Wesley Corpus

I. 1. I ask first, Why are thousands of people starving, perishing for want, in every part of England The fact I know: I have seen it with my eyes in every corner of the land. I have known those who could only afford to eat a little coarse food every other day. I have known one picking up stinking sprats from a dunghill and carrying them home for herself and her children. I have known another gathering the bones which the dogs had left in the streets and making broth of them to prolong a wretched life. Such is the case at this day of multitudes of people in a land flowing, as it were, with milk and honey, abounding with all the necessaries, the conveniences, the superfluities of life! Now, why is this Why have all these nothing to eat Because they have nothing to do. They have no meat because they have no work. 2. But why have they no work Why are so many thousand people in London, in Bristol, in Norwich, in every county from one end of England to the other, utterly destitute of employment Because the persons who used to employ them cannot afford to do it any longer. Many who employed fifty men now scarce employ ten. Those who employed twenty now employ one or none at all. They cannot, as they have no vent for their goods, food now bearing so high a price that the generality of people are hardly able to buy anything else.