ber of persons upon whom the duty of charity is imposed, and their power of amply fulfilling that duty, are therefore augmented in full proportion to the increase of the legitimate objects of charity; and the onus upon the country, though increased in absolute amount, is perhaps lightened with respect to its comparative power of bearing it. This may be illus trated by a dry arithmetical calculation.

Let us suppose the nominal capital of an agricul tural country to be 5,000,000l., and the sums expended in charity to be 50,000l., or 1 per cent. ; that in its progress to the mixed agricultural and commercial state its nominal capital is increased to 20,000,000%., and its charitable expenses to 150,000%., or three fourths per cent; it is evident that the sum expended, though thrice in amount, is a fourth less burthensome to the country, provided the expense is fairly apportioned.

Again, at its arrival in the highly manufacturing and commercial state, its nominal capital may be increased to 200,000,000l., and its expenditure in charity to 1,350,000/., and yet the country, and each individual in it, may expend a smaller portion of its means in the exercise of that virtue than when only 150,000l. was laid out. Nor would it be fair to estimate the comparative distress at the two periods, or the number of persons receiving relief, according to the difference in the two sums; for it is well known that, as wealth accumulates, the real value of money decreases as compared with its nominal amount, and a larger sum is necessary to purchase an equal quantity of the necessaries of life. If we suppose this difference between the last two of the above mentioned periods to amount to one fourth, we must of course deduct that

proportion from the increase of distressed persons, which the difference between the two sums would otherwise indicate. The same allowances must of course be made in comparing the charitable expenditure of two separate countries in different conditions of society. In England the nominal increase of the poor's rate, from 1783 to 1803, was from 2,130,000l. to 4,200,000l., or 2,070,000l., which is apparently near double. But the price in the necessaries of life during the same period had increased one third. That proportion therefore, or 1,400,000l., must be deducted from 4,200,000l., in order to ascertain the real increase of persons supported by charity during the period; which, instead of being nearly double, as appears upon the face of the account, will then turn out to be something less than one third; for the increase of expense, if money had continued of the same nominal value, would only have been from 2,130,000l. to 2,800,000l., as will be evident to any one who will take the trouble to arrange the figures on the back of a letter. The increase in the number of persons to be supported, must of course have been in the same proportion, viz. less than one third: but the revenue of England, or the power of supporting them if the expense were fairly apportioned, had considerably more than doubled in the same period.

If the reasoning contained in this chapter be at all just, there surely cannot well be more idle declamation, than what we frequently hear concerning the extravagance of the expenditure in charity in some countries, grounded upon a comparison with the trifling sums paid in others, where the bulk of the people apparently enjoys equal comfort and

happiness. It is obvious that the reasonable expenditure for the purpose of keeping the people in a comfortable state, and the means of meeting it in an agricultural country like America, must be greatly less than in mixed agricultural and commercial countries, like France and Scotland; and these again must bear a small proportion to the necessary expenses and the means of a highly manufacturing and commercial nation, such as England. To make a comparison, therefore, between these countries or between others in a similar condition respectively, with a view to charge that which makes the greatest expenditure with extravagance, appears to be not more reasonable, than it would be to murmur that the head of a large family, enjoying an ample fortune, should dedicate a greater sum to the support and assistance of his poor relations, than the head of a small family in circumstances comparatively

narrow.

But perhaps it may be objected, that if the necessity for the exercise of charity increases with every step in the progress of society, individual distress must of course increase also, and the general condition of the people be deteriorated. To this it may be answered that, where the demands of charity are duly answered, the general happiness of the people is rather advanced than trenched upon by the increased extent of charitable exertion. I should upon the whole conceive that a peasant would be more happy in the power of sending his children to a village school within half a mile of his cottage, or a town-resident to one within half a furlong, than the cultivator in an agricultural country could be in the scanty and occcasional intercouse which he

could have with any instructors at all in the insulated situation of his residence; and that the children in the former case would be more likely to turn out blessings to their parents. In Canada, I am credibly informed, that the means of procuring instruction are so scanty, that even many members of the legislature cannot sign their names. Though government, through the exertion of some benevolent men in authority there, are about to use means for affording greater facilities of instruction

Again I should conceive, that a poor man who fractures one of his limbs in a highly civilized country that fulfils its moral duties as to charity, and is instantly carried to an hospital, where all the comforts and skill attendant upon such a state of society are employed towards his cure, enjoys some trifling advantages over the peasant of the agricultural country, who may meet with the same accident in the middle of a large wood, 100 miles distant, even from the scanty comforts and deficient skill which are usually found in such countries.

Once more-although the ordinary fluctuations in the condition of the labouring part of the community are necessarily greater in the most advanced than in the previous stages of society, yet I should certainly be disposed, from personal observation, to assert that, where the measures for meeting the consequences of these fluctuations, which have been detailed in former chapters of this treatise, are duly called into action, as in every moral country they will be, there the poor man's condition is upon the whole more desirable than in the earlier stages of society. For not only are the ordinary fluctuations met and remedied, but the extraordinary fluctuations

also. He feels secure that, if he is himself industrious, his family will meet with due support, bọth when their ordinary expenses are greater than he can afford, and also when accident imposes upon them any extraordinary difficulties. And when the support, although given as a modification of charity, is confined to these two cases, it is both desirable in theory, and true in fact, that the sense of degradation attached to personal relief under any form should gradually wear away, and attach itself only to cases of distress induced by idleness and profligacy. In all others it comes by degrees to be considered as a provision due by law or custom from the society at large, in return for the general advantages received by its progress in wealth and prosperity. This observation especially applies to the case of the poor laws in England, where we frequently hear it stated, in terms of lamentation and reproach, that 12 in 100, or nearly an eighth of the resident population are reduced to the state of paupers, subsisting upon charity; whereas it is well known to all persons conversant with the execution of the poorlaws, that at least one third of those persons are the offspring of industrious parents of large families, who receive their subsistence from the state by a legal provision, involving no disgrace or imputation upon the receivers, and conferring great and important benefits upon the state in its present condition of so ciety. Strictly speaking, therefore, it cannot be considered so much in the light of charity under any of its modifications, as in that of a tax upon property, which when duly apportioned, is calculated, as have shown in a former chapter, to produce economi