiness and honour; this was famous living; this 11_s._ 4_d._ a week
was _luxury_ and _feasting_, compared to what we NOW BEHOLD! For now the
allowance, according to present money-prices, is 8_s._ a week for the man,
his wife, and three children; that is to say 2-5/7 _d._ In words, TWO
PENCE AND FIVE SEVENTHS OF ANOTHER PENNY, FOR A DAY! There, that is
England now! That is what the base wretches, who are fattening upon the
people's labour, call "the _envy_ of surrounding nations and the
_admiration_ of the world." This is what SIR FRANCIS BURDETT applauds; and
he applauds the mean and cruel and dastardly ruffians, whom he calls, "the
_country gentlemen_ of England," and whose _generosity_ he cries up; while
he well knows, _that it is they_ (and he amongst the rest) who are the
real and only cause of this devil-like barbarity, which (and he well knows
that too) could not possibly be practised without the constant existence
and occasional employment of that species of force, which is so abhorrent
to the laws of England, and of which this Burdett's son forms a part. The
poor creatures, _if they complain_; if their hunger make them _cry out_,
are either punished by even harder measures, or are _slapped into prison_.
Alas! the jail is really become a place of _relief_, a scene of
comparative _good living_: hence the invention of the _tread-mill_! What
shall we see next? _Workhouses, badges, hundred-houses, select-vestries,
tread-mills, gravel-carts, and harness!_ What shall we see next! And what
should we see at last, if this infernal THING could continue for only a
few years longer?

60. In order to form a judgment of the cruelty of making our working
neighbours live upon 2-5/7_d._ a day; that is to say 2_d._ and rather more
than a halfpenny, let us see