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timent of self-respect, which spurns at obligation, is confined to the educated section of the community; and though the old English yeomen once felt and acknowledged its influence, it cannot be denied that during the last half century, it has gradually declined. The cause of this increasing disregard of the degradation attendant on beggary, is to be ascribed almost entirely to the poor laws, which offer a bounty to pauperism, by creating a public fund for the support of thoughtlessness and extravagance. A certain class of writers, who cater to the worst passions of the vulgar, have, during the last twenty years, disseminated false and mischievous opinions among the working classes, respecting the distinctions of ranks in society. The labouring poor have been taught to believe, that if the government were to adopt honest measures, poverty would be driven from the land; and while the science of political economy has been reprobated as a scheme of deception, calculated to benefit the rich by plundering the poor, the most pernicious and unfounded doctrines have been industriously circulated, to excite hatred, discontent, and insubordination, among the credulous disciples of the Utopian school of universal equality. Mr. Malthus, in his admirable Essay on Population, has unanswerably exposed the folly of these apostles of revolution;

but it is to be regretted that the expense and size of his work places it beyond the reach of those readers who are misled by the artifices or the ignorance of the radical press. This profound economist has satisfactorily proved, that population has a tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence; from which invariable law of nature it evidently follows, that there always must of necessity be a gradation in society, and that poverty must as certainly be found at the bottom of the chain. Though this dispensation may appear, to superficial thinkers, inconsistent with the benevolence of God, yet those who look below the surface of things, perceive the utility of this apparent curse. Man is ordained to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and he is endued with bodily strength and mental intelligence sufficient to enable him to accomplish the destiny appointed. If the Creator had left him destitute of powers of production, then it might be argued, that the condition of man was wretched and unjust. But as the instruments of happiness and misery are placed in the hands of every individual, he alone is to blame, if he perverts the advantages he possesses. Every legal institution, therefore, which tends to destroy industrious habits, militates against the obvious intentions of God; and this consideration

alone, ought to influence the decrees of a Christian legislature.

That the poor laws, as they now exist, are calculated to produce lazy and improvident conduct, a few observations will prove. The majority of mankind are prone to idleness; few like the trouble of sowing the seed, though all are eager to reap the harvest. the harvest. But as the demand for subsistence always exceeds the supply, even under a regular system of government, in which the division of labour is established, and the security of property respected, what destructive consequences would result, if the industrious labourer were to be deprived of the fruits of his exertions, when the moment of enjoyment had arrived! Now, if a Godwinian or Spencean system of equality were established, it requires no argument to make it evident that, by permitting the idle to share in the produce of the industrious, anarchy and confusion would quickly follow. It is sheer stupidity to suppose that all men would contribute to create as much as they would consume, for man requires the stimulus of necessity to compel him to labour; nor would any member of this ideal community allow his neighbour, who only worked six hours a day, to share as much as himself, if he worked eight hours. This subject needs not be pursued; for the

fiction on which the hypothesis (for it cannot be called reasoning) is founded, is grossly erroneous and unphilosophical. But if the universal adoption of the system of equality, in other words, the system which would allow men to reap what they had not sown, be pregnant with mischief, any modification of it must, to a certain extent, be equally pernicious. Now this is precisely the result of the poor laws. A young-plough boy, twenty years of age, feels inclined to marry a milk-maid of the same age, neither of them possessing the means adequate to maintain a family. This consideration, which restrains thousands of the middling classes from matrimony, who are imbued with the honourable feelings of self-respect and independence of mind, has no influence whatever on the plough-boy and the milk-maid. They are aware that the parish must support them and their children, and as begging is not viewed by them as a disgrace -indeed many of this class of people consider they are only claiming a just and proper share of the wealth of the community-they proceed to increase the number of labourers. The consequence of these improvident marriages is, that the supply of workmen exceeds the demand; consequently wages fall, and the unemployed also come on the parish. It is easy to see how rapidly this operation goes on, and

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also, that in proportion as the redundancy of population presses on the means of subsistence, misery and poverty spread their dominion. We yield to none in attachment to the democratic part of the constitution, but we pronounce the continuance of parochial relief, an unjust, partial, and oppressive tax. The funds raised for this purpose, are extracted from the industrious, and independent in mind, 'who are most inequitably deprived of a portion of their labour to support the idle and improvident. The infirm, the cripple, the aged, and unfortunate, are fit objects of charity, and every member of the community would gladly contribute to the relief of their necessities; but a compulsory/tax on industry, for the maintenance of careless and unreflecting mendicants, is as complete an act of despotism, as the forcible levy of funds to support the mere gaudy trappings and elegant luxury of a continental court. Nor is the injustice which the poor laws inflict on the industrious, the only ground for animadversion; the consequences to the lower orders themselves, who subsist on the rate, are deplorable. Their minds are corrupted; their independence is destroyed; their notions of selfrespect are extinguished. When a woman sacrifices her modesty, she seldom hesitates to pursue the career of vice: when a man

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