The National Register.
London, England, 1816-11-18 00:00:00

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No. 458.—V0L. IX.

POLITICAL DISQUISITION.

STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
(CONTINUED FROM OUR LAM)

" THE individual Christian, if he truly deserves that
flame, will ever bear in mind an humiliating sense of
the evil propensities of fallen humanity, as a motive for
Vigilance over his own heart, and fur charity towards
the offences of others. But it is the business of govern-
silents to regard the bright side of human nature ; the
better they think of mankind the better they will find
them, and the better they will make them. It is well
known that in the middle and higher walks of life, men
iin geseral bear adverse fortune more wisely than they
bear prosperity ; one reason for this is, that these oppo-
site states call into action the same principle ; and pride,
which makes man insolent or arrogant in the one situa-
tion, is in the other chastened and refined, till it becomes
• virtue. The wisest and the best minds have received
their painful education in the school of adversity : but
if adversity be favourable to the developement of our
♦irtues, (and indeed many of our noblest qualities would
'fever be developed under any other discipline,) there
is a degree of misery which is fatal to them, and which
hardens the heart as much as coarse manual labour
hulurates the skin, and destroys all finer sense of touch.
Among savages, those tribes have ever been found the
most unfeeling who possess the fewest comforts, and
Lave the most difficulty in obtaining food ; for when
mlf-preservation becomes the prime concern, the natural
&ethics are starved ; a brutish selfishness occupies
the whole heart, and man, having no instinct to supply
the absence of his human affections, becomes worse than
the beasts. Mournful as this is, it is far more mournful
to contemplate the effects of extreme poverty in the midst
of a civilised and flourishing society. The wretched na-
tive of Terra del Fuego, or of the northern extremity
of America, sees nothing around him which aggravates
his own wretchedness by comparison; the chief fares no
better than the rest of the horde, and the slave no worse
than the master ; the privations wltich they indure are
common to all, they know of no state happier than their
own and submit to their miserable circumstances as to a law
of nature. But in a country like ours, there exists a con-
trast which continually forces itself upon the eye and
upon the reflective faculty. There was a Methodist
dabbler in art, who, in the days of onr childhood, used
to citify the public with allegorical prints from the
great manufactory of Carrington Bowles ; one of these
curious compositions represented a human figure, of
Which the right side was dressed in the full fashion of
the day, while the left was undressed to the very bones,
and displayed a skeleton. The contrast in this worse
than Mezantian imagination is not more frightful than
that between health and squalid pauperism, who are
*very day jostling in our streets.

From the moment when any man begins to think
,that

" The world is not his friend, nor the world's law."
the world and the world's law are likely to have that
man for their enemy ; and if he does nut commence di-
rect hostilities against them, he abandons himself to
dmpair, and becomes a useless if not a hurtful member
of the community. Attempts to reclaim him by penal
Mutes aro worse than unavailing; they provoke that
spirit of stubbornness which oftentimes is only the dis-
ease that ill-treatment and untoward circumstances

produce in a noble disposition. You might as well at-
tempt to stop the progress of contagion, by punishing
all who are afilvtod by the bunefid principles in the
air, as to remedy poverty by penal law against the
poor. Children may sometimes be reformed by punish-
ment, but even foil children it is the clumsiest and
worst means of reformation. Men must be led to their
duty, not driven to it. Yon may deter them from do-
ing what is criminal, but you cannot compel them to
do what is right : or if the right thing is done by com-
pulsion, the right will will have been wanting.

‘‘' Laws; says Sir ThIIMIS Ilionard, 'have been made
to compel industry and economy, and workhouses have
been erected, andjiamed to the best bidder, in order to
deter the poor front wanting relief; but parishes and
pariah officers Lave nut as yet Leen aware that 'in every

Our tonal eettattution anb Mme.