56 



£l)c .farmer's iBontljljj Disitor. 



food consists of potatoes and salt, their agility and powers of endurance, they have 

 herring, frequently nothing: the 



ul 



says their 

 sometimes .. 



family often go without a meal. Another, Daniel 

 M'Mahon, wife and two children— potatoes and 

 salt, dip(ak'md of grease) or a herring; rarity 

 milk: the wife, though very sickly, did not drink 

 a hap' worth of milk these six weeks. Then 

 there are several others with much the same an- 

 swers as these. Thomas Maloony, with a wife 

 anil four children, states that his food is potatoes 

 when he can get them, generally with salt or a 

 herring, and sometimes a little milk: what his 

 family eat for a whole day woidd scarcely make 

 one meal; and once, lately, the whole of them, 

 six in number, were for thirty-six hours without 

 any food hut one three-penny loaf. Others, the 

 family of a wi low, describe the same sort ol food 

 — dry potatoes, seldom more than once a clay : 

 this last fortnight their families have had hut one 

 meal a day. Garret Lee states ' many a day 

 these three months he worked on a meal a day, 

 and was glad to have it; that dry potatoes are 

 their food, and they very seldom have enough.' 

 John Donovan says, 'he and his family are starv- 

 ing; they did not eat two lull meals this week ; 

 has eaten nothing himself this day, 5 P. M. hut a 

 few apples; ate nothing yesterday hut their sup- 

 per last night, which was obtained by pledging 

 some of their things.' A widow stales, she had 

 no supper for her family the night her husband 

 died; they all went to bed supperless. John 

 Cherry says, 'the people are so poor they are 

 ready to eat one another'; John Fitzgerald, that 

 ' there are beggars coming to their door who are 

 better off than they are.' 



"With regard to their clothing, 10 of these 

 families were well clad, 14 indifferently, and 24 

 very hadiy off for covering. Willi regard to 

 lodgings, 27 occupied a house each, and ]7 a 

 room each : the average number of rooms in 

 each house was three, and the average rent of 

 each house £3 8s. 2</., that of each tenented 

 room £1 Is. 'M. a year. These rooms and houses 

 were occupied at the same time by 45 other fain-" 

 ilies, besides the 44 which came under my ex- 

 amination, i)9 families being located to 42 houses, 

 consisting of 131 rooms. I made it my business 

 at different limes to visit the residences of these 

 people, and found them in the most wretched 

 condition, the staircases ruinous, the rooms ruin- 

 ous, the people sleeping in straw without bed- 

 ding and without bedsteads. Garret Lee says 

 ' his family did not go to bed these three nights, 

 their last blanket being taken by the person from 

 whom they reined the cellar from non-payment 

 of rent. Of the 44 families, ti had nothing iu 

 the pawn office, one had nothing to put there, 

 having lost every thing, while the remaining 37 

 had every article they could spare pledged to 

 purchase food; or, as they said forcibly, 'every 

 thing they could spare ami that they couhlo't,' 

 having themselves in many instances nothing but 

 straw to lie on, and without any covering tor 

 their children at night." — Part n. p. 744, 745. 



We gladly turn to the sister kingdom of Scot- 

 land, as the distress there, though quite as great, 

 is certainly not so universal. It exists chiefly in 

 the large cities, the populous manufacturing dis- 

 tricts, the northern Highlands and the islands. 

 Alison, the historian, estimates that there are at 

 least 250,000 persons in Scotland, nearly a tenth 

 part of the population, who are iu a state of al- 

 most total destitution, and are permanently re- 

 tained iu that state. Many of the great Highland 

 proprietors, for reasons which we shall consider 

 hereafter, have driven the tenantry off their es- 

 tates, which they have converted into immense 

 sheepwalks, preferring to raise brutes instead of 

 men. The unhappy cottiers, thus dispossessed, 

 have found refuge on some barren moors, but 

 chiefly on the scacoast, where they lived com- 

 fortably for a time by the manufacture of kelp; 

 but the demand for this article having greatly 

 fallen off more than twenty years ago, they were 

 reduced to their present state of misery, often 

 having only shell-fish and weeds to eat, with a 

 little water gruel at night. The peasantry still 

 remaining iu the Highlands are mostly crofters or 

 tenants of small piei Bs of ground, the tillage ol 

 which forms their sole support. The soil is so 

 poor and rents are so exorbitant, that they live 

 very miserably, and those who have hut an acre 

 or two of land are ill constant danger of starva- 

 tion. Once famous for their stalwart frames, 



now become meagre and stunted in appearance 

 and the faces of their famished children are 

 tjiitl and pale as if they had been bred iu the I 

 wynds and closes of Glasgow and Edinburgh. 

 On the Hebrides islands, owning to the poverty 

 of the soil, and the multiplication of the inhabi- 

 tants, wretchedness is extreme, and the remote- 

 ness of their position places them almost beyond 

 the reach of charity. The policy of consolidat- 

 ing farms and driving off the small tenantry has 

 been pursued there to a great extent. A popu- 

 lation of 500 souls was compelled to emigrate 

 from the isle of Kuon, which is now occupied to 

 advantage by a single tenant, whose family and 

 servants do not number over 50. The multitude 

 thus dispossessed of their ancient homes crowd 

 into the great cities in search of employ ment and 

 sustenance, swelling the mass of poverty there, 

 and reducing wages and the standard of living 

 for the lower classes to their own level. 



It is a law of our nature, that moral degrada 

 tion must go hand in hand with physical suffer- 

 ing. Nowhere is this n, ore strikingly exempli- 

 fied than in those quarters of Glasgow which 

 form the sole refuge of the miserably poor, and 

 where alone the Highlander expelled from his 

 croft, and the distressed islanders, can find shel- 

 ter. "I have four times visited these districts," 

 says Mr. Sy moods in ihe Handloom Commission- 

 er's Report, "once in the morning, and three 

 times at night; I have seen human degradation 

 in some of its worst phases, both in England and 

 abroad, but I can advisedly say, that I did not 

 believe, until I visited the wynds of Glasgow, 

 that so large an amount of fi.th, crime, misery, 

 and disease existed on one spot in any civilized 

 country. Here is collected a motley population 

 engaged in all the lower branches of industry, 

 anil an immense number who find their only 

 means of subsistence iu plunder and prostitution. 

 Here, "in the lower lodging houses, ten, twelve, 

 and sometimes twenty persons, of both sexes, 

 and all ages, sleep promiscuously on the floor in 

 different degrees of nakedness." 



A general review of' the poor iu Scotland will 

 surely lead one to the conclusion adopted by Mr. 

 Laing, that "Scotch destitution has gone a step 

 beyond English, and arrived, like that of Ireland, 

 at a point at which all other evils are swallowed 

 up in the urgent and ever-present danger of lite- 

 ral death from starvation." 



The description already given of the wynds ot 

 Glasgow will apply with liitle abatement to the 

 most populous quarters of all the large cities in 

 England. In Liverpool alone there are S000 in- 

 habited cellars, one third of them either wet or 

 damp, which contain a population of more than 

 35,000 souls. In Manchester, in 1838. there were 

 2(37 lodging houses, of which Dr. Howard says, 

 "the crowded state of the beds, filled promiscu- 

 ously with men, women and children, the floor 

 covered over with the filth} and ragged clothing 

 they have just put oft", and with their various 

 bundles and packages, mark the depraved and 

 blunted state of their feelings, and the moral and 

 social disorder that exists." In Birmingham 

 there were 374 such lodging houses. Two asy- 

 lums were opened in London in order to afford 

 a night's lodging to houseless wanderers, and 

 9,840 persons were admitted to them in the first 

 three months of 1843. Near the docks at the 

 east end, " hundreds of poor men may lie seen 

 before daybreak in the winter, waiting for the 

 opening of' the gales iu the hope of obtaining a 

 day's work; and when the youngest ami strong- 

 est, and those best known, have been taken, hun- 

 dreds may he seen returning, sick at heart, to 

 their destitue families." 



"Of 15,823 individuals inhabiling*2965 houses, 

 lately visited under the direction of a committee 

 appointed for the purpose, 1204 only are found 

 to be fully employed, 2863 partially employed, 

 and 4148 able to work were wholly without employ- 

 ment. The remaining 7(>05 persons were unable 

 to work. The average weekly income of the a- 

 bove 15,823 persons was }s. 4$</. each. The av- 

 erage weekly wages of those fully employed 

 were 7s. 6&d. each. The average weekly wages 

 of those partially employed, 4s. 7|rf. each." — 

 Thornton on Over-Population, p. 33 — 37. 



The particulars which we have given respect- 



ing the laboring classes in England are few and 

 meagre; but they are enough to confirm the fol- 

 lowing remark by Mr. Thornton:—" Little more 

 than one generation has been required to make 

 Ireland what .-he is; and as short a period might 

 probably, iu similar circumstances, suffice to con- 

 vert England into an Ireland of human misery 

 and degradation." 



Presenting an array of facts going to prove 

 that all over the British dominions the miseries 

 of the many, to i\nd the avarice, the extrava- 

 gance and the dissoluteness of the tuw, have 

 reached a point no longer to he endured, the N. 

 A. Review proceeds to make such suggestions as 

 we are glad to see coming from a quarter quite 

 as favorable heretofore to British as to American 

 institutions : 



Very grave questions are suggested by the 

 picture of the social condition of Great Britain 

 and Ireland which we have here endeavored to 

 exhibit. We' are tempted to ask, if these are the 

 reputed blessings id' the institution of properly, 

 that vast and complex machine, so carefully con- 

 structed and guarded, the boast ot' free and civi- 

 lized man, to which he is accustomed to attribute 

 much of the superiority that he enjoys over the 

 savage and the slave. Does the institution neces- 

 sarily lemi to produce this fearful inequality in 

 the condition of the several classes in society, so 

 that millions of human beings, without any fault 

 of their own, must suffer the accumulated ills of 

 ignorance, extreme destitution, and almost inevi- 

 table immorality, while a few thousands of their 

 brethren, distinguished from them only by the 

 accident of birth, monopolize all the comforts 

 and luxuries which learning and wealth can 

 command? Is man able to avoid the responsi- 

 bility for this fearful state of things by casting 

 the burden of it upon Providence, and saying 

 that these evils are necessary adjuncts of the so- 

 cial slate, and must be endured like the " plagues 

 and earthquakes" which "break not Heaven's 

 design," and to w hich the Christian submits with 

 uncomplaining trust ? Or are they rather the 

 consequence of vicious institutions and mistaken 

 legislation, for which man alone is accountable, 

 and which may he remedied without pulling 

 down the whole fabric of society and undoing 

 all the work of modern civilization? 



We may hopefully answer llii.- last question in 

 the affirmative, if it can be shown that in the 

 order of Providence there is a natural check or 

 limitation to the excessive accumulation ol' pro- 

 perty in the hands of a few, and to the conse- 

 quent debasement and misery of ihe .multitude; 

 and that this natural corrective, when not inter- 

 fered with or rendered powerless by unwise 

 laws or a bad government, does lend so rapidly 

 and effectually towards an equalization of wealth 

 in the community, that no considerable number 

 of persons can possibly be brought to extreme 

 destitution, — certainly cannot be exposed to the 

 danger of' perishing by hunger, except by their 

 own obvious fault. Such a check, we maintain, 

 does exist in tin 1 very circumstance or cause to 

 which ihe English school of political economists 

 are fond ol attributing the whole evil, ihe whole 

 distress of the laboring classes; we refer to the 

 natural multiplication of the human species. Pro- 

 perty in the hands of an individual unquestiona- 

 bly lends to accumulate: one who has both 

 money and industry can make greater gains, 

 other things hehii.' equal, than his competitor 

 who is obliged to depend on his industry alone. 

 Bill, from the shortness of' human lile, an indi- 

 vidual can hold this property only for a brief pe- 

 riod of years: when he dies, it descends In his 

 offspring, and by the law ol nature, as they are 

 all equally near to him, il is equally divided 

 among them. When this law is not abrogated 

 by human legislation, it causes so frequent a dis- 

 tribution of estates, as effectually to overcome 

 the tendency of capital to accumulate, or to con- 

 tinue in a single line of heirs. No sooner is 

 wealth heaped up than il is parcelled out again, 

 and a constant movement or circulation is thus 

 maintained, which scuds the life blood of capital 

 into every part of the body politic. This distri- 

 bution lends as powerfully to political as to so- 

 cial equably, as the former, indeed, depends upon 

 and is regulated by the hitler: hence il is the 

 safeguard of republics, and the bone of aristo- 



