Transcribed from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company edition (_Works of Charles Dickens_, _Volume_ 19) by David Price, email [email protected]
PAGE The Agricultural Interest (_Morning Chronicle_, March 9, 529 1844) Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood from an Ancient Gentleman 532 (_Hood’s Magazine and Comic Miscellany_, May, 1844) Crime and Education (_Daily News_, February 4, 1846) 538 Capital Punishment (I–III; _Daily News_, March 9, 13, and 542 16, 1846) The Spirit of Chivalry in Westminster Hall (_Douglas 560 Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine_, August, 1845) In Memoriam: W. M. Thackeray (_Cornhill Magazine_, 564 February, 1864) Adelaide Anne Procter: Introduction to her _Legends and 568 Lyrics_ (1866) Chauncey Hare Townshend: Explanatory Introduction to 574 _Religious Opinions_ by the Late Reverend Chauncey Hare Townshend (1869) On Mr. Fechter’s Acting (_Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1869) 576
THE present Government, having shown itself to be particularly clever in its management of Indictments for Conspiracy, cannot do better, we think (keeping in its administrative eye the pacification of some of its most influential and most unruly supporters), than indict the whole manufacturing interest of the country for a conspiracy against the agricultural interest. As the jury ought to be beyond impeachment, the panel might be chosen among the Duke of Buckingham’s tenants, with the Duke of Buckingham himself as foreman; and, to the end that the country might be quite satisfied with the judge, and have ample security beforehand for his moderation and impartiality, it would be desirable, perhaps, to make such a slight change in the working of the law (a mere nothing to a Conservative Government, bent upon its end), as would enable the question to be tried before an Ecclesiastical Court, with the Bishop of Exeter presiding. The Attorney-General for Ireland, turning his sword into a ploughshare, might conduct the prosecution; and Mr. Cobden and the other traversers might adopt any ground of defence they chose, or prove or disprove anything they pleased, without being embarrassed by the least anxiety or doubt in reference to the verdict.
That the country in general is in a conspiracy against this sacred but unhappy agricultural interest, there can be no doubt. It is not alone within the walls of Covent Garden Theatre, or the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, or the Town Hall at Birmingham, that the cry “Repeal the Corn-laws!” is raised. It may be heard, moaning at night, through the straw-littered wards of Refuges for the Destitute; it may be read in the gaunt and famished faces which make our streets terrible; it is muttered in the thankful grace pronounced by haggard wretches over their felon fare in gaols; it is inscribed in dreadful characters upon the walls of Fever Hospitals; and may be plainly traced in every record of mortality. All of which proves, that there is a vast conspiracy afoot, against the unfortunate agricultural interest.