Natural History of Nova Scotia. 661 



find employment by which they can support themselves. 

 This distress has reached such a height in our mother country, 

 that opposite parties are predicting a helium servile^ or war of 

 the servants against the masters ; and it has been seriously 

 proposed to enact laws to prevent a portion of the labouring 

 class from marrying, by some wise men of that school which 

 believes the earth to have been created, and to be governed, 

 by chance ; and who seem really to fear that it may fail to 

 produce sufficient food for its inhabitants, if their wisdom 

 should not interfere to lessen their numbers. At such a time 

 as this, an unknown and new pestilential disease appears, 

 which, baffling the skill of the physician, spreads from country 

 to country, marking, by its victims, the situations where man 

 has neglected accumulations of filth, which, applied to their 

 proper use as manures, might have furnished employment and 

 food for millions ; and, at the same time, by the greater dan- 

 ger of a crowded situation, warning a portion of the inhabit- 

 ants of thickly settled towns to remove to insulated situations 

 in the country. 



In every part of Europe manufactories appear to be in- 

 creasing. The business is overdone ; markets cannot be found 

 sufficient to absorb the immense quantities of goods. The 

 motive appears to be found in the great fortunes that some 

 capitalists have acquired ; for the condition of the operatives 

 seems to be far from enviable, when compared with that of the 

 agricultural labourer. It does appear to me that a warning 

 has now been given to man, from a source of undoubted 

 wisdom, to turn his attention more to agriculture. In no 

 other employment is the labouring man more comfortable. 

 Some trades require less exertion of bodily strength ; but it is 

 not the man who bears the most fatigue that is the least cheer- 

 ful. It is not in the time that pestilential diseases are abroad 

 only that an inattention to cleanliness is dangerous. I have 

 so frequently observed scrofulous complaints in families that 

 live in uncleanly situations, and particularly in those that 

 inhabit rooms below the level of their yards, that I have long 

 believed that chronic diseases may be induced by a greater 

 than common proportion of irrespirable gases in the air. It 

 has been observed in England, that in the parish workhouses 

 there is an uncommon proportion of scrofula, rickets, and cu- 

 taneous diseases, among children. The necessaries of life are 

 drawn principally from the culture of the earth. The annual 

 labour produces the supply for the following season. Money, 

 or what we call wealth, is the power of commanding this 

 labour ; but this power is not always wisely applied. From 

 habit, men sometimes continue the business which formerly 



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