The Gorgon [ed. by J. Wade].

Front Cover
James Wade
1818

From inside the book

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 86 - No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.
Page 120 - ... imprisonment. The news of this sentence having reached the accomplice in his retreat, he immediately returned, and surrendered himself to take his trial at the next assizes. The next assizes came ; but, unfortunately for the prisoner, it was a different judge who presided ; and still more unfortunately, Mr.
Page 155 - The friends of humanity cannot but wish that in all countries the labouring classes should have a taste for comforts and enjoyments, and that they should be stimulated by all legal means in their exertions to procure them. There cannot be a better security .against a superabundant population. In those countries, where the labouring classes have the fewest wants, and are contented with the cheapest food, the people are exposed to the greatest vicissitudes and miseries.
Page 108 - In a state of nature all men are equal in rights, but they are not equal in power ; the weak cannot protect themselves against the strong. This being the case, the institution of civil society is for the purpose of making an equalization of powers that shall be parallel to, and a guarantee of, the equality of rights.
Page 42 - His Royal Highness the Prince Regent has been pleased, in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, to approve and confirm the finding and sentence of the Court.
Page 151 - It is not to be understood that the natural price of labour estimated even in food and necessaries, is absolutely fixed and constant. It varies at different times in the same country, and very materially differs in different countries. It essentially depends on the habits and customs of the people. An English labourer would consider his wages under their natural rate, and too scanty to support a family, if they enabled him to purchase no other food than potatoes, and to live in no better habitation...
Page 159 - Committee, and they again chuse in a somewhat similar way, a very small Committee in whom, on very particular occasions, all power resides, from whom all orders proceed, and whose commands are implicitly obeyed ; and on no occasion has it' ever been known that their commands have exceeded the necessity of the occasion, or that they have wandered in the least from the purpose for which it was understood they were appointed. " So perfect indeed is the organization, and so well has it been carried into...
Page 155 - ... contented with the cheapest food, the people are exposed to the greatest vicissitudes and miseries. They have no place of refuge from calamity ; they cannot seek safety in a lower station ; they are already so low, that they can fall no lower. On any deficiency of the chief article of their subsistence, there are few substitutes of which they can avail themselves, and dearth to them is attended with almost all the evils of famine.
Page 120 - While one was taking his departure for Botany Bay, the term of the other's imprisonment had expired ; and what must have been the notions which that little publick, who witnessed and compared these two examples, formed of our system of criminal jurisprudence...
Page 100 - Manchester was about 24*., they were then reduced from 20 to 25 per cent, and have ever since laboured under that reduction. And it is to be remarked, that spinners relieve their own sick, as well as subscribe to other casualties ; therefore, when their hours of labour, which are from 5 in the morning until 7 in the evening (and in some mills longer) of unremitting toil, in rooms heated from 70 to 90 degrees, are taken into consideration, we believe the public will say with us, that no body of workmen...

Bibliographic information