Deprived of this resource, they had again gradually spread
themselves over that land which had as it were rejected them;
and obtained from its churlish breast a niggardly subsistence.
Their re-entrance into the surrounding parishes was viewed
with great suspicion; their renewed settlement opposed by
every ingenious contrivance; those who availed themselves of
their labour were careful that they should not become dwellers
on the soil; and though, from the excessive competition, there
were few districts in the kingdom where the rate of wages was
more depressed, those who were fortunate enough to obtain the
scant remuneration, had, in addition to their toil, to endure
each morn and even a weary journey before they could reach the
scene of their labour, or return to the squalid hovel which
profaned the name of home. To that home, over which Malaria
hovered, and round whose shivering hearth were clustered other
guests besides the exhausted family of toil--Fever, in every
form, pale Consumption, exhausting Synochus, and trembling
Ague,--returned after cultivating the broad fields of merry
England the bold British peasant, returned to encounter the
worst of diseases with a frame the least qualified to oppose
them; a frame that subdued by toil was never sustained by
animal food; drenched by the tempest could not change its
dripping rags; and was indebted for its scanty fuel to the
windfalls of the woods.
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