APPENDIX. 



401 



it, has been ridiculed by comparing it with the apprehension 

 that increasing numbers would be obliged to go naked unless 

 a previous increase of clothes should precede their births. 

 Now however well or ill-founded may be our apprehensions 

 in the former case, they are certainly quite justifiable in the 

 latter ; at least society has always acted as if it thought so. 

 In the course of the next twenty-four hours there will be 

 about 800 children born in England and Wales ; and I will 

 venture to say that there are not ten out of the whole num- 

 ber that come at the expected time, for whom clothes are 

 not prepared before their births. It is said to be dangerous 

 to meddle with edged tools which we do not know ho w^ to 

 handle ; and it is equally dangerous to meddle with illustra- 

 tions which we do not know how to apply, and which may 

 tend to prove exactly the reverse of what we wish. 

 - On Mr. Weyland's theory it will not be necessary further 

 to enlarge. With regard to the practical conclusions which 

 he has drawn from it in our own country, they are such as 

 might be expected from the nature ot the premises. If 

 population, instead of having a tendency to press against the 

 means of subsistence, becomes by degrees very slow in 

 overtaking them, Mr. Weyland's inference that we ought to 

 encourage the increase of the labouring classes by abundant 

 parochial assistance to families, might perhaps be main- 

 tained. But if his premises be entirely wrong, while his 

 conclusions are still acted upon, the consequence must be, 

 a constantly increasing amount of unnecessary pauperism and 

 dependence. Already above one-fourth of the population of 

 England and Wales have been dependent upon parish relief; 

 and" if the system which Mr. Weyland recommends, and 

 which has been so generally adopted in the midland counties, 

 should extend itself over the whole kingdom, there is really no 

 saying to what height the level of pauperism may rise. While 

 the practice of making an allowance from the parish for every 

 child above two is confined to the labourers in agriculture, 

 whom Mr. Weyland considers as the breeders of the 

 country, it is essentially unjust, as it lowers without com- 

 pensation the wages of the manufacturer and artificer : and 

 when it shall become just by including the whole of the 

 working classes, what a dreadful picture does it present ! 

 what a scene of equality, indolence, rags and dependence, 

 among one-half or three-fourths of the society ! Under such 



