The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-14 00:00:00

Vanring gitit

LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 184,.

Emigration is beginning to be regarded as the only
remedy for the reduction of pauperism. Now, with-
out disparaging the reason of those individuals who
are the most conspicuous in advocating this system
of improvement, we must be allowed to protest
against the adoption of it as the-sole means of repara•
tion. To our thinking, the panacea, if taken by
itself, is of such a violent nature, that while affording
a temporary and even instantaneous relief, it renders
ultimate enervation inevitable. Altogether the scheme
appears to us to be too slovenly to be effectual. Be-
sides which, it stands to reason that the very
units of the population sent out of the
country are the identical portions of the
community most required for its preservation
and advancement. No one dreams of emigrating who
is either totally destitute, or so broken down by
disease as to be actually bedridden. Those who are
sa situated are compelled unwillingly, by those very
circumstances, to remain at home a permanent burden
upon their fellow-countrymen. It is only the hale,
the energetic, and those possessed at least of some
slight funds wherewith to make a commencement;
who adventure upon the somewhat daring exploit of
seeking their fortunes beyond the seas. While,
therefore, a considerable number of those most enabled
to aid themselves are retained as a continually
increasing burden upon the State, en equally
numerous portion of the community empowered by
nature and circumstances to participate in the toils,
and to join in the speculations of the people, are
expatriated at the time when their energies are more
than ever desirable. It was some time back very
felicitously remarked by a distinguished public
disputant, with whom we are not usually in the habit
of coinciding, that when a vessel laden with emigrants,
carrying out to America or Australia their little stock
of thews,: intellect, and furniture, leaves the port, say
of Liverpool, and another vessel immediately afterwards
enters that port conducting to England a ship-load of
emaciated Irish. labourers, who have crossed St.
George's Channel for the purpose of saving them-
selves, if possible, from starvation—it is as if so much
wealth had been carried a little way out to sea and
sunk beyond the possibility of being reclaimed. The
remark demonstrates, in a glaring manner, the folly
of the present system—a system which appears to
bo3 East m ):e, than: evee in vogue —namely that of
depending exclusively upon emigration as a means of
regenerating the United Kingdom.
As a means, not as the only means, as a part of a
system, not as ;constituting an entire plan of itself,
the scheme of large emigration to some of our more
remote, and at the same time, more fruitful colonial
possessions, is eminently worthy of approval and en-
couragement. Yet it should likewise be borne in
mind that with emigration other simultaneous and
very different efforts should be made to diminish the
extent and to allay the virulence of that gangrene of
society—pauperism. What our allusions are
tending towards must be very manifest to
all those in any degree acquainted with
the resources, for the maintenance of the unem-
ployed and ill-fed, still remaining dormant among us.
A few very simple facts will demonstrate the force of
the observation. When it is remembered that there
are at this time lying uncultured in the United
Kingdom no less than 15,000,000 of acres of land
capable of cultivation, besides 15,871,463 of acres
incapable of cultivation, it must be sufficiently
evident that a vast amount of strength and
wealth is thrown away at the identical
time in which we are inducing our
fellow-creatures to seek the means of acquiring sus-
.
tenance in our distant colonies. It has been calcu-
lated moreover by men of a very matter-of-fact tem-
perament, men [by no :means gifted with highflying
imaginations, that those same 15,000,000 acres of cul-
tivateableland would at a mcderate estimate produce, if
properly attended to, no less than 15,000,0001. instead
of 5,000,000/. annual returns, as they do now-a-days
and as they have done hitherto. How acceptable
this addition would be to the national income
may be easily conceived when it is remembered that
no less an amount than '7,941,778/. were expended in
the shape of poor-rates in the United Kingdom
during the year ending March 25th, 1849, relieving
paupers to the number of 3,561,382. Surely the
additioreof 15,000,000/. to the annual property of
Gloat Britain would go very far towards enhancing
the prosperity of the empire if elicited from a quarter
previously yielding only 5,000,0001. The surplus
amount would not only cover the sum supposed to be
requisite for the relrefe'of pauperism--a sum ranging
yearly from 7,000,0001. to 8,000,0001. sterling; but
it would afford an invigorating and moralizing em-
ployment to those unfortunate beings who, from the
fact of the overstock of the labour market, have
been up till this period reduced to an enervating
and demoralizing, indolence. By the adop-
tion of such a system as the one here indicated,
none would henceforth require the assistance oft alms
except those prostrated by extreme physical suffering,
or by 3ry advanced years ; or, again, by such vaga-
bonds as are only reclaimable through the united aid
of the turnkey and the schoolmaster. In illustration

of the advantages derivable from this alliance of
emigration with the cultivation of waste lands, and
thereby, of course, the employment of our paupers, a
very able little volume has just appeared from the pen
of Mr. SIDNEY SMITH, already well and favourably
known by bis admirable guide-book to emigrants.
The work, to which we would particularly direct
public attention,* is of a character demanding the
most serious :consideration of all, seeing that, more
or less, it affects our own fortunes, convenience,
and competence. It is the necessary companion
to its predecessor, the blending of the two ingredients
which, if taken separately, would prove prejudicial,
but if combined would inevitably advance the
general interests of the community. Now that the
intelligence of the population is alive to the wants of
the time, it must he a matter of some importance to
every member of it to recognize some channel through
which those wants may be satisfied. The bane is
painfully perceptible, the next object is, therefore, to
discover the antidote.

" The Mother Country; or, the Spade, the Wastes,
and the Eideu Son. An Examination of the Condition
of England." By Sidney Smith. Pp. 164. Kendrick,
London, 1849.

As we recorded yesterday, the Metropolitan Asso-
ciation for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious
Classes held a meeting on WedneEday last at their
new buildings in Spitalfields. Nothing could be
more encouraging, and at the present moment espe-
cially, more consolitary than the accounts given by
Lord CARLISLE, the chairman, of the working of the
model•house in Pancras-road.

This establishment, which has now been open for
nearly two years, has accommodation for 110 families,
and during the above period of the sum of 2,4181.
due for rent, there is at present only 71.. 10s.
in arrear, and only; one gal debt of 11. 19s. 7d.
Thus, in a financial point of view, the spe-
culation has been more successful than is cus-
tomary with new undertakings, while, as regards the
comfort and health, moral, mental, and physical, of
its inhabitants, the model house is above commenda-
tion. Here, for instance, is one of those stubborn
facts which there are no gainsaying :—" During the
prevalence of the late epidemic not a single case of
cholera took place in the Model Lodging house,
although at Paradise p!ace,near.thern,it prevailed to a
formidable extent." Whatever may be said of the
influences of atmosphere, &c , this case may assuredly
he taken as a very fair evidence of the beneficial
effects of cleanliness, ventilation, proper drainage,
good water, &c.—matters so vitally important to all,
and yet so deplorably deficient in the homes of the
great majority.
When we reflect upon these things—when we call
to mind not the naked poverty only, but the loath-
some and health-destroying character of the " homes"
of so many of our English people—when we think
of the stilling cellar, that no fresh breath
of air ever ventilates, the chill garret that no genial
fire ever warms, the crowded sleeping rooms, full of
filth and vermin, where numbers nightly congratu-
late themselves on obtaining even sueh a lodging—
when we enumerate a few only of the miseries of
the dwellings of the poor, without glancing even
at the awful depth of moral degradation and
mental depravity inseparable from such physical
evils, we feel, indeed, that no words can too highly
commend and encourage the labours of those who
are effecting a better state of .things. The Eng-
lish language boasts of the almost exclusive posses-
sion of the word " home," and the English people
pride themselves on their peculiar appreciation of
the meaning of that holy word. If an Englishman's
house is his castle, an Englishman's home is con-
sidered to be a synonyme with purity, and
peacefulness, and piety. It is in the homes
of individuals that the germs of patriotism
are nurtured—there the infant warrior imbibes
those feelings which in after years and in
foreign lands nerve his arm to heroic deeds, at the
cry " For our homes and our altars !" In that
"Family Picture" recently pourtrayed with such
exquisite verisimilitude by a master hand, there is no-
thing so attractive as its endearing homeliness. It exhibits
with felicitous truthfulness the happy effects of that
home-education which should be the portion of all,
from the highest to the humblest—an education not
instilled by exordiums, but imbibed like the air we
breathe—the education of example and association—
not learned by laborious study like some foreign
dialect, but acquired without effort and without in-
tention, like our mother tongue in childhood. Is
this, let us ask ourselves, the education of the children
of London in the nineteenth century ? They learn,
it is true, for the mind of children cannot remain
vacant, but whit do they learn ? Even supposing
(which is devoutly to be desired) that every child, how-
ever poor, were daily receiving some school education,
of what avail would any book learning be to an inha-
bitant of the filthy cellar or crowded sleeping-room,
wkere immorality and infidelity are inhaled with the
noxious air ? Schools, him the public college to the
humble ragged school, are of an immeasurable im-
portance, but even more important than schools, even
more essential to the mental, moral, and physical
health of the community are fit dwelling-houses for
the people—dwellings which, however poor and
humble, may be worthy of the name of home.
Such dwellings the society above mentioned are
doing their utmost to provide, and their
efforts will, we trust, be doubly beneficial.
They will not only actually provide homes for a few,
but encourage, by the happy example held out by
those few homes, a simultaneous effort on the part of
high and low to promote the domestic comforts of the
people. At this season of the year more especially,
when those possessed of a home more peculiarly
appreciate its blessings, the subject of the improve.
ment of the dwellings of the poor most
appropriately claims public attention. All you happy
owners of happy homes, who are now preparing
Christmas festivities, you may take our word for it
that if anything can add to your happiness at this
season—if anything can give a brighter glow to your
holly-decked hearth, and a sweeter music to your
returning children's voices, it will be the thought
that, not selfishly satisfied with a home for yourself,
you have given your mite to furnish homes for the
homeless.

Another guarantee of good government has just
been afforded by the PRESIDENT of the French
Republic perhaps the most brilliant and
certainly the most practical assurance of
liberal policy that he could have given—the abolition
of the system of Passports. Our Foreign intelligence
contains the particulars of the announcement of this
great reform by the lip. of Louis NAPOLEON him-
self, on the occasion of his granting an interview, at
his Palace of the Elysee, to a deputation
of the shareholders in the Boulogne and Amiens
Railway. While congratulating those *gentlemen
upon the extraordinary feat accomplished by
them the other day in travelling to Paris
from London in nine hours, a journey
of scarcely credible rapidity, the Prince in-
formed them of the wonderful reform upon
which his Government had adventured,
namely, that of completing the emancipation
of the Republic by abolishing the passport system
altogether. Immense credit cannot fail to re-
dound to the honour of the first magistrate of
that great European Commonwealth for taking the
initiative in an improvemertt more important in
many respects than any that has been attempted since
the creation of the Code Napoleon. A. boon such as
this is the noblest token of his loyalty to the
cause of freedom that could have been given by
Louis NAPOLEON on the anniversary of his election
as the first democratic President.

MIRACULOUS ESCAPE FROM THE BURSTING Or A
Crox.—As Sir C. E. Scott was shooting last week, at
Sundridge-park, with a pair of Messrs. Deane's new
steel barrels, the left, although only loaded with the
usual charge, burst in a most fearful manner. It
was ripped and torn open, from the breech upwards,
for several inches, the locks blown off, one to the
distance of fifteen yards, and the stock broken off
and splintered in every direction. The escape of Sir
C. E. Scott, without loss of life or limb, and with
merely a slight cut and bruise on the hand, was one
of the most wonderful on record, and is only at-
tributable to the circumstance of the metal fortu-
nately giving way on the right-hand side of the
barrel. The remains of the gun have since been
examined by an experienced and scientific gunmaker,
and pronounced to have been most dangerous and
defective.

Letters-from Canada state that Sir Allan M'Nab
was lying very ill at Toronto.