13S EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



perpetuates beggary ; crime engenders crime. Sickness and neg 

 lect a sad relief, alas ! to the benevolent mind may do some 

 thing towards checking this rapid accumulation ; for it is stated 

 in the commissioners returns, and has been asserted recently in 

 the House of Peers, by a distinguished nobleman, that, in England 

 and Scotland, fifty thousand individuals perish annually by 

 disease, arising from the wretchedness of their habitations, owing 

 to imperfect ventilation, and the want of sufficient drainage.* 

 This, however, is a small number to be set against the annual 

 increase. Emigration may somewhat alleviate the evil ; trans 

 portation contributes its small share. It is a curious fact, 

 however, that disease seems scarcely to produce any sensible im 

 pression on the population, and that the losses occasioned by 

 severe and wide-spread epidemics are rapidly filled up and 

 obliterated. The effect of the extraordinary improvements al 

 ready made, and daily being made, in machinery, in the manu 

 facturing districts, is to diminish the amount of human labor 

 employed, and throw more destitute hands into the labor market. 

 What, then, under these circumstances, is to be done, is a question, 

 to the great moment of which I have already alluded. It is not, 

 in such a case, for men to wrap themselves up in their own 

 selfishness and indifference, and say, &quot; Let things take care of 

 themselves.&quot; 



I was conversing with a friend on this subject, a gentleman 

 of great intelligence, and not wanting in benevolence ; and his 

 remark was, that an increase of production would do little for 



* This same nobleman, in discussing this important subject, stated that, in ten 

 years, a larger number perished, in England, from these causes, than the whole 

 number of slaves emancipated in their colonies ; and for which Great Britain paid, 

 by a noble exertion, twenty million pounds sterling, or nearly one hundred million 

 of dollars. 



This is a curious fact, and every day s history of public beneficence presents 

 analogous facts cases in which thousands and millions are lavished upon objects, 

 doubtless deserving of sympathy and kindness, thousands of miles distant from us, 

 where the results are sometimes doubtful, and can never be known, but through 

 the testimony of interested parties, while objects of mercy and kindness, whose 

 claims are not less strong arid urgent, and whose condition can be perfectly 

 known, and where the results of our efforts may be watched and ascertained, 

 perish in all their want, ignorance, wretchedness, and profligacy, at the very 

 thresholds of our doors. Certainly, true charity, which extends its wide embrace 

 to afflicted humanity every where, will not end at home ; and it might often be as 

 well for it to begin there. 



