That a certain number of the members of a community must be always dependant upon that com. munity for support, arises partly from the unavoidable fluctuations in the demand for labor, partly from disease and accident, and partly from the natural and characteristic improvidence of that class of people whose activity is in a great measure stifled by poverty and ignorance. This improvidence no doubt is greatly increased by the system of poor-laws in England, which at all times promises a certainty of relief to idleness. Scotland and Ireland are not as yet afflicted with the English method of providing for the poor. For full and detailed information upon the evil tendencies of the poor-law system in England, see the "Reports of the Society for bettering the condition of the poor," Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, published in the years 1802-3-4-5-7. And for the foundation of the evil consult, Vol. 2. pp. 149, 188, of the "Essay on Population," by that distinguished political philosopher Mr. Malthus. These poor-laws have now for more than two hundred years past been proclaiming in the loudest and most intelligible language their own pernicious tendencies to cut up by the roots all the active industry of the laboring orders of the community. Not now to mention the various acts of the English Parliament relating to this subject, made in the times of Henry the Seventh, Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and Philip and Mary, let us only briefly notice that passed in the reign of Elizabeth.

The 43d Eliz. c. 2. s. 1.-ordains that the overseers of each parish shall find materials and work for the children of all those who cannot maintain their own offspring; and also for all persons married or unmarried, having no money to maintain them, and using no ordinary or daily trade by which to get their living; and also to find food and raiment for all the impotent poor who cannot find it. for themselves.

But this statute cannot effect impossibilities; an English act of parliament can never work a miracle. The position is now for ever settled by Mr. Malthus, who draws his proofs from the observation and the recorded experience of all ages, that the principle of population always outruns the means of subsistence; that man has the power of multiplying his species far surpassing in rapidity and force the capacity of the earth to produce food; that population increases in a geometrical, while the means of subsistence increase only in an arithmetical ratio. Indeed this disproportion between the power of multiplying the species and of procuring the means of subsistence pervades all created nature, animal and vegetable; the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the plants of the earth, have all, as well as man, a far greater power of reproducing their kind than their respective elements have of providing food and nourishment for their animal and vegetable progeny,

Dr. Clarke, in his very admirable and excellent "Commentary on the Bible," &c. published in London in 1810, and re-published in New-York in 1811, has the following note, illustrating the great reproductive power of vegetables.-Genesis, chapter 1st, verse 12th-Whose seed was in itself. "Which has

the power of multiplying itself by seeds, slips, roots, &c. ad infinitum; which contains in itself all the rudiments of the future plant through its endless generations. The astonishing power with which God has endued the vegetable creation to multiply its different species, may be instanced in the seed of the elm. This tree produces one thousand five hundred and eighty-four millions of seeds; and each of these seeds has the power of producing the same number. At first one seed is deposited in the earth; from this one a tree springs, which in the course of its vegetative life produces 1,584,000,000 of seeds. This is the first generation. The second generation will amoun

to two millions five hundred and ten thousand and fiftysix billions. The third generation will amount to fourteen thousand six hundred and fifty-eight quadrillions, seven hundred and twenty-seven thousand and forty trillions. When we allow the most confined space in which a tree can grow, it appears that the seeds of the third generation from one elm would be many myriads of times more than sufficient to stock the whole superficies of all the planets in the solar system."

دو

It is also manifest, that the mass of human population in any given country, must always be measured and limited by the quantity of food in that country; for where there are no means of subsistence people must die. But the statute of Elizabeth requires that work, materials, and food, shall be provided for all the poor who want such things. As if the overseers of an English parish, with a country-justice in their van, could create work and materials where there was no effectual demand for them; or could manufacture food when it did not exist in the kingdom. What is this but holding up a high bounty for the production of a greater population than the country can actually maintain; whence the consequent increase of the bills of mortality, by penury, disease, and all the complicated miseries of famine? The English poor are thus prevented from being taught this important truth; that no individual human being who cannot maintain a wife and family has any business with them; has any right to entail them as additional incumbrances on the community. Whence, without the least exercise of reflection or calculation, they proceed to augment the mass of beggarly popu lation to an extent far beyond that which the country can adequately support; far beyond the power of the land to produce the full means of subsistence for them; because the Legislature has invited them to introduce into the world any number of unnecessary

and superfluous children they please, and to look to the parish for food and covering. See also Stewart's "Political Economy," book 1st, chapters 12, 13, on the folly of forcing marriages, and the consequent production of a too numerous population in the community; and likewise Lord Kames's "Sketches of the History of Man," Vol. 3. pp. 76--107.

The words of Mr. Burke, on the fatal effects of Government's interfering with the concerns of the lower orders, respecting their sustenance and labor, cannot be too often repeated. The following citation is taken from this great statesman's works, Vol. 7. pp. 376–416. Vol. 8. pp. 367–369. "To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good, in this or perhaps in any thing else. It is not only so of the state and statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions of the rich; they are the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity. They are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence on those who labor, and are miscalled the poor. The laboring people are only poor because they are numerous. Numbers in their nature imply poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast multitude none can have much. That class of dependent pensioners called the rich, is so extremely small, that if all their throats were cut, and a distribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labor, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves.

"But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines plundered; because in their persons they are trustees for those who labor, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter. Whe

ther they mean it or not, they do in effect execute their trust; some with more, some with less fidelity and judgment. But on the whole the duty is performed, and every thing returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from whence it rose. When the poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes, as when they burn mills and throw corn into the river to make bread cheap. Nothing can be so base and so wicked, as the political canting language," the laboring poor." Let compassion be shewn in action, the more the better, according to every man's ability; but let there be no lamentation of their condition; it is only an insult to their miserable understand. ings. It arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. Want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labor, sobriety, frugality and religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest is downright fraud. It is horrible to call them " the once happy laborer."

"The state ought to confine itself to what regards the state, or the creatures of the state; namely, the exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their existence to its fiat; in a word, to every thing that is truly and properly public; to the public peace; to the public safety; to the public order; to the public prosperity. In its preventive police it ought to be sparing of its efforts; and to employ means rather few, unfrequent, and strong, than many and frequent, and of course as they multiply their puny politic race, and dwindle, small and feeble. Statesmen who know themselves, will, with the dig nity which belongs to wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their duty, steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously: whatever remains will in a manner provide for itself. But as they descend from a state to a province, from a province