Political Economy, 165 
iyj.oduced, but the only pestilence which lias yet manifested itself is 
of a moral nature. Physical diseases are not more surely generat- 
ed by cro'wding human beings together in a state of filth and 
wu’etchedness, than moral ones by herding them together in a state 
of ignorance. This is the case under the least unfavourable cir- 
cumstances which can be imagined ; but it is doubly so pnder the 
manufiicturing system, where children are trained up in the way 
wherein that system destines them to go, as soon as their little 
fingers can twirl a thread} pr feed a machine. When that system 
was at its height, the slave-trade itself was scarcely more syste- 
matically remorseless. The London work-houses supplied children 
by waggon loads to those manufactories which would take them 
©ff the hands of the parish ; a new sort of trade was invented, a set 
of child-jobbers travelled the country, procuring children from 
parents whose poverty was such as to consent to the sacrifice, and 
undertaking to feed, clothe and lodge them for tfie profits of their 
labour. In this manner were many of our great manufactories sup- 
plied ! The machinery never stood stiiL One set of these poor 
children worked by day, another by night, and Virhen one relay was 
relieved, they turned into tfie beds which had been vacated by the 
other, warm as the others had left them !—When this system had 
continued long enough for those who lived through so unnatural a 
diildbood to reach the age of maturity, it was found that the girls, 
when they married, were utterly unable to perform the commonest 
and most indispensable domestic work • dncl the remedy which was 
devised, in future, was that they should go to school to learn these 
things for an hour in the day, after they had done work I 
These evils have been mitigated : the hellish practice of night- 
work (it deserves no gentler qualification) is nearly, if not totally 
disused ; but enough which is evil remains to produce irreparable 
injury to the individuals and the most serious mischief to the corn-? 
munity. The existing race of the manufacturing poor have been 
trained up certainly without moral, and it may be said, without re- 
ligious instruction also ; for if a pulpit lesson should now and then 
by accident reach their ears, there is little chance of its penetrating 
farther, utterly unprepared as they are to receive it. Among the 
philosophers^errant who mislead themselves as well as others in 
confounding the distinctions between right and wrong, there are 
some who, after wandering about the debatable ground between 
good and evil, recover the right path, and find grace to thank 
providence for their escape. The bias inclines that v/ay in the 
middle and higher ranks ; for morals, as well as manners, follow 
the mode, and decorum, at least, is in fashion^ But the class o^' 
which we have been speaking, have more to resist, at the same 
time that they are less prepared for resistance. He who has ever 
seen the habitations of the city-poor in the cellars and garrets of 
courts and alleys, will easily believe that the fire side of the pote; 
house holds out a stronger temptation than even the physical effect 
of the liquor. Goldsmith has told us how such places 
impart 
An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart 
But they do more than this : they afford a stimulus of society Which 
cannot find elsewhere ; strong humour and vulgar wit com^' 
