YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM.

THE "WESTMINSTER REVIEW" The occupation of so much of my time by office work did not relax my attention to my own pursuits, which were never carried on more vigorously.

It was about this time that I began to write in newspapers.
The first writings of mine which got into print were two letters published towards the end of 1822, in the _Traveller_ evening newspaper.
The _Traveller_ (which afterwards grew into the _Globe and Traveller_, by the purchase and incorporation of the _Globe_) was then the property of the well-known political economist, Colonel Torrens, and under the editorship of an able man, Mr.Walter Coulson (who, after being an amanuensis of Mr.Bentham, became a reporter, then an editor, next a barrister and conveyancer, and died Counsel to the Home Office), it had become one of the most important newspaper organs of Liberal politics.
Colonel Torrens himself wrote much of the political economy of his paper; and had at this time made an attack upon some opinion of Ricardo and my father, to which, at my father's instigation, I attempted an answer, and Coulson, out of consideration for my father and goodwill to me, inserted it.

There was a reply by Torrens, to which I again rejoined.

I soon after attempted something considerably more ambitious.
The prosecutions of Richard Carlile and his wife and sister for publications hostile to Christianity were then exciting much attention, and nowhere more than among the people I frequented.