greater part only of its revenue, but a portion of its capital, to the annual expenditure of the government?

It is now necessary to advert again to a subject which we just touched upon at the beginning of this article. Notwithstanding the enormous sums thus annually raised for the main tenance of the poor, the poor are not thereby delivered from any of the calamities which assail them in countries where there is not a poor-rate. It is in extraordinary times,-times of pressure, either from great dearth of provisions, or great scarcity of work, that the poor are most liable to fall into a state of suffering. In ordinary times, individual calamities alone, as sickness, fire, and the like, which affect but a few, reduce the industrious to distress. From this distress the poor rate is ill calculated to relieve. It is itself the extremity of distress, for an independent industrious family to be driven to the workhouse; and seldom in any civilized country, where no workhouse ex sted, would the humanity of its neighbours permit such a family to incur the sufferings which degradation to the workhouse implies. It is to the profligate, to the idle and shameless, that the poor rate is a relief. The virtuous poor probably suffer more where there is a poor rate than where there is none: they struggle and endure, to save themselves from its degradat on; and their virtuous efforts are less attended to and less assisted by those who surround them, because the poor rate seems to exempt people from the duty of considering the situation of their indigent neighbours.

On the other hand, that the poor rate saves not whole districts from the extremity of distress, in times of pressure, the experience of the country but too lamentably testifies. To omit all preceding instances of suffering, of which the memory may have grown faint, (though the distresses of 1801, and the efforts which were every where made to relieve them, are not yet of an ancient date,) let us advert only to the calamities which during the last two years have afflicted the manufac turing districts from the loss of trade. Common report must have brought enough to the ears of every man, of the famine by which thousands and thousands were perishing. To some ears undoubtedly (for some mouths have told so to the world) the horrid tale came welcome; for it indicated that depression of the common people, which some men regard as their own elevation. Other ears it found stopped up with prejudice and unbelief; the mouths belonging to them pronouncing the poor to be always evil disposed, but never in want; pretending to be in want, but only from a disposition to insurrection,

sedition, and rebellion. The evidence delivered before the House of Commons on the memorable question respecting the orders in council did far more than confirm what common report had previously circulated; it opened up to public view a scene of distress, so widely extended, and so intense, as made the humane stand aghast. One of the effects of the extraordinary discovery thus made of the sufferings of our fellow creatures in the bosom of our country, was an association in London, formed of some of the highest characters in the country, for the relief of the suffering districts. This society have corresponded with the suffering districts, for the purpose of obtaining minute information respecting the state of distress; and have collected a body of evidence which, we trust, would make an impression (and to be sure that is a bold hope) on the mind even of Mr. M'Kerrel. We have had an opportu nity of inspecting that evidence, and will here extract from it a few particulars, for the further elucidation of this most interesting subject.

In a letter from Stockport it is stated, that "Hundreds of families with three or four children have only ten or twelve shillings per week: such families cannot get sufficient food. A considerable number out of work; others only partly employed; poor unable to buy clothes; in rags. Never before saw the labouring poor looking so ill, or appearing so ragged; many miserably wretched; a few nearly in a starving state. Parish consists of 20,000, and the proportion of the inhabitants able to contribute very small. The poor rate ten shillings in the pound on the assessment, and likely to be doubled, many who formerly paid being now obliged to apply to the workhouse for relief."

From Bolton it is stated, that " In a population of 17,000, there are 3000 paupers, notwithstanding great numbers have removed to seek for employment. Overseers are unable to answer the increasing demands of the poor. The very countenances of the poor indicate their sufferings. If particular cases of distress were furnished, the list would be very copious." Bradford: "Many families have not a morsel of bread, various neighbouring villages in the same distress."

Mansfield: "Vast numbers experience great distress; many utterly unable to procure the common necessaries of life, many who had lived far above want, now in very, very abject poverty."

Nottingham: "A poor man, out of work, with a wife and four children, receiving very little parochial relief, was found

in bed, in a state of absolute starvation. The children were eating pea-husks which they had picked up in the streets; these, together with the skins of potatoes, picked up in the same way, had been the only food of the family for several days. Relief was immediately given, but the man is since dead, purely in consequence of weakness &c. occasioned by hunger. Kent not paid; debts incurred; every thing almost, to the shirt that covers their nakedness, pawned and even this gives but a slight idea of the distress of this town.'

New Mills (Derbyshire, about eight miles from Stockport :) "The village contains about 4000 inhabitants. Distressed state of the industrious poor indescribable. Many families have not one shilling per head per week. No relief given where they had 2s. 6d., as the funds would not admit it."

Southill (near Dewsbury): "Population 315 families: 65 families receive relief; and 108 families, though they receive no parochial aid, suffer very much average earnings only 2s. 51d. per week: 30 tradesmen have lately been insolvent: a considerable number in small business suffer as greatly as almost any other class."

Todmorden (near Halifax): "Many deserving, industrious poor, who by exertion in better times have got a house decently furnished, which would be forfeited to the town if they obtained relief, rather go short of subsistence than see their house broken up.'

Heckmondwicke (in the parish of Burstall near Leeds): "Distresses of the labouring poor are great and complicated; many have sold all their goods; some sent to jail for debt, and creditors only deterred from seizing because they cannot find purchasers, Poor's rates inadequate from increase of paupers: numerous applications for relief macie weekly, with which it is impossible to comply. Township consists of 2324 individuals, of whom 1119 are in a state of distress."

Hartshead: "Contains 73 families, consisting of 397 individuals, whose weekly means, including parochial relief, average little more than 2s. per head."

Disley (near Stockport):" Necessities of the poor urgent and extreme: the writer had not heard of any place inclosing more indigence and perishing want; many families have sought sustenance from boiled nettles and wild greens, without salt."

This is a specimen. A person, in evidence before the House of Commons, gave it as his opinion (published by him self in all the newspapers) that the pretended distress of the VOL. II, 2 U

poor in the above districts during the past year was falsely de nominated distress; that it was the natural and proper state for the poor; that the high wages of prosperous times rendered the poor luxuious, and insolent, and difficult to govern This person, it seems, is a merchant of London. This, and the disposition and character which he has manifested, is all that the country knows about him. The general indignation which the publication of his opinions has excited may be taken, we trust, as a proof that he is one of a very limited set.. After what has happened in his case, few, at any rate, will dare to avow his honourable tissue of opinions. Certain people have their lot cast in a wrong country; they should be Russian nobles, or Turkish janissaries, to see the mass of their brethren degraded and suffering to their heart's content. In the notices, at the same time, which we have just quoted, there would seem to be wherewithal to satisfy a pretty voracious appetite.

II. CAUSES.

We have now produced sufficient evidence of the extent and progress of pauperism in this country; of the extent and progress of the burthen imposed upon the contributing classes for the maintenance of the poor; and of the inefficiency of this enormous expenditure to prevent, or apparently very much to diminish the sufferings of poverty. After this detail of fact, the next important object is to inquire into causes.

1st. What is the cause that pauperism has increased so very rapidly during the last thirty years? In seeking for this cause, we immediately see that one of two things is necessary. This increase must have been the effect, either of the circumstances of the country; or of the disposition of the people: it must have been the effect, either of a growing inability in the people to provide their own subsistence; or of a growing disinclination among them to industry and frugality, and a growing disposition to pauperism. Beside these, no other cause can be supposed; these two cases, then, deserve minutely to be explored.

With regard to the case of a growing inability in the people to provide themselves with subsistence; this, in the ordinary. course of things, never happens but in consequence of a declining state of the country, a diminution of its wealth, of the capital which maintains its industry, and is the parent of its annual produce, of the revenue both of the subjects and of the commonwealth. Two things only reduce the earnings of the poor; either a diminution in the quantity of work to be done,

er an increase in the number of people. Has the increase in the number of the people been more rapid during the last thirty than the former thirty years? We do not suppose that any one will pretend that it has. The accelerated progress of pauperism, then, has not arisen from the accelerated progress of population; because population, though it has increased, has not increased faster than in preceding years. If the increase of pauperism, therefore, has arisen from any other cause than the degenerating of the general character of the poor, it is a demonstrative proof that the country is not flourishing, that it is on the decline; that its wealth and capital are wasting

away.

The increase of pauperism, then, is of necessity owing to one or other of two very deplorable causes: either to the diminution of the wealth and capital of the country; or to the corruption and degeneracy of the great body of the people. This is a miserable alternative to which we are driven. It ought to reduce to a little serious reflection those who exhibit so much more violent a disposition to believe that every thing national is superlatively well, than to take any steps to make and to keep things well. The woeful increase of pauperism is a fact that will not suffer itself to be disguised.

Is it, then, to the former, or is it to the latter of these causes that we are to ascribe the melancholy result; or is it partly to the one, and partly to the other?

We have been by so many persons, and so industriously taught, that the country, notwithstanding the enormous waste and consumption of war, is in a flourishing state, is increasing in wealth, not diminishing; that we should not expect it to be very generally allowed, that it is a diminution of capital, a diminution in the means of employing the poor, that has produced the increase of pauperism. As evidence of wealth, the rapid increase of various towns, as of London, for example, is quoted and displayed. It is however an equivocal proof; for the enlargement of such towns may be the cllect only of the shifting of wealth to different hands, or the removal of it to different places, not of its general augmentation. Most of the other proofs usually adduced of the growing wealth of the country are equally ambiguous, but we shall not at present stop to examine them. That we may proceed with the inquiry, we shall, for the moment, allow the capital of the country, the funds for the employment of labour, to be augmenting. Let us see what account can be rendered of the other branch of the alternative.