THE FRENCH LAW OF INHERITANCE. 89 



ON THE FRENCH LAW OF INHERITANCE. 



151. In all the old communities of Europe the 

 cry of suffering humanity has been heard but not 

 responded to thousands are inadequately fed and 

 others famishing. Assuredly in the dark and squalid 

 dens at the bottom of the social fabric the realities 

 of wretchedness are there a wretchedness, consti- 

 tuted as society now is, hopelessly and helplessly 

 endured. We have, however, no sympathy with 

 the sentiment which for the first time was pro- 

 mulgated, and that too in Parliament, by a member 

 of the House of Commons, to the effect that it 

 was grossly deluding the people to tell them 

 that any thing but misery was the lot of the great 

 mass of mankind ; nor with that of M. Thiers, 

 when he states that " in the general plan of things, 

 misery is the inevitable condition of the human 

 race ;" nor with Sir Robert Peel, when he says the 

 sufferings of the poor are irremediable. All this 

 may be true with society constituted as it now is 

 in which there are more people than there is food for. 

 Where there is an excess of population there must 

 be destitution somewhere, and the tendency of the 

 Poor Laws for the relief of indigence is just to haul 

 in to the gulf of destitution as many as they drag 



