The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-12-09
For the Southern Press.
NEW YORK, Dec. Cd, 1850.

There can be no doubt that the higher classes
of the people of England are the most philan-
thropic, and their government the most Jealous
in the cause Of human happiness of any in the
world. The former actually forget the miseries
of their own countrymen in sympathizing with
the condition ofthe Southern slave; and the latter
is so entirely taken up with disseminating the
blessings Of christianity and civilization abroad
that it has scarcely moments leisure to attend
to them at home If we refer to the reports of
committees of Parliament, for years past, state
ments Of parish officers, and testimony delivered
under the solemnity of an oath by respectable
clergymen, magistrates and mechanics, but one
conclusion can be drawn from them ALL namely:
that there is a greater proportion of poverty,
restitution, vice and misery stalking in the face
of day in England than in any other nation,
savage or civilized, that ever existed. Let any
man read the details of want, and vice, and
crime, of cruelty, oppression and neglect, ex-
hibted in the statements of men of respectable
stations and undoubted character, who have
devoted themselves to researches into the con-
dition Ct the people of England, and then ask
himself If the loud-mouthed philanthropists of
that country had not better look at home for
objects Of sympathy, than come here to teach US
lessons of charity and benevolence.
And yet one cannot open an English book, or
look into an English newspaper, without en-
countering specimen of mawksh slang levelled
at the imaginary horrors of African slavery in
the United States. English statesmen and Eng
lish philanthropists seem to think they can best
make amends for neglectng their own country
men, by sending missionaries abroad to the
distant regions of the earth, for the purpose of
reforming and relieving nations, any way their
superiors In morals and in happiness. They
look through telescope at the condition of
other nations, and shut their eyes to that Of
their own They deplore the ignorance and
vice, and degradation of the rest of the world,
and like the old women, in Addison's vision, are
80 entirely taken up with the faults Of others,
that they have no leisure to correct their own.
have been led into these remarks by having
seen in the public papers an account of the re-
ception of the English abolition missionary
George Thompson, NJ. p, for the Tower Ham
lets, London, who, it seems, has been invited by
the Abolitlonsts, or perhaps sent by his govern
ment, to teach us lessons of humanity, by stimu-
lating the people to disobedence to the laws.
Perhaps there is no constituency in all England
that requires missionary more than that repre-
scented by Mr.. Thompson; certainly no part of
London where ignorance, dehauchery, poverty
and vices are more conspicuous than in the
Tower Hamlets. Why does not Mr. Thompson
devote some of tho exubcrance of his philan-
thropy to his own constituents, whose ignorance
at least, has been sufficiently demonstrated by
choosing him for their representative Why
did not he pour the stream Of his healing elo-
quence into the ears Of some of the desolate,
abandoned and forsakcn wretches such as are
described by their own countrymen as almost rs
ignorant as beasts, and far more vicious! What
business has he here, when patriotism and hu-
mainly demand his efforts at home! Could he
find no objects on which his effervescing sympa-
thics might expend themselves, Let US see
Perhaps the following extracts from a work
written few years ago by distinguished Eng
lishman, entitled "England and America" may
throw some light on the subject. He says:
"If there be one topic in particular upon
which Englishmen love TO dwell, it is the misery
and degradation Of the bulk of the people
Every year that melancholy subject forms the
matter for numerous petitions to the legislature,
4 =. n.
at public meetings, in all parts of tho country,
of some large volumes of pamphlets, and of fire.
quent, one might say, constant remarks in nearly
Mr.. Sadlcr, who, by the way, has written large
book on the causes and remedies Of pauperism,
lately de- Jared in the House of Commons that
the working classes in England are white slaves"
Page 40.
"Of comprehensive words, the two most fire.
quently used in English politics are distress and
paupersm. After these, of expressions applied
to the poor, the most common are vice and
misery, wretchedness, suffering, ignorance, dis
content, depravity, drunkenness and the increase
Of crime, with Eany more Of like nature"
Page Al.
"Therc are proofs without end of the misery
of the bulk of the people. The late insurrection
of the peasantry of the South of England, and
the modern practice of burning farm produce,
are universally attributed to the misery and dis
content of these unfortunate beings. If the
English had been q martial people, these forlorn
men, once reused as they were, would either
have destroyed the classes whom they consider
their oppressors or have persisted in n servilc
war. White slaves they have been properly
called. 1t was some of this class whom bishop
described as being harnessed to carts like cattle
In America, too, they harness men to carts,* but
there they treat them as valuable cattle; give
them plenty to eat shelter them from the
weather; keep them in good heart, and bring
up their little children in clover. English slaves
are harnessed to carts, and lifted icothed, ill.,
housed, and variously ill-treated into the bargain
The peasant of the South of England suffers
nearly all the evils, but enjoys none of the ad-
vantages of slavery. He is not a freeman, nor
is he slave; he is only pauper. What
pauper is, Americans may learn from the fol-
lowing description of the "hold peasantry of
England" which | extract from one of the
countless pamphlets on pauperism written by