The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-15 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN

SIR—As you have been kind enough to admit former com-
munications of mine on the same subject, may I request the
favour of your inserting in your excellent journal the following
observations at your earliest convenience ?
I am most anxious, before the Poor Law Amendment Bill
pass the upper House, to direct the attention of Noble Peers
to the erroneous principle, as I conceive, on which the measure
is founded.
The panacea, then, according to the framers of this Bill,
for the thousand-and-one abuses of the Poor Laws, consists in
frightening the poor, by every species of severity, from be-
coming chargeable to the parish, and when they are actually
so, by treating them as criminals of no ordinary description.
Now, Mr. Editor, this appears to me extremely unjust. It
proceeds upon the illiberal supposition, that all the poor who
ask relief are necessarily criminals, and ought to be punished
as such ! The bitter sarcasm that " poverty is sin," is thus
legally sanctioned and entered on the statute-hooks, and so
stamped with an "authority which might well have been spared.
Rest assured, Sir, that, with the uneducated more especially,
the supposition of guilt, when so clearly expressed by the
highest authority, will go far to effect its realization, and that
the two millions which, it is calculated, this slave-driving
system will save* the country annually, will be found but a
poor set-off against the misery, crime, and even expense, which
it will engender.
Is a man to be treated as a vile criminal merely because,
poor fellow I he is so unfortunately situated as to be unable to
procure employment ?—because those (I here refer more par.
titularly to agricultural districts) who have got the land in
their hands will not, or cannot give him work ?
From long and intimate acquaintance with the labouring
classes of this country, I can safely and confidently assert, that
even the worst characters will work—and hard too—if they
are fairly paid for their labour. Is there any lack of industry
amongst the poor in harvest-time, when they work by the
piece,- at good wages ? I have never heard the complaint
made, though I reside, and have done for many years, in a
parish abounding with poor. No, Sir ! thank God, there is
still so much energy and principle left in the lower classes of
this country, that they would infinitely rather eat the bread
of industry than that of idleness and dependence ! All that
they require is, to be put in a way to support themselves by
their own exertions. If the Bill had been founded on this
principle—the only legitimate one--of finding profitable em-
ployment for the poor, and, on their refusal to work, then to
punish them,—it would have been altogether unobjectionable.
But since this forms no part of the Bill, and the poor must
ftnd employment for themselves as they best can, with the
dread, too, of the poor-house--or, more properly, prison-
house—before their eyes, if they ask for bread when unable
to obtain it by work, I greatly fear that the evils of the pre-
sent system, great as they certainly are, will eventually be
found far more tolerable than those which this cruel and unjus
measure will give rise to.

The Bill seems to me to bear the harsh and misanthropic
features of Miss Martineau. I beg the lady's pardon—l
mean of her system. It may seem very good in theory—in
the closet—but will never answer when reduced to practice
amongst a n aturally independent and noble-minded race of
men.

.I have raised my feeble voice, Mr. Editor, against the
measure, at this the eleventh hour, not from the vain hope
that any thing so humble an individual as myself can say will
effect any alteration of the objectionable clauses, but from a
deep sense of duty towards my country : and I have only to
add, since there is every probability of the Bill's shortly be-
coming the law of the land, that I pray fervently my fore-
bodings as to the result may prove groundless !
Westall, Kent, I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
July 9, 1834. JOHN ALEX. ROSS,