CORN DUTIES. 339 



at the custom-house, that it may be destroyed as human food. 

 What an extraordinary fact this is ! In one of the great brew 

 eries in London, where, I think, forty of the magnificent London 

 horses are kept, they are worked but six years, and are then sent 

 into the country to enjoy rest and comfort the remainder of 

 their lives. What an enviable condition is this compared with 

 that of many of the human laborers, in a country enriched by 

 their toil, and flooded with a wealth unknown before in the 

 history of the world. I should do the greatest wrong if I did 

 not say, however, that there are many bright examples of a 

 justice and humanity towards those by whose toil they live, of 

 the noblest character a conduct which is sure to be followed 

 by its appropriate reward ; and that the evils are deplored by 

 many more, who have not the sagacity to discern, nor the power 

 to apply, a remedy. But the condition which I have described 

 is but too common, and must afford a most instructive lesson to 

 the laboring portion of the people of the United States. 



8. EXCESS or POPULATION. The constant complaint here 

 is, that there are too many people. This is an extraordinary 

 complaint, while there are several millions of acres of productive 

 lands lying waste and uncultivated. But what is &quot; the preven 

 tive check &quot; ? Poverty and hunger are riot found effectual. It is 

 an extraordinary remedy adopted at Manchester, where, accord 

 ing to the returns, seventy-six out of every hundred of the 

 children born die before the usual age of weaning, a large pro 

 portion of whom are dosed out of existence by the excessive use 

 of opiates. Such a mode of disposing of a surplus population is 

 certainly as little to be commended as Defoe s Short Method with 

 the Dissenters^ advising to hang them all ! A valued friend 

 of mine, a celibate, and so likely to continue, whose great 

 passion is statistical science, very gravely asserts, that if men 

 and women would not marry until they were twenty-seven 

 years old, there would be no surplus population. The only 

 reply to be made to such practical theories, is in the words of 

 the old proverb, &quot; When the sky falls, we shall catch larks ; &quot; and 

 it would not be surprising to find such a man as gravely recom 

 mending the old method of catching birds, by putting salt upon 

 their tails. I was one day, in London, importuned for charity, by 

 a healthy-looking woman with a young infant upon her arms ; 



