tendency, fostering idleness and giving encouragement to fraud. There was no objection, on the part of the inquirers for amendment's sake, to put an end to this abuse, when the relief amounted to no more than the means of a bare existence: but no evidence was sought as to the amount subtracted from the miserable earnings of the occasionally idle poor man, to supply out-door relief for life, out-door pensions of extravagant magnitude, for those who never toiled nor spun, yet who were gloriously arrayed and fared sumptuously every day. It was stated that the increase of the numbers of the Poor materially diminished the luxuries of the better classes, and even encroached upon their comforts. It was not noticed how the Poor had been robbed of the very means of life by the profitable speculations of capitalists and the encroachments of landlords on the common property. No restitution was proposed, even of the charitable provision for the Poor, which the reformed Church had appropriated to increase the incomes of the followers of him who "had not where to lay his head;" although there was abundant proof of the dissensions caused by the present iniquitous disposal of tithes and disposition of tithe-owners, and this, at least, it might be supposed, would have some weight with the preachers of peace. It was shown that the "making up of wages," out of the parish funds, was only favouring the employer at the expense of the community. It was therefore ordered, that such making up should be discontinued: but it was not deemed advisable to adopt measures for insuring to every man a fair remuneration for his labour.-It was complained that, in relieving the indigent, no inquiries were made as to character; that the dissolute and the depraved were allowed a maintenance, and that the families even of men imprisoned to await their trial for alleged crimes, were supported out of the common fund. In reply, it was not intimated to the complainants, that the English law considers every man innocent till there is proof of his guilt, and that no inquiries are ever made into the characters of paupers on the pension-list.-It was proved that much good had proceeded from the allowance of allotments of land to labourers, even at a considerable rent;† The following are some of the yearly out-door allowances to paupers, not interfered with by the honest Poor-law Commissioners. Adelaide, Queen Dowager. Duchess of Kent.. KING OF HANOVER. PRINCE GEORGE OF HANOVER.. LEOPOLD, KING OF BELGIUM.. Duke of Sussex. Duke of Cambridge. Prince George of Cambridge.. Court Pension List (Retiring incomes for royal “mistresses", &c., &c.) 150,000 These sums do not include the value of the Palaces, Parks, and other advantages, enjoyed by these illustrious - and paid for by the taxes levied from the lowest classes of the com munity. "It is true, that the nation is burdened, even to the breaking of it down: it is true that the farmers are ruined by prices equal to the prices of forty years ago; but, are they ruined by the six millions (of poor-rates); or, are they ruined by the FIFTY-TWO MILLIONS (of government taxes)? Have they been ruined by the poor-rates; or by the expense of the standing army in time of peace; by the pensions, sinecures, grants and allowances, half-pay, amounting altogether to between six and seven millions a year; and by the thirty millions a year paid to the usurers? "A hundred and thirteen privy councillors, not including bishops or royal family, swallow up six hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year out of the taxes; a sum equal to the aggregate amount of the poor-rates of Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckingham, Huntingdonshire, Cumberland, Monmouthshire, Rutlandshire, Westmoreland, and another county or two into the bargain! There were grants to augment the livings of the clergy in England, to the amount of the poorrates of ten counties in England, standing the first on the alphabetical list. We have just voted, to be given to lords, baronets, and 'squires, (why is not compensation given to all thieves?) to induce them to free their slaves in the West Indies, as much money as would keep the poor of England and Wales for five years. The working people are compelled to pay the far greater part of these sums out of the fruits of their labour. Their drink, raised by their own hands, in their own country, pays a tax of two hundred per cent.; while the drink of the rich, produced in other countries, pays a tax of only twenty per cent.! WHAT IS THE RIGHT that lords, and baronets, and 'squires, have to possess the lands, and to make the laws?"-Cobbett's Legacy to Labourers "Ten acres of land have lately been given up to the poor by Lord Salisbury, the lord of the manor (of Cranbourne.) This is divided into 24 parts, and let at the rate of £1. 3s. per acre. "The great tithes (of Cranbourne,) which are in the hands, principally, of Lord Salisbury, and another person, amount to £2500. per annum. and still more from permitting them to purchase such allotments for life: but there was no endeavour on the part of the Commissioners to show how much greater good would result from giving to every man a portion of his native land, free of rent or purchase; there was no recommendation to act upon this suggestion, by making the waste lands (the commons, the many parks and pleasure grounds) of use to the community.-In fine, although the Commissioners not only did not search into, but carefully avoided, the prime causes of the prevalent anarchy, yet everything testified that it was engendered by the atrocious system of dividing men into rich and poor: permitting the robbery of one portion of society by another, under the cover of trade; suffering a few to revel in extravagance and idleness, while the Many were worn to the heart with unrequited and hopeless toil; prohibiting any really useful education, lest the oppressed and care-goaded slave should become "above his station." This was testified: but it came not among the LEGITIMATE objects of the Commissioners' inquiry. Verily, not! Their inquiry was instituted for the advantage of their brethren, the privileged few; not for the benefit of their "neighbours," the Many. They were no "good Samaritans," commissioned to pour oil and wine into the wounds of the plundered. The Priest and the Levite passed on-mocking at the words of Christ: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also unto them; for this is the law"-It is not our Law. We are Christians. OUR LAW IS THE LEGALIZATION OF INJURY; and the bishops of "Christ's" church are foremost in its promotion. We object entirely to one and all of these Acts for the relief of the Poor, proceeding from our tyrants' fear lest the weight of their chains should bow down the tired slave into the dust of death, and deprive his taskmasters of a serviceable tool. What else are their poor-law Acts; and their amendments? What else are their various charities, public and private? We beg not charity- we demand justice. Let those, who are in possession of superfluities, be taxed to the amount of those superfluities, for the support of the indigent. Let it be proved that the land is not sufficient to sustain its inhabitants (which cannot be while there is waste land, while miles of ground are inclosed for the mere pleasure of one man), or, till it be proved, let every man enjoy as comfortable a subsistence as can be afforded him by a fair sharing of the land's produce. Let not one man be punished for occasional idleness, while another is privileged to be ever worthless. Let it be demonstrated that the vices of individuals are not rooted in the present false system of society, or let the composition of society undergo such a revolution as shall give some hope of more than a palliation, of a cure of its many evils. Let men be treated as men, as the free children of God, possessed of independent rights; not as beasts to be bought and sold by commercial speculators or legalized slaveholders. Let Trade give up its traffic in human misery; let Governments learn honesty, and dispense justice; let the Ministers of Religion keep their hands from picking and stealing, and their tongues from evil-speaking and lying; let Christ's doctrine of LOVE be tolerated amongst us-and there will be no need of arbitrary enactments for the relief of the Poor; no occasion for Commissioners, armed with despotic powers, to prevent the Poor from perishing, or the Respectable from being plundered (even by each other). It will not then be requisite for men and women to live in vicious loneliness, or to defer their natural and innocent desires, through fear lest they should be bringing a sacrifice to the Moloch of Property; there will then be no temptation for men to gratify the paltry pride of superiority by giving alms in the market-places; high-spirited and noble men will not then be induced to live idly and disgracefully upon the labour of those whom they call their inferiors; the number of the Poor will not then "The whole income of the vicar is £125 per annum." Mr. Okeden's Report from Dorsetshire. Pp. 97, 99, 100, of the "Extracts, received," &c. Out of from 10,000 to 11,000 livings, 5000 are private property. increase, nor will the possessors of the means of enjoyment be haunted with the ever-present dread of spoliation: but the members of the common family will be enabled to live honestly and peacefully on their several allotments from the common property: Youth will be educated; Maturity will be healthful and active, homed in the midst of uninterrupted happiness; and Age, honoured and affection-tended, will lie down in its serenity, to rest after the day's enjoyment, pillowed on the consciousness of a well-spent life, and canopied by a glorious memory. Prisons and Poor-houses shall pass away; and, in their place, the home of enfranchised LOVE be surely founded. A Corrupt Parliament.—Are they fit to be the legislators of a whole people who themselves know not what law, what reason, what right and wrong, what crooked and straight, what licit and illicit means; who think that all power consists in outrage, all dignity in the parade of insolence; who neglect every other consideration for the corrupt gratification of their friendships, or the prosecution of their resentments; who disperse their own relations and creatures through the provinces, for the sake of levying taxes and confiscating goods-men, for the greater part, the most profligate and vile, who buy up for themselves what they pretend to expose to sale, who thence collect an exorbitant mass of wealth, which they fraudulently divert from the public service; who thus spread their pillage through the country, and in a moment emerge from penury and rags, to a state of splendour and of wealth? Who could endure such thievish servants, such vice-gerents of their lords? Who could believe that the masters and the patrons of a banditti could be the proper guardians of liberty; or who would suppose that he should ever be made one hair more free by such a set of public functionaries (though they might amount to five hundred, elected in this manner from the counties and boroughs) when among them who are the very guardians of liberty, and to whose custody it is committed, there must be so many, who know not either how to use or to enjoy liberty, who neither understand the principles nor merit the possession?— Milton. TO THE COMMONS, AT THEIR SQUABBLES. Who toil with head or hand, what boot the feuds That furnish gabble to your heated moods, When truth runs o'er with wine, and shows ye-liars! For Social Progress; or we force the way, Wade. Judges. What Shentleman is that upon the Pench in hur Cown, and hur Pelt, and hur Plack Cap? Why marry (quoth Morgan) hur is an old woman that takes hur nap upon hur cushion, and then hur tells the Shewry hur Tream.-A Learned Dissertation upon Old Women. Freedom of Conscience.-It is commonly said, "that positive institutions ought to leave me perfectly free in matters of conscience, but may properly interfere with my conduct in civil concerns." But this distinction seems to have been very lightly taken up. What sort of moralist must he be, who makes no conscience of what passes in his intercourse with other men? Such a distinction proceeds upon the supposition, "that it is of great consequence whether I bow to the east or the west; whether I call the object of my worship Jehovah or Alla; whether I pay a priest in a surplice or a black coat. These are points, in which an honest man ought to be rigid and inflexible. But as to those other whether he shall be a tyrant, a slave or a free citizen; whether he shall bind himself with multiplied oaths impossible to be performed, or be a rigid observer of truth; whether he shall swear allegiance to a king de jure or a king de facto, to the best or the worst of all possible governments; respecting these points he may safely commit his conscience to the keeping of the civil magistrate." In reality, by as many instances as I act contrary to the unbiassed dictates of my own judgment, by so much I abdicate the most valuable part of the character of man.—Godwin's Political Justice. Government as it is. A great Nation. With the phrase's leave, the words public and country and nation, in parliamentary mouths, generally mean not the public, the country, or the nation, but only the ruling and capital-commanding portions of it; and it is too sad a truth, that a great nation, as a whole or a majority, may be a pauper, a creature working its heart out to keep soul and body together, and having poor-law work-houses expressly made for it by the few to cause it to work on, either by the dread of being refused aid, if it does not work sixteen hours a day for four or five shillings a week, or the power of receiving it, should it have so worked itself into rheumatism and decrepitude.-Monthly Repository: 1838. Society.-Reason gains credit slowly, and with pain. How do you think Society can be agreeable with all the pedantic rubbish that perpetually surrounds it?-Voltaire. Nobles.-Ignorance, indolence, and contempt of civil government are the natural characteristics of the nobles.-Montesquieu. Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness, an immense annuity expended to retain mankind in brutality and ignorance. The poor are kept in ignorance by the want of leisure. The rich are furnished indeed with the means of cultivation and literature, but they are paid for being dissipated and indolent.-Godwin. Public History.-A register of the successes and disappointments, the vices, the follies and the quarrels of those who engage in contentions for power.-Paley. Live we not in a Christian land, Ask of the outlaw'd mendicant, Answer! thou grey-hair'd prisoner! "I have toil'd for half a century: Why art thou stunted and dim-eyed? "Was not Christ sold for thirty pence? Confess! thou tatter'd vagabond! |