thereby demonstrated that they will at length, after a few speeches on the subject, adopt it of course.  In this case we would have [no] need of laws or churches, for I am sure there is no difficulty in proving that moral, regular, and steady habits conduce to men’s best interest, and that vice is not sin merely, but folly.  But of these men each has passions and prejudices, the gratification of which he prefers, not only to the general weal, but to that of himself as an individual.  Under the action of these wayward impulses a man drinks to-day though he is sure of starving to-morrow.  He murders to-morrow though he is sure to be hanged on Wednesday; and people are so slow to believe that which makes against their own predominant passions, that mechanics will combine to raise the price for one week, though they destroy the manufacture for ever.  The best remedy seems to be the probable supply of labourers from other trades.  Jeffrey proposes each mechanic shall learn some other trade than his own, and so have two strings to his bow.  He does not consider the length of a double apprenticeship.  To make a man a good weaver and a good tailor would require as much time as the patriarch served for his two wives, and after all, he would be but a poor workman at either craft.  Each mechanic has, indeed, a second trade, for he can dig and do rustic work.  Perhaps the best reason for breaking up the association will prove to be the expenditure of the money which they have been simple enough to levy from the industrious for the support of the idle.  How much provision for the sick and the aged, the widow and the orphan, has been expended in the attempt to get wages which the manufacturer cannot afford them, with any profitable chance of selling his commodity?

I had a bad fall last night coming home.  There were unfinished houses at the east end of Atholl Place,[33] and as I was on foot, I crossed the street to avoid the material which lay about; but, deceived by the moonlight, I stepped ankle-deep in a sea of mud (honest earth and water, thank God), and fell on my hands.  Never was there such a representative of Wall in Pyramus and Thisbe—­I was absolutely rough-cast.  Luckily Lady S. had retired when I came home; so I enjoyed my tub of water without either remonstrance or condolences.  Cockburn’s hospitality will get the benefit and renown of my downfall, and yet has no claim to it.  In future though, I must take a coach at night—­a control on one’s freedom, but it must be submitted to.  I found a letter from [R.] C[adell], giving a cheering account of things in London.  Their correspondent is getting into his strength.  Three days ago I would have been contented to buy this consola, as Judy says,[34] dearer than by a dozen falls in the mud.  For had the great Constable fallen, O my countrymen, what a fall were there!

[Sidenote:  N.B. Within eight weeks after recording this graceful act of submission, I found I was unable to keep a carriage at all.]