208 Intemperance unfrequent in genteel Societies. 



Within the last thirty years, the amount of 

 poor's rates has been more than doubled, while 

 the sufferings of the laboring classes, within 

 the same period, are increased in a still greater 

 proportion. The shame of pauperism has been 

 extinguished; while care, economy, and pro- 

 vident management, have been abandoned. De- 

 pendance on superiors destroys those qualities 

 in character, that make inferiors respectable in 

 their own estimation, and useful to the state ; 

 the evil is proceeding with rapid strides, and 

 unless a remedy can be devised, three fourths 

 of the population of England will become bank- 

 rupts in morals as well as in their means for 

 subsistence. I must acknowledge this is being 

 sadly prophetic ; and though I sincerely hope 

 it may not be so, yet I much apprehend the pre- 

 diction is too well founded. 



Supercilious self-complacency, or cold indif- 

 ference, are incompatible with the warm and 

 generous feelings of the Irish ; and I am also 

 most happy to learn that those scenes of in- 

 temperance, which formerly were a disgrace to 

 the island, no longer exist in genteel societies, 

 and are now unfrequently met with even in 

 those of subordinate descriptions. 



In what quarter of the globe, or in what di- 

 3 



