CHAT. XL.] IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO, 



597 



misery and cnmo aJjsolitfdt/ greater than Iia.s ever existed 

 before. Thej ereate ami maiatain iii life-long labour an 

 ever-increasing array, u-bose lot is the more hard to bear 

 by contmst with the pleasures, the comforts, and the Inxnm' 

 which they see everywhere around them, but which thej 

 can never h(jpe to enjoy; and who, in this respect, are 

 worse off than the savage in the niidst of his trilie. 



This is not a result to boast of, or to be satisfied with ; 

 and, until there is a more general recognition of this fuilure 

 <jf oiu" civilisation — resulting niaiuly from oiu" neglect to 

 train and develop inore thoroughly the sympatlietic feel- 

 ings and moral faculties of our nature, and to allow them 

 a larger sliare of infhience in our legislation, our commeixie, 

 and our whole social organization— we shall never, as 

 regards the whole community, attain to any real or im- 

 portant snperiority over the better class of savages. 



This is the lesson I have been taught by my obser- 

 vations of uncivilized man. I now bid my readers-^ — 

 Farewell I 



KOTE. 



Those who belieTe that our social condition approaches per- 

 fection , will think the above word harsh and exaggerated, hut it 

 seems to rae the only word that c&n be truly applied to ua. We 

 are the richest country in the world, and jet one-twentieth of 

 OUT population are parish paupeia, and cmo-thirtieth known 

 criminals. Add to these, the criminals who escape detection, 

 and the poor who live mainly on private charity, (which, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Hawkesiey, expends seven millions sterling annually 

 in Jjondon alone,) and we may be sure that moi-ethan oxe-texth 

 of our population are actually Paupers and Criminals. Both 

 these dtasaes we keep idle or at improdiictive labour, and each 

 criminal costs ns annually in oar prisons more than the wages of 

 an honest agricultural labourer. We allow over a hundred 

 thousand persons known to have no means of subsistence but 

 by crime, to remain at large and prey upon the community, and 

 many thousand children to grow up before our eyes in iguonmco 

 and vice, to supply trained criminals for the next generation. 

 This, in a country which boasts of its rapid increase in wealth, 

 of ita enormous commerce and gigantic manufactures, of ite 

 meehanical skill and scientific knowledge, of its high civilization 



