23 



are, from the disproportion between their earn- 

 ings and the unavoidable charges for the main- 

 tenance of their numerous families, incapable 

 of subsisting entirely upon their own resources. 



When industry has no opportunity for exer- 

 tion, or when it is not equitably rewarded, it 

 naturally withers ; the man is degraded in his 

 own estimation, and in his most valuable and 

 most essential qualities. When industry is pro- 

 perly excited in youth, it becomes the habit of 

 manhood ; and frugality coupled with industry 

 in early years may still provide the means by 

 which the man may subsist upon the fruits of his 

 own labour, till visited by extraordinary afflic- 

 tion, or debilitated by age. 



But when the young man is paid by a rate 

 of wages strictly calculated by the charges of 

 his personal subsistence, and not by the value 

 of the work performed, he is, as it were, for- 

 bidden to aspire to independence ; he is denied 

 the opportunity of making provision for future 

 years by early frugality, and he is too frequently 

 induced to take the desperate step of marrying 

 in his boyhood to entitle himself to a higher 

 rate of wages ; regardless of the certain expenses 

 he is thereby about to entail upon the parish ; 

 or perhaps prompted to the act by the secret 

 desire of imposing this burden upon it. 



c4 



