340 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



and it is not at all uncommon to find them with two, often, no 

 doubt, hired for the occasion. &quot; Why,&quot; said I, &quot;do you beg ? 

 Why do you not work ? &quot; &quot; Because,&quot; said she, &quot; I can get 

 no employment.&quot; &quot; But,&quot; said I, (t if you have no means of sup 

 porting them, why do you have children ? &quot; &quot; Sir,&quot; said she, 

 with a simplicity which was irresistible, &quot; Providence sends 

 them.&quot; It would have been much more true had she said, 

 improvidence ; but it was evident she was no adept in the 

 Malthusian school. Children, then, will be born into the world. 

 The improvement of the lower classes by education, the general 

 elevation of the standard of living, the increase of what may be 

 termed the artificial wants of life, and the influence of the higher 

 class of religious and moral considerations, giving a deeper con 

 viction of responsibility, and rendering the domestic affections 

 more elevated, and the social interests and the parental relations 

 more sacred, as far as they can be brought to bear upon the 

 mind, are among the only certain remedies for this improvi 

 dence. These considerations, however, can only be expected to 

 have their proper influence where the mind is in some measure 

 prepared for them by a rational and virtuous education. But it 

 is in no case a sufficient reason for subjecting the poorer classes 

 to any new hardship or privation, to say that there are too many 

 people ; because there are other questions, which inevitably arise 

 in the case, to which a reply might not be very easy j namely. 

 Who is here who has no right to be here ? and, Whose duty is it 

 to retire ? or, Who should be put out ? I do not say that society 

 is bound to support gratuitously any man, other than such as by 

 the providence of God are made incapable of providing for them 

 selves. Here the obligation is imperative. I hold the obliga 

 tion on society to be equally imperative to afford to every man, 

 as far as possible, the opportunity, by his own honest labor, of 

 providing for himself and those whom the divine Providence 

 has cast upon his care. Now, wherever the appropriation of the 

 soil, or the institutions of society, are such as to deprive a man 

 of this power, or to prevent him the opportunity of its exertion 

 where otherwise he would use it, it would seem, without the 

 most cogent reasons, a measure of great severity to live upon his 

 labor, and to take even from the small pittance which enables 

 him to render that labor ; to see him reduced to the borders of 

 starvation, and then to demand a piece of his last crust. I do 



