CUSTOMS IN BAGDAD. 
267 
year elapses without making an apparent necessity, under the 
plea of apprehended scarcity and consequent tumults, for driving 
some hundreds of the poor inhabitants from within the walls, to 
seek their bread, on chance, beyond them. That such fears are 
not groundless, is certain ; want of grain creating high prices, 
and high prices exciting famishing poverty to despair and revolt. 
Such scarcity arises from two causes. First, oppression in ex¬ 
cessive taxation on the husbandman, by robbing him of its fruits, 
paralyses his industry ; and relaxing his labours, less corn is 
grown, less profit is produced to the revenue ; exaction then 
comes in the place of due payment: and the peasantry, driven 
to desperation, abandoning their villages, seek employment in 
the city. There the defalcation of grain makes itself speedily 
known; and the new ingress of claimants renders the want 
more apparent every hour. To obviate this difficulty, the sum¬ 
mary measure is resorted to, of annually banishing the most 
miserable of the inhabitants; to starve in the desert, to wander 
to the mountains; or, abiding nearer home, to league them¬ 
selves with robbers, and support themselves and families by 
plundering and murder. 
We see poverty and distress in the Christian countries of 
Europe ; but we must come to the East to witness the one 
endured without pity, and the other only noticed to have fresh 
afflictions heaped upon it. I do not mean to say 5 that there are 
not amiable exceptions to this remark; but where charity is not 
a leading principle of duty, the selfishness of human nature 
readily turns from the painful or expensive task of sympathising 
with the miserable. General hospitality, and universal bene¬ 
volence, arise from totally different motives ; and are, often, as 
completely distinct in their actions. The one is bestowed on 
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