your cottages and seen their condition. Thanks to my canvass of Durham,
I have been able to see the condition of many honest and independent--or
ought-to-be-independent--and industrious artisans. I have seen even
freemen of your city sitting, looking disconsolate and sad. Their hands
were ready to labor; their skill was ready to produce all that their
trade demanded. They were as honest and industrious as any man in this
assembly, but no man hired them. They were in a state of involuntary
idleness, and were driving fast to the point of pauperism. I have seen
their wives, too, with three or four children about them--one in the
cradle, one at the breast. I have seen their countenances, and I have
seen the signs of their sufferings. I have seen the emblems and symbols
of affliction such as I did not expect to see in this city. Ay! and I
have seen those little children who at not a distant day will be the men
and women of this city of Durham; I have seen their poor little wan
faces and anxious looks, as if the furrows of old age were coming upon
them before they had escaped from the age of childhood. I have seen all
this in this city, and I have seen far more in the neighborhood from
which I have come. You have seen, in all probability, people from my
neighborhood walking your streets and begging for that bread which the
Corn Laws would not allow them to earn.

"Bread-taxed weaver, all can see
What the tax hath done for thee,
And thy children, vilely led,
Singing hymns for shameful bread,
Till the stones of every street
Know their little naked feet."

This is what the Corn Law does for the weavers of my neighborhood, and
for the weavers and artisans of yours....