and miserable fate,-avoid sabbath-breaking, the alehouse, and bad company."

Such, my brethren, is the truth delivered by the condemned criminal when death is at hand, and when he is about to appear before the awful judgment-seat of Christ. A man when he first enters upon a life of drunkenness and dissipation, little thinks to what such conduct will lead him, if he persists in it; and would tremble at the thought of crime, which he will afterwards commit without a pang. I. P. A.

ON CIRCUMSPECTION OF CONDUCT, REDEMPTION OF TIME, AND GENERAL SINCERITY OF CHARACTER.

(From the Rev. Legh Richmond's Hints to his Children.)`

1. ADHERE most scrupulously to truth; and labour to preserve the strictest integrity, simplicity, and sincerity. 2. Engage in no pursuit in which you cannot look up to God and say, "Bless me in this, O my Father."

3. Strive to be kind, forbearing, and forgiving, both to friends and foes.

4. Never speak evil of any one, on any pretence whatBeware of ridiculing the faults and foibles of others; first correct your own defects.

ever.

5. Strive to recommend religion by the courtesy, civility, and condescending character of your conduct.

6. Watch against irritation, positiveness, unkind speaking, and anger. Study and promote love.

7. Mortify lusts, sensuality, and sloth.

8. Never allow others to flatter you :-think humbly of yourself. Keep down pride; let it not be indulged for a moment; watch against it.

9. Shut out evil imaginations, and angry thoughts.

10. Let it be your great business here to prepare for eternity. Consider every moment of time in that view. 11. Remember that you have to contend with a legion of enemies; a heart full of deceit and iniquity, and a world at enmity with God.

12. Pray that you may ever rejoice in the advancement of Christ's kingdom and the salvation of sinners; and labour in every way to promote these objects. "Prayer

1833.]

CONDITION OF OLDHAM.

173

is the only weapon which can subdue your corruptions, and keep your evidences bright. Cultivate prayer." Sent by T. E.

SIR,

CONDITION OF OLDHAM.

THEY say that every body reads the newspapers now, and that every body knows how to manage the affairs of the state, even, if he knows nothing else. Now, Sir, I, for my part, have lately taken to read the newspapers, but I think I am farther from knowing the truth of things than I was before. I see that Mr. Fielden and Mr. Cobbett, the two members for Oldham, said in the House of Commons, that there were thousands of manufacturers at Oldham working for two pence halfpenny a day. I pitied from my heart the people of Oldham, and I thought it must be the most miserable place in the kingdom. But a few days afterwards, I read a letter to the Editor of the Times newspaper, sent by a gentleman of Oldham; and, it seems, from this, that, instead of being a starving, miserable place, Oldham is, in fact, a rich and flourishing town. There is, indeed, it appears, distress in Oldham, as there is in other places; and this generally more, when a place is flourishing, because numbers of people come into it for the sake of its advantages, and the place becomes over peopled, and thus there are some who cannot get work. Moreover, when a place is prosperous, people marry and have families; and thus the place is often overstocked. Then again, the introduction of machinery brings great riches into a town, and benefits the country greatly, because the public get their goods at a much cheaper rate than they did when there were no such machines: thus we are much benefited by the reduced prices in cotton, silk, and worsted goods: but, it is, at the same time, plain, that those who are engaged in working upon the old plan, must be injured by the introduction of machinery, and will suffer greatly, till they can turn their hands to other things: thus a public benefit is often, for a time, an injury to private individuals; and thus, whilst Oldham, and many other places may be, upon the whole, in a good state, there will still be

distress among many of the inhabitants, but it is not quite fair to state this, as the general condition of the inhabitants. The following is an extract from the letter alluded to.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

"Sir,-Your readers must suppose, if they credit the statements of our two very eloquent members, that we, the inhabitants of Oldham and its neighbourhood, are in a state of unparalleled destitution and misery-that the working classes are suffering hunger and starvation-and that our situation generally is such as entitles us to the charity and commiseration of a body seldom appealed to in vain I mean the British public. Sir, I am happy to say that we, as a community, have no reason to require the sympathy of any portion of our fellow countrymen, but, on the contrary, we feel grateful for the prosperity and advancement of our town, from what was only a century ago little more than a village, to be now ranked as one of the second class of towns in the kingdom, and possessing the privilege of returning two representatives to the British House of Commons. Perhaps no town in Britain has increased in a greater ratio than Oldham, none where fortunes have been accumulated with greater rapidity; nor is there any town where, taken collectively, the working classes are more comfortable in their circumstances, or obtain a better remuneration for their labour. Distress, from particular circumstances, does exist in Oldham, and one main cause of it is the great influx of labourers and artisans from neighbourhoods not enjoying the same prosperity and advantages that Oldham possesses. Another cause, and that a principal one, is the circumstance of the power-loom supplanting the handloom, or, in other words, the hand-loom weaver is contending with the power-loom in producing an article at as cheap a rate. The weavers are, however, finding by sad experience that this is the case, and, as fast as circumstances will allow, are quitting their original trade, and adopting others. This class of men (taking them as a body, a very exemplary and worthy one) are many of them in a very destitute situation; few of them can earn more

1833.] MR. COBBETT AND THE CHURCH.

175

than from 5s. to 7s. per week. In the cotton mills the men's wages are from 15s. to 30s.; women and children's from 2s. 3d. to 8s. or 10s. Although the population of the township of Oldham has increased from 16,690 in the year 1811, to 32,381 in the year 1831, still the amount of poor rates levied is no more in the pound than it was at the former period; and in the years 1816 and 1817 they were nearly double the present amount.

In the year ending March 1832, there was levied in England for poor rates, 8,255,3157. 12s. out of which there was expended for the relief of the poor 6,731,1317. 10s. ; consequently, the amount of relief, taking the population at 13,086,675, would be 10s. 34d. per head, averaging the whole of England. The amount paid the poor in Oldham in the last year was 3,3137. 13s. 7d., or averaging 2s. Old. per head; thus showing, that if the amount expended in relieving the poor is any criterion of the situa tion of the working classes, Oldham stands but at onefifth proportion when put in comparison with the rest of England. Since the time of the panic, in the years 1825, and 1826, a period in which many towns have been retrograding (going backwards), there has been expended in public improvements in our town upwards of 100,000l. In no part of the kingdom are the inhabitants more industrious, nor do they work more laboriously than at Oldham, and no men are more worthy of good wages and a comfortable livelihood. But our two members, by their visionary statements, lead astray the minds of many who have neither time nor opportunity to examine their outstretched and dogmatical assertions.

I send you these facts, hoping you will give them a place in your valuable paper, to be put in comparison with Mr. Fielden's statements of the thousands living on 24d. per day, leaving the public and you to form your own conclusions of the situation of our borough.

Oldham, March 26.

"Your very obedient servant,

"AN ELECTOR OF OLDHAM."

MR. COBBETT AND THE CHURCH.

(From the Globe Newspaper.)

MR. EDITOR,-My friend Cobbett puzzles me a good

deal. There is a plainness and strength about his writings often; and, when he has got truth on his side, he states it with effect. But, if he means to be of any use, he should get his facts well together before he makes his assertions. I cannot understand what he means when he says that the poor are to be maintained out of the incomes of the clergy; for it is a certain fact that (without saying one word about the hospitals, infirmaries, and other public, as well as private charities,) the poor's rates alone amount to about four times as much as the incomes of the clergy. In the parish in which I live, we consider the clergyman's benefice is pretty good; he gets four hundred pounds a year but our poor's rates come to more than eighteen hundred. It is impossible to understand what can be Mr. Cobbett's plan for getting a provision for the poor out of the clergyman's income, or for paying eighteen hundred pounds out of four hundred. Now, if I look around at the parishes in my neighbourhood, I do not find that the other clergymen's incomes there are so good as in our own; many of them are eighty, or a hundred a year, and some a hundred and fifty, or two hundred. But, supposing we were to begin with the parish in which I live, I should wish to know how we are to pay eighteen hundred pounds a year out of four hundred? And I am sure, that, if any of his income were taken from our clergyman, the poor of the parish would be the first to feel it: and no injury could be greater to our parishes than taking away our clergy from us, or checking their means of doing good. They generally spend more money in a parish than they get from it; and, in fact, to enable them to live, they are often obliged to maintain themselves either by taking pupils, or by bringing some private income of their own into the parish with them. If we suppose that the tithes in England (in the hands of the clergy) are about two millions, and the number of benefices about eleven thousand, the average income of the clergy will not be much more than 2007. a year for each; so that I cannot see what great burden the church is to the country, especially when we consider that the clergy are paid by property left by our ancestors for their continued support, and the value of which has been deducted on the purchase