SIZE OF FARMS. AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 385 



be ascribed to their naturally-cheerful temperament, and some 

 thing to that extraordinary sobriety, which every where, in a 

 remarkable degree, characterizes the French people ; but much 

 more, I think, to the favorable condition in which this law, 

 which renders attainable the possession of a freehold in the soil, 

 places them. 



I am extremely averse to making any unfavorable comparisons ; 

 and I am quite aware that my judgment may be at fault ; but I 

 shall offend no candid mind by the calm expression of my honest 

 opinion. The very poor condition of a largo portion of the 

 English agricultural laboring population must be acknowledged. 

 The acquisition of property is, in most cases, all but impossible. 

 The great difficulty, where there is a family, is to subsist ; in 

 sickness they have no resource but private charity or parish 

 assistance ; and they have, in most cases, nothing to which they 

 can look forward, when the power to labor fails them, but the 

 almshouse. 



I believe there is an equal amount of philanthropy, and 

 as strong a sense of justice and humanity, among the English, 

 as among any people j but it is not to be expected, in any 

 country where wealth constitutes the great and most enviable 

 distinction, and where, by various circumstances, avarice is stim 

 ulated to the highest degree, that the great mass of the com 

 munity should be either philanthropic, or humane, or just. 

 Wealth is almost every where, in what is called civilized, and 

 too often miscalled Christian, life, the great instrument of power. 

 Power is a dangerous possession, and always liable to abuse. 

 The only security against this abuse is the division of power : 

 and to give the humbler classes the means of helping them 

 selves. 



In Great Britain, as I have already said, the rural laboring 

 classes are placed in circumstances of hardship and disadvantage. 

 It would be ordinarily quite idle for them to aspire to the owner 

 ship of land. Philanthropic and benevolent persons, in various 

 parts of the country, have ~iven them small allotments ; though 

 some have endeavored to limit these allotments to one eighth of 

 an acre, and many farmers have combined in denouncing the 

 allotment system, and have refused to take leases where the 

 laborers were to be allowed allotments. The beneficial effects 

 of these allotments, both upon the comfort and morals of the 

 VOL. ii. 33 



