Knowledge is Power:

n-trade, furniture, &c.-Supply of food-Comparative duration of human life-Want of facilities f

s little to plunder and less to exchange. It is difficult to find the materials for such an inquiry. There is no very accurate record of the condition of the various classes of society before the invention of printing; and even after that invention we must be content to form our conclusions from a few scattered facts not recorded for any such purpose as we have in view, but to be gathered incidentally from slight observations which have come down to us. Yet enough remains to enable us to form a picture of tolerable accuracy; and in some points to establish conclusions which cannot be disputed. It is in the same way that our knowledge of the former state of the physical world must be derived from relics of that former state, to whic

, furrier, girdler, glass-seller, glover, linen-draper, mercer and spice-seller, miller, mustard and vinegar seller, old clothes seller, saddler, tailor, tanner, tiler, weaver, wood-cutter, and wool-comber. If we look at a small town of the present day, where such a variety of occupations are carried on, we shall find that each tradesman has a considerable stock of commodities, abundance of furniture and utensils, clothes in plenty, some plate, books, and many articles of convenience and luxury to which the most wealthy dealers and mechanics of Colchester of the fourteenth century were utter strangers. That many places at that time were much poorer than Colchester there can be no doubt: for here we see the division of labour was pretty extensive, and that is always a proof that production is going forward, however imperfectly. We see, too, that the tradesmen were co

ers of a century later than the period we are describing, says, "There were very few chimneys even in capital towns: the fire was laid to the wall, and the smoke issued out at the roof, or door, or window. The houses were wattled, and plastered over with clay; and all the furniture and utensils were of wood. The people slept on straw pallets, with a log of wood for a pillow." When this old historian wrote, he mentions the erection of chimneys as a modern luxury. We had improved little upon our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the article o

ar, dead and

hole to keep

tead of glass, did use much lattice, and that made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak, in checkerwise." When glass was introduced, it was for a long

red and sixty gallons of mustard during the winter with their salt meat, that only seventy ells of linen were allowed for a year's consumption. In the fourteenth century none but the clergy and nobility wore white linen. As industry increased, and the cleanliness of the middle classes increased with it, the use of white linen became more general; but even at the end of the next century, when printing was invented, the paper-makers had the greatest difficulty in procuring rags for their manufacture; and so careful were the people of every class to preserve their linen, that night-clothes were never

omestic conveniences. The people of England, in the days of which we are speaking, were not famed for their attention to this particular. Thomas à Becket was reputed extravagantly nice, because he had his parlour strewed every day with clean straw. As late as the reign of Henry VIII., Erasmus, a celebrated scholar of Holland, who visited England, complains that the nastiness of the people was the cause of the frequent plagues that destroyed them; and he says, "their floors are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lie unmolested a collection of beer, grease, fragments, bones, spittle, excrements of dogs and cats, and of everything that is nauseous." The elder Scaliger, another scholar who came to England, abuses the people for giving him no convenience to wash his hands. Glass vessels were scarce, and pottery was almost wholly unknown. The Earl of Northumberland, whom we have mentioned, breakfasted on trenchers and dined on pewter. While such universal slovenliness prevailed as Erasmus has described, it is not likely that much attention was ge

andered about the country in a half-wild state, destroying, probably, more than they profitably consumed; and they were badly fed, if we may judge from a statute of 1402, which alleges the great decrease of fish in the Thames and other rivers, by the practice of feeding hogs with the fry caught at the weirs. The hogs' flesh of England was constantly salted for the winter's food. The people had little fodder for cattle in the winter, and therefore they only tasted fresh meat in the summer season. The mustard and vinegar seller formed a business at Colchester, to furnish a relish for the pork. Stocks of salted meat are mentioned in the inventory of many houses there, and live hogs as commonly. But salted flesh is not food to be eaten constantly, and with little vegetable food, without severe injury to the health. In the early part of the reign of Henry VIII., not a cabbage, carrot, turnip, or other edible root, grew in England. Two or three centuries before, certainly, the monasteries had gardens with a variety of vegetables; but nearly all the gardens of the laity were destroyed in the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster. Harrison speaks of wheaten bread as

great means of communication. Bracton, a law-writer of the period we have been so constantly mentioning, holds that, if a man being at Oxford engage to pay money the same day in London, he shall be discharged of his contract, as he undertakes a physical impossibility. We find, as late as the time of Elizabeth, that her Majesty would not stay to breakfast at Cambridge because she had to travel twelve miles before she could come to the place, Hinchinbrook, where she desired to sleep. Where there were no roads, there could be few or no markets. An act of parliament of 1272 says that the religious houses should not be compelled to sell their provisions-a proof that there were no considerable stores except in the religious houses. The difficulty of navigation was so

of life renders a nation feeble. We are told that the Carthaginian soldiers whom Hannibal carried into Italy were suddenly rendered effeminate by the abundance which they found around them at Capua. The commissariat of modern nations goes upon another principle; and believes that unless the soldier has plenty of food and clothing he will not fight with alacrity and steadiness. The half-starved soldiers of Henry V. won the battle of Agincourt; but it was not because they were half-starved, but because they roused their native courage to cut their way out of the peril by which they were surrounded. The Russians of our time had a notion that the English could not fight on land, because for forty years we had been a commercial instead of a military nation. The battle of the Alma corrected their mistake. When we hear of ancient nations being enervated by abundance, we may be sure that the abundance was almost entirely devoured by a few tyrants, and that the bulk of the people were rendered weak by the destitution which resulted from the unnatural distribution of riches. We read of the luxury of the court of Persia-the pomp of the seraglios, and of the palaces-the lights, the music, the dancing, the perfumes, the silks, the gold, and the diamonds. The people are held to be effeminate. The Russians, from the hardy north, can lay the Persian monarchy any day at their feet. Is this national weakness caused by the excess of production amongst the people, giving them so extravagant a command over the necessaries and luxuries of life that they have nothing to do but drink of the full cup of enjoyment? Mr. Fraser, an English traveller, thus describes the appearance of a part of the country which he visited in 1821:-"The plain of Yezid-Khaust presented a truly lamentable picture of the general decline of prosperity in Persia. Ruins of large villages thickly scattered about with the skeleton-like walls of caravansaries and gardens, all telling of better times, stood like memento moris (remembrances of death) to kingdom

nd often a parlour, and several bedrooms. These rooms are furnished with tables, and chairs, and beds, and cooking-utensils. There is ordinarily, too, something for ornament and something for instruction;-a piece or two of china, silver spoons, books, and not unfrequently a watch or clock. The useful pottery is abundant and of really elegant forms and colours; drinking-vessels of glass are universal. The inhabitants are not scantily supplied with clothes. The females are decently dressed, having a constant change of linen, and gowns of various patterns and degrees of fineness. Some, even of the humbler classes, are not thought to exceed the proper appearance of their station if they wear silk. The men have decent working habits, strong shoes and hats, and a respectable suit for Sundays, of cloth often as good as is worn by the highest in the land. Every one is clean; for no house above the few hovels which still deform the country is without soap and bowls

s in a few hours, and more readily than he could ten miles in the old time; and canal and sea navigation transport the weightiest goods with the greatest facility from each district to the other, and from each town to the other, so that all are enabled to apply their industry to what is most profitable for each and all. Every man, therefore, may satisfy his wants, according to his means, at the least possible expense of the transport of commodi