Sunderland, 26 Sept. 1832. |ple of this district of the country in From NORTH SHIELDS. you look Durham and Northumberland, which across the water to SOUTH SHIELDS; seems to have been always famous for and there is a steam-boat taking passen- men of great genius and energy. In gers across every half hour. By this going from SOUTH SHIELDS to SUNDERsteam-boat I crossed at twelve o'clock LAND we went near to JARROW, SO fato-day, and got to this place about two. mous as the birth-place of "the veneraSUNDERLAND is seven miles from SOUTH ble BEDE;" to be sure, as to venerable SHIELDS, in a south-easterly direction, there was some difference between him near the mouth of a river called the and the two Scorrs, ELDON and WEAR, on the right bank of which, STOWELL, and that MITFORD who was going downwards, the greater part of afterwards Lord REDESDALE; but they the town lies. To go into the town you also were natives of NEWCASTLE and go over an iron bridge of very beautiful the neighbourhood; and having had architecture. The river is narrow, run- the good luck to go to the South, they ning down between rocks which are astonished the natives, and became nearly perpendicular and of great height. great men, which they never would have The bridge crosses this river from rock been if they had remained here: and so to rock, and is so far above the water conscious do they appear to have been that ships of considerable size go under of this, that they have all taken special the bridge by only lowering their top-good care never to come back to settle gallant-mast. The main street at SUN- here again. They have sent their new DERLAND is, they say, a mile and three and fine names to be put up at the corquarters long; and it has innumerable ners of the streets, which have hitherto shops, finer, on an average, than those escaped the fate of that of WELLINGof the STRAND, FLEET-STREET, and TON; and in all probability will now CHEAPSIDE ; so that, though there are continue to escape it. nothing but coals produced here, they cause the other parts of the world to bring hither all manner of conveniences and fineries. There are considerable glass manufactories here and in the neighbourhood of NEWCASTLE; but these also are occasioned by the coals.

Let me now give my readers in the South, if I can, something like an adequate idea of the face of the country, of the farming, and of the collieries, and of the state of the working people, which last is always the most interesting object with every man of sense, writing upon But the most interesting and valuable the state of a country. Observe, that, product of this part of England is, the in going from NEWCASTLE to NORTH people, of whom it is impossible to SHIELDS, you go a road pretty nearly speak too much in praise. My readers parallel with the river, and get seven will remember well the famous speeches miles nearer to the sea. Along this and petitions sent up from NEWCASTLE seven miles the farming is excellent; during the discussions on the Reform fine corn-fields, large and beautiful Bill. They will remember well how fields of turnips of both kinds, sowed in much we admired the speeches of Messrs. ATTWOOD, DOUBLEDAY, LARKIN, FIFE, and others. Not a man of my readers, I dare say, has not wished that he could have seen or heard these men, whose speeches and proceedings absolutely gave a tone to the whole country, and whose names became familiar in the mouths of even the chopsticks of Sussex and Kent. I have now seen these men with my own eyes; and they are a fair sample, perhaps rather a picked sample, of the whole of the peo

rows with inter-cultivation; and I saw not one field of turnips which was not fine; the pastures very fine; the haystacks, containing from forty, perhaps, to seventy tons of hay each, made even neater than those in Middlesex, and thatched with greater care. No barley, but prodigious quantities of wheat and of oats; the stacks much larger than those on the road from Leeds to Newcastle, and in some cases from twenty to thirty of them in one farm-yard. The cows, the finest that man ever set his

eyes on; a good deal of white in their of very little else; such men ought to colour; some quite white; short horns; have known this; but they did not strait back; just like those in the HoL- know it, therefore they spread about DERNESS Country of Yorkshire, and in error instead of spreading what ought to great abundance as to numbers though be called knowledge. the proportion of pasture land has been, unwisely, so considerably diminished. The turnips are for winter food in the stall for the cattle.

Durham, 27. Sept. 1832.

In coming from SUNDERLAND to DURHAM, a distance of fourteen miles, . From SOUTH SHIELDS to SENDER- I came from the sea-beach to the cenLAND the country still the same, or tre of the county, and gradually to inrather better as it lies nearer the sea. ferior land.. I perceive, that the county There are no barns such as we have in of DURHAM, along by the sea-side, the South. All the farm buildings are has a strip of land, varying in width of stone; each has a place sufficiently from five miles to ten or twelve, relarge for beating out the corn by a sembling the HOLDERNESS country in thrashing-machine; and there appears the East-Riding of Yorkshire, to which, to be no such thing as a barn's floor or a indeed, it joins it at the southern exflail in the whole of these counties. tremity of the former. The HOLDERThe terrific word "SWING," which was NESS country is separated from the rich at once a signature and a signal, is the part of Lincolnshire by the HUMBER; name of that part of the flail which the and thus this fine land runs all along by thrasher brings into contact with the the sea-side from LYNN, in Norfolk, to straws. Therefore Mr. SWING never the mouth of the TYNE; and then it was heard of in this county; but his goes all along the sea-coast to the doings would have been heard of had it TWEED, including in its way the estates not been for a reason very different in-of Lord GREY at the hamlet of Howdeed from that of any difference that ICK; and from the TWEED, it continues there is in the character, in the morality, on to the FRITH of FORTH, taking in or in the intelligence, or understanding, the fine farming countries of Berwickor education in those who labour on the shire and EAST LOTHIAN, to behold land. SCOTT ELDON and Dr. BLACK which is a pleasure that I yet have to used to prate away about the good sense come. of the labourers in the North, and about This eastern part of the county of the poor-rates not being excessive in the DURHAM is, like all the rest of these North. They did not seem to know, counties, generally level; or, at least, that here agriculture is only a small much more so than the counties in the part of the business of the county, South and the West. The country is and that in the southern, eastern, and fine, but not pretty: the harvest was all western counties it is the sole business. in; but the stubbles and the stacks They did not seem to know that there proved it to have been good; and, as were no farm labourers living in cot-to the pastures, the turnips, and the tages here; and that there was scarcely cows, they exceed everything of which a an instance in this part of England of a Southern, or Western, or Eastern, farperson working upon the land, not mer can have an idea. The sheep apliving, or, at least, boarding, in the house pear to be of the LEICESTER breed, the of the farm on which he worked. A CHEVIOT-HILL sheep not having found man who has been paid as a statesman their way into these rich pastures. for pretty nearly fifty years, and another But the great business of life here rewho has been a professed enlightener of lates to the produce of the sub-soil still the people for twenty years, ought to more than to that which comes from have known that there was no such the surface. The collieries are the chief thing as a village purely agricultural to part of the property of this county. the north of LEEDS, while the southern, SUNDERLAND, the two SHIELDSES and eastern, and western counties consist GATESHEAD, and NEWCASTLE itself, have

been created by these collieries. Here is this sort of fuel to assist their scanty the most surprising thing in the whole supply of wood. All that you see of the world; thousands of men and thou- collieries are the railways, the wagons, sands of horses continually living under and the group of buildings of which I ground: children born there, and who have spoken. While the men are at sometimes never see the surface at all, work below sending up the coals, the though they live to a considerable age. surface consists of corn-fields, pastures, The thing is not like the mining in and turnip-fields, as fine as man ever set Cornwall, which causes so much tum- his eyes upon. The coal-pits are considerbling about the surface and disfiguring ably distant from each other, and some the face of the country. You see here of them as much as fifteen miles from and there a group of large buildings, the ships, the wagons marching backand see the smoke issuing from some ward and forward without either horse place where there is a steam-engine or man to attend them. The engines amidst those buildings. Out of a hole occasion no very great deal of smoke, somewhere amidst that group of build- so that the country is but little disfiings come everlasting ship-loads of gured by these stupendous proceedings. coals. There is a railway from the pit In the vicinage of each colliery there are to carry the coals to the ships: the extensive rows of small houses, in which wagons carrying the coals are made of the families of the pit-men and other sheet iron; they are all of a size. A workmen reside. These are all built of whole train of them marches one after stone, and covered with tiles. All very the other, sometimes drawn by a horse, solid, and very good, and invariably but more frequently impelled by the well furnished; hardly one without a pulling of a rope, or a chain, which good chest of drawers, and other evipasses along a little gutter below the dences of good living. Kept very clean, surface of the ground, which rope or too, and their ground before their houses chain is pulled by the force of an engine, generally very clean. I particularly and thus you see a score of these wa- observed, aye, and I observed it with gons loaded going one way, and another singular pleasure, that there were score of empty ones passing them going scarcely any potatoes to be seen, either the other way, without your being able in large pieces or small pieces of ground. to discover any cause for their motion. Very few appear to be planted except The coals are lifted up out of the pit by in the vicinage of towns; and everythe same engine and tipped into the thing shows that this root is used here wagons; then, when the wagons get to merely as garden-stuff; and that the peothe ships, they are seized by another ple live, as they ought to do, principally engine and tipped into them. Then there upon meat and bread. No wretches go are railways down under ground for to work here with "cold potatoes in bringing the coals to the mouth of the their bags," as they did in Hampshire pit, and horses living there to draw the before the times of the fires, and as the wagons upon those railways. Some of farmer was proceeding to tell the jury the horses go down and live there for that they did, when JUDGE VAUGHAN ten or dozen years; and a gentleman stopped him, and told the jury that that told me, that Lord DURHAM, or his fa- had nothing at all to do with the matter ! ther, I forget which, had eight hundred And, here, let me observe, that it was horses under ground for years together. unfortunate that the Prime Minister Now, when the old women at SUTTON had lived all his life amongst the wellSCOTNEY are putting their tea-kettles, fed farming people of Durham and Northose sources of such comfort, over the thumberland; and that he was exposed handful of coals that they have got to the terrible danger of acting upon from WINCHESTER, let them have the the representations of others who lived gratitude to thank the fellows great and in Hampshire and Wiltshire. Lord small, that take so much pains and ex- GREY can know nothing of the lives ercise so much ingenuity to send them which the labourers in those two coun

ties have led for some years past it off under two bridges over which you was impossible that he, residing as he pass in going through the town from has done so constantly at home, should SUNDERLAND to NEWCASTLE; all these be able to bring his mind to an idea of make the sight of this city the most what was passing in those two counties, interesting and beautiful that it is posnor in any of the counties of the South, sible to conceive. The Bishop, VAN East, or West. I said at the time; I MILDERT, whose father was brought believed it then, and I still believe it; over I believe from Germany by old that, if it had been possible for him to Queen CHARLOTTE, is a sort of sovereign know the situation of the labourers in prince here. He has his court of Registhe South, Hampshire would not now try, and all manner of offices such as contain pretty nearly three hundred belong to regal dominion and revenue. children made fatherless by the Special The Dean and Chapter are a sort of Commissions; and, I hope, that his petty sovereigns, too; each of them havLordship is yet to have the satisfaction ing, perhaps, a revenue exceeding that of reflecting that he has restored fathers of the King of Hanover. They have to those children. If he could see the "royalties" of coal-mines and of leadwidows and the mothers and the chil-mines; they have the tithe of the lands dren that I saw only at SUTTON SCOT- above: they have the rents of the lands NEY in July last, I will not believe that above, and of the mines beneath. I this act of mercy would be delayed for another four months. At any rate, it is with me the very first object; an object which I will never either abandon or neglect. If those men of the southern and western counties; and, indeed, of all the counties involved in the transactions alluded to; if all the men engaged merely in those violences which arose manifestly out of their sufferings from want; if these men be brought back to their wives, their children, and their parents, then let the whole of the matter be buried in oblivion; but, if they be not, life shall quit me before I cease to make every effort in my power to keep alive those transactions, in every way that I, legally, can do it; and in thus acting, I shall only be pursuing those precepts which I have taken so much pains to impress upon the minds

of others.

wonder what law, MOSAIC, APOSTOLIC, CANONICAL, COMMON Or STATUTE, ever gave them the right to sell, and cause to be carried away, the soil of the lands given to them in trust. I wonder where they can find law for taking away part of the earth, and not leaving to their successor that which they have so received in trust. However, we shall, I trust, proceed, with regard to these matters in a way that will preclude all necessity for any legal inquiry of the tedious description at which I have just hinted.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 28. Sept., 1832. I lectured at the theatre at NORTH SHIELDS, on the 25th; at SUNDERLAND, at the theatre, on the 26th; and in a room at an inn at DURHAM, on the 27th. This evening I have given a third lecture in the play-house at this place. And This city of DURHAM is, like all old now for a little "EGOTISM," as the towns and cities, of shape very irregular, stupid and envious vagabonds call it. and the streets are by no means what A stupid publication called the Westwe call handsome; but the inequality minster Review, set up about six or of the ground is so great, and the situa-seven years ago, began, from its very tion of the castle and the tower and of start, to hold forth JERRY BENTHAM the cathedral church (which was formerly as the greatest of law-givers and the the church of the Abbey of ST. CUTH- greatest of men. It was, and has been, BERT), the little hill on which these are conducted principally by that BowRING situated is so lofty, and so nicely guarded who is called a doctor, and who is not and ornamented by the river WEAR, half so legitimate a doctor as my Dr. which comes pretty nearly round it in BLACK. BOWRING was the editor at the form of a horse-shoe, and then goes any rate, and JERRY BENTHAM the hero

66

66

of the work. The appellation commonly here I publish it with all the names given to BENTHAM was, "THE GREAT subjoined to it, and which, I was told, BENTHAM." Well, great as JERRY would have been twenty times as nuwas, death smote the great mortal at merous, if I could have spared time to last. He made a WILL, which BowRING stop for the signing. was stupid enough to publish; and, SIR-We, the undersigned, take from that WILL, it appeared that JERRY" this opportunity, which we have long was and always had been the proprietor "desired, of conveying to you our of this Westminster Review! Out then" feelings of respect and congratulation came the fact, that this miserable queer on your arrival at Sunderland. In old coxcomb had either been calling you, Sir, we behold the instructer of himself the "GREAT BENTHAM youth, the advocate of the weak, the for seven years; or, which was worse," defender of the oppressed, the great had been paying a base hireling for do-" champion of the labouring classes in ing it! That was "EGOTISM," in-" England, the unsparing exposer of all deed; that would cover the name of abuses, and the firmest and most able BENTHAM with everlasting infamy if it" supporter of the rights and liberties were not screened from our recollection" of the people. In your writings we by the total insignificance of the incom-" find displayed the most powerful reaprehensible conundrums that he was" soning, combined with the greatest continually putting upon paper. For a beauty and simplicity of style, with man who is attacked by scores of those " knowledge most profound, and sagabase and envious creatures whom POPE" city and penetration which nothing called "the race that write;" for such can elude. In your hands, subjects a man to assert his own claims to public" the most intricate and complex, beattention, and in his own name, too, is" come easy and intelligible to every not "EGOTISM," but self-defence and" capacity; and while your works dispublic duty. Is it egotism in me to say, "play talents of the most unrivalled dethat I foretold that the country banks" scription, they were never surpassed would blow up, and that WELLINGTON'S" in point of ability. You have studied name would be rubbed from the corners" politics not merely in the mansions of the streets, and his picture come" and palaces of the great, but in the down from the sign-posts? Is it cottages of the poor: and while you "EGOTISM" in me to receive marks" have exposed the ignorance of the of respect from anybody, and to put an "men who have for years wielded the account of them upon record? Why in" destinies of this great, but oppressed me any more than in anybody else?" country, you have made subjects too When ministers or kings are addressed," deep even for their comprehension, the whole matter is a thing of previous "familiar to the minds of the poor and contrivance. A copy of the address is" humble. communicated to the party beforehand; "Grateful as we are to you for your the answer is studied and got ready; the" advocacy of reform, we are not less parties know one another well; and the "grateful for your powerful exposition motives, on both sides, are sometimes" of the fraud of the paper-money supposed not to be the purest that ever" system. Upon this snbject, your animated the minds of men. These" writings have been at once profound marks of respect bestowed on me, must" and prophetic, and stamp you in our of necessity be voluntary and be sincere; "estimation as the greatest statesman in this case especially, they came from" of the age: events have been the persons whom I have never seen before," commentators on the wisdom of your and the greater part of whom will, in" writings on this subject; and we all human probability, never see me "read those truths of your predictions again. Be this as it may, however, I" in the poverty and wretchedness which received an ADDRESS at SUNDERLAND; “'Peel's Bill' (that statesman whose and, "egotism" or "egotism" not, ignorance and conceit you have so