Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1844-07-09
BY G. L. SHOLES.
SOCIETY AS IT Is

The most obvious division Of society is
into rich and poor; and it is no less obvi-
Gus that the numbers of the former bear
great dIsproportien to those Of the laiter.
The whole business of the poor is to ad-
minister TO the id.cness, FLY, and luxury
OF the rich and that of the rich, in return,
is TO find The best methods of confirming
the slavery and increasing the burthens OF
The poor. In a stale Of nature il is an in
variable law, that mans acquisitions are
in proportion TO his labors. Ia a state of
artificial society, it is law as constant and
as invarable that those who labor most,
enjoy the fewest things; and that those
who labor not at ALL have the greatest
number OF enjoyments. a constitution of
things this, strange beyond expression.
We scarce believe thing when we arc
told 1t, which We actually see before our
eyes every day without being the least sur
prised. suppose that there are in Great
Britain upwards Of hundred thousand peo-
pie employed in lead. tin, iron and copper,
and coal mines; these unhappy wretche,
scarce ever see the light of the sun they
are buried in the bowels of the eaith there
they work at n severe and dismal task.
without the least prospect of beins.delivered
from it; they sub,i,t upon the coarsest and
worst sort Of (a'c; they have their health
miserably impair d, and their lives cut
short, by Icing perpetuaIy confined in the
close vapor OF these malignant minerals. -
hundred thousand more AT least are tor
tured without remission by the sutfocatng
smoke, intense Fir s, and constant drudgery
nee sSarv in refining md managing the
products o: these mines. If any man in
orln"d us that two hundred thousand limo
cent persons were condemned to So intole-
rabe slave'v, how would we pity the
unhappy sufferers, and how g eat would be
our just Indignation against those who in
q ctrd SO cruel and ignominous punish
mcnt
This is an instance, could not wish
stronger, of the numb .rle-s things which
We ptSs by in their com non dress, vet
which shock Us when they are markedly re-
presented. Bat this number, considerable
a it is, and the slavery, with all It's Ease-
ness and horror, which we have at home,
IS nothing TO what the rest Of the world
affords OF the same nature. Millions daily
b''hed IN the poisonous damps and destruc-
uv>efll via OF lead, silver, copper, and ar
senlc; to say nothing of those other en-
ploymen,s, those stations OF wrctchedness
and Contempt in which civil society has
PLACID the numerous cnfhas pcrda Of her
army. Would any rational man submit to
one of the most toIerable of these drudge
reS, for all the artificial enjoymcn,s which
policy has made 10 resul from them! BY
no means. And yet need suggest, that
those who tind the means, and those who
arrive al the end, are lot a, all the SANE
persons.
On considering the strange and unac-
countable faucrs and CONTINGENCIES of arti-
fetal reason, have SON where called this
earth the Be lam of our system. Look ing
now upon the fleets o. some Of those ian.
cies, may We not with equal reason call il
likewise the Newgate and the Bridcwcll of
the Universe? Indeed h, blindness Of one
pat of mnnkInd cooperating with the vii
liany and phrcnsy of The o;her, has been
the real builder of this respectable fabric
of political society. Aud as the blindness
OF mankind has caused their slavery, in
return, their stale of slavery is made pre-
tcnce for continuing them in state of
blindness; for the politician will tell YOU
gravcly, that their life of servitude disqua-
life. The greater part of tho race Of man
Tor a search of truth, and supplies them
with no other than mean and insufficient
ideas. This is but too rue and this is one
of the reasons for which blame such in
st:tutlons.
In a misery OF this sort, admitting some
few lrnities, and those too but II few, nine
! parts in ten of the whole race Of mankind
drudge through life Imd;cat on Of .Na!a-
raj Society.