I have frequently told you, that there is a man of the name of MALTHUS, who is a church parson, who was the great inventor of the doctrine, that it is your breeding so fast that is the cause of your misery. This man has long been a great favourite with the greater part of the lawmakers and ministers, and it has recently come to light, that he has been, and is in the pay of the government, and that he has been receiving and is receiving a hundred pounds a year for his literary services. That which he has received would have wholly maintained nine or ten labourers' families. Such transactions as this form part of the cause of your misery; but, though this is as clear as day-light to me and to every man of sense in the kingdom, still the schemers are at work to get some of you away; to get some of you out of that country in which you were born, while they suffer swarms of Italians, Jews, and Germans, hurdygurdy grinders, broom-sellers, and Scotch pedlars, to swarm over the land, like lice upon the body of a diseased animal. They suffer all these to remain and wander whither they like, and are busy about nothing but getting out of the country those who till the land and make the clothes and the houses. Swarms of pensioners and sinecure-holders, paid out of the taxes; swarms of retired clerks, and military officers, and doctors; swarms of idlers, of all descriptions, they suffer to remain, and wish to get rid only of those who do the work, and who, if necessary, are able to defend the country. In a former number I endeavoured to amuse you, under the form of a farce, with an exhibition of the folly of these people. Upon the publication of that farce, a man calling himself EDWARD LUDLOW, who is a partisan of these getters-rid of the people, wrote me a very abusive letter, at the close of which he put to me five questions relative to population. I answered these questions, which contained the doctrine of the whole crew; and those ques

tions, together with my answer, I will now lay before you. I pray you to read the whole with great attention, and to hand it about from one to the other; and when you have read this, I shall have other, and, to you, still more important matter to lay before you.

"LUDLOW'S QUESTIONS."

"1. Stock a farm of 1000 acres, of the richest pasture land, with "one breeding pair of the ox, horse, and sheep tribes of animals; "leave them to multiply, in obedience to the unrestrained instincts "of nature, and will they not multiply until the said pasture is "unable to maintain the augmented numbers otherwise than in a "state of the most severe privation under which animal life can "possibly exist?

2. Would not the same result inevitably occur if the whole "island of Great Britain were of the richest pasture, and similarly "stocked?

"3. To keep down the mouths on his pasture to a level with its "capacity to feed them, does not the grazier have recourse to va"rious violent means: such as slaughtering the animals of all

ages, removing them away from his land, incapacitating them "from breeding, by separating the sexes, and by other means? "And if he were not so to do, would not his farm inevitably in "time he overstocked?

"4. Is not the multiplication of all classes of animal nature, "biped and quadruped, or man and beast, governed by the very "same laws or principles?

"5. If the aforesaid violent means of physical prevention, ap"plied, as aforesaid, to the multiplication of four-legged creatures, "cannot be applied to that of two-legged creatures, will not the "latter inevitably overstock the country, unless their excessive multiplication be prevented by some moral restraint thereon? "When you show that you clearly understand the preceding very simple questions, and the proper answers to them, I may "probably propound some others which may lead to the elements "of the momentous, complex, and beautiful science, that treats of "the multiplication of the human species, viewed with reference "to its highest attainable state of well-being.

"You are at liberty to publish this letter, but I guess you will "take good care to do no such thing.

"EDWARD LUDLOW." "COBBETT'S ANSWER."

Here

Now, nasty feelosofer, I answer the four first questions with a YES; but the fifth I answer with a NO. we have, then, the grand argument of the shallow and nasty beasts! Here we have the basis of their "momen

tous, complex, and beautiful science." The nasty creatures know, that nobody can deny the truth of their observations, as they apply to stock, kept upon a farm; and not being able to discriminate between that case and the case of a nation, they think that their conclusion is unanswerable, and they rush on to it with all the eagerness and glee of a conceited fool who imagines that he has discovered some hitherto-hidden idea that he is bringing forth.

If the mind of this fellow were not as stupid as it is nasty, he would have perceived that there is no analogy in the two cases; that a nation, or people, have to provide for their own wants, have to create by their own skill, care, and toil, that which they eat, drink, wear, and are warmed and lodged with; whereas the stock upon a farm have their wants provided for by others; they create nothing; they use no skill, no care; they labour not at all; but have every-thing provided for them by the skill and labour of man, and the labour of those other animals that man calls in to his assistance.

It is curious to observe how this nasty-minded fellow, resting upon the propensities and tendencies of nature, flies off, at once, for an illustration, into a state wholly artificial, and talks of the multiplication of animals in this state, instead of animals in a state of nature, where they have to provide for their own wants, and to seek for the means of their own defence and preservation. What! nasty, impudent, and stupid beast, you want to show us how fast animals would increase, if left to the "unrestrained instincts of nature," and as a proof of it, you cite what would be the increase of a flock, guarded during the day by the shepherd and his dog, folded at night, and pampered upon grass, clover, and turnips, created for them and almost put into their mouths, by the labour of men and horses! You are a pretty beast to reason upon analogy! you are a pretty

beast to show us what would be the effect of leaving animals to the "unrestrained instincts of nature!"

To make your argument of analogy worth a straw, you ought to have gone for an illustration, not to flocks and herds, tended and fed and nursed and physicked by the hand of man, but to those untamed animals which acknowledge no owner, and which provide for their own wants and their own protection. Of these the sparrow, the rook, the rabbit, the hare, the pheasant, the wood-pigeon, the partridge, and some others, are, in part, provided for by man; yet it is not without great difficulty that some of them can be made to increase. But the foxes, the badgers, the otters, the weazels, the stoats, the pole-cats; why do they not over-run the country? They are killed by man and other animals; aye, now and then one, but not in so great a proportion as men are killed in various strifes, and by accidents arising out of their state in civil society. And why do not these animals (all great breeders) cover the land, then? They are left to the "unrestrained instincts of nature;" aye, but they are also left to get their own living; to work for what they eat. Mice and rats, indeed, absolutely demand cats and traps to "check the population" of them; and, why? because the food on which they live is provided for them by the hand of man. Take that artificial provision away, and there will be no need of cats and traps to keep them down. And magpies, now, why do not they fill the woods and devour us? Who ever kills a magpie? The most artful of birds, the most vigilant, so nearly a match for the hawk, that the latter never attacks him. Seldom is his nest molested; and yet, this is rather a rare bird. And why? Because he is compelled to pass his time in watchings and in labour. Feed the magpies, and take care of them, and they will be as plentiful and as insolent as pensioners, and you must soon begin to eat them (sweet morsels !), or to kill

them at least, or they will fill the air with their chattering. I found, at Barn-Elm, a dove-house with about fifty-pair of pigeons. I let them get their own living: in the three years they did not give us fifty young ones, and their population fell off, at last, to about fifteen pair. I had a little pigeon-house at Kensington, set out with four pair, that soon began to take enough young ones for a pigeon-pie once a week; and yet, in about two years, they increased to such numbers, that I was compelled to slaughter the whole by shooting, and to begin again. But here they were fed three times a day abundantly, and whenever they went from home it was for diversion, and not to seek food. Here was "surplus population;" and here was the cause. These lazy devils at Kensington got all the food and none of the work; and therefore I was compelled to "check their population," and finally to destroy them.

The blackbirds and thrushes sometimes rob a man a little, but the tom-tits, goldfinches, nightingales, swallows, martens, hedge-sparrows, and peckers, and numerous other birds, live wholly on worms and buds and insects and seeds of weeds. There is never any overstock of them, though nobody kills them; but there would be an overstock of all of them, if man were to feed them, and to provide them with nests and protection, and were never to destroy any of them. My little farm-yard at Kensington, contains, at present, two cows, a bull-calf, two old sows, five male pigs, and seven females, all these about three months old, two cocks, ten hens, and about seventeen pigeons. Here, if I were to let them all remain in their natural state, to pursue the "unrestrained instincts of nature," and to go on calving, pigging, and hatching, there would be a goodly assemblage in a short time: there would be a “surplus population" indeed! But, then, I must continue to feed them all : I must continue to draw from my garden subsistence for