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Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2453, 31 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

An Old Matrimonial Hand.—He, before the wedding, anxiously : " You are sure you won't be nervous at the altar?" She, four times a widow, with the utmost confidcnce : " I never havo been yet." In the year 1628 the Rev Robert Harris preaching before the Judges of Assize at Oxford, predicted—what, indeed, became true twelve years afterwards—that the judgment of civil war, then desolating Germany —might visit England. England merited such a scourge, said the preacher not on account of the sins of the king or of his opponents, not on account of the sins of the bishops or of the Nonconformists, but on account of the sin common to all parties in Church aud State. This national sin Mr Harris contended was the cruel ill usage of the poor. "Each complains of others," said he, "as they did in David's time." Ho " spotted" four sorts of gross sinners—"corn masters, who hold in corn that there is much scarcity ; " iuclosers" who take the common's land to be their own ; " hard landlords'' and " merchants," whose sins he specifies. What is the cure Ibe asks. " Provide," he replies, as David did. Provide work, the main defect in England is want of work. It is iu vain to speak of bringing down markets unless there be employment. Were barley at 2s, if men have not work 'tis all one. Therefore, you poor be willing to work for bread. You rich, study to find work. You that, have money, do not hoard it ; produce, employ it. You that have land, love tillage. Men may discourse, but without tillage sueli a land as this of England cannotstand." Ho represents some assaying, " There is not enough money to pay so many men for their work." Suppose there were less money he replies. Pay men in corn, bread, cloth, &e. ; ' "But," say others, " there is no work." No ? Look to your fields. Were ditches scoured, marshes drained, lands ploughed, it would quite cost (pay), Look to your highways. All the poor in the country be scarce enough to lay stones in them for some weeks. But wo have not wherewith to pay them," say you. I answer once for all, "Kept they must be : better keep them working than begging or wandering." The reason Americans dio early is because they ain't hogs, because they know when they've got enough. Public-spirited, patriotic, and unselfish they die early, sir, to make room for the rising generation.