The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-12-11
Astounding in solemn and impressive truths, too
often involved in a strange affected Euphanism,
which renders them obscure or uninteliigible.

Whieh renders them obscure or unlnteiiglble.
descend where you will into the lower class
in town or country, by what course you will, by
factory enquiries, agricultural enquiries, re-
venue returns, mining labor committees, by
opening your eyes and looking, the same sor-
rowful result discoses itself You have to ad-
NIT that the working body of the rich British
nation, is fast sinking into state to which, all
things considered, there as literally never any
parallel. At Stockport Asszes, mother and a
father are arraigned, and found guilty of poison
ing three of their children, to defraud a burial
society of Is Ss., due the death of each child.
They are arraigned, found guilty, and the OH
cal authorities, it is whispered, hint that perhaps
the case is not solitary that perhaps you had
better not probe further into that department of
things.
"In starved, sieged cities, in the uttermost
doomed, ruin Of old jerusalem, fallen under the
wrath OF God, it was prophesied and said, THE
hands of the pitful women have sodden their
own children? The stern Hebrew imagination
could conceive no blacker gulf of wretchedness
That was the ultmatum of degraded, God-pun-
ished man. And we were in modern England,
exuberant with supply of all kinds beaeiged by
nothing, lift be not by invisible enchantments are
We reaching that How came these things?
Wherefore are they! Wherefore should they
be r'*
Aye--wherefore should they be The solu-
ton ofthis riddle is not for man. But the causes
of this state of things are not so nscrutable, and
| recommend Mr.. Thompson to return home, for
the purpose of investigating, and if possible,
finding remedy; for if it is not soon found,
"woe to We Scribes and Pharisees-HYPocR'rE
The British writer have so frequently quoted
hus concludes his sketch Of the moral and physi-
cal condition of the freest and happiest nation
under the sun, as every loyal Englishman most
devoutly swears it is at this moment. Every
body knows that the people thus described some
fifteen years ago, are every day deteriorating,
and that their poverty, No well as corruption is
rapidly progressive. AT this moment England
exhibits the strange unnatural spectacle of the
richest government, the most luxurious aristoc.
racy, and the most distressed people in the
world. 1t is true, we hear of no more risngs
among them. They are kept quiet at present by
the crown and government security bills" as
they are courteously styled, and the bayonets of
some thirty or forty thousand soldiers, aided by
a legion of police officers armed with bludgeons.
But" continues the British writer, is no.
thing done by the " mobility, clergy, and gentry
to conciiate the affection of the pauper mass, by
whose toll all their own wealth is produced:
Charity the charity Of the poor laws which
paupers have been taught to consider right,
which operates as curse to the able. bodied and
wel-disposed while it just enables the inrm
70 ii
meat they call it. They are very ungrateful,
but there is a way of relieving mans necessi-
ties that will make him hate you; and it is in
this way that soup is generally given to the poor
Books good little books which teach patience
and submission to the powers that be! with
which such paupers rs obtain them, usually
boil their kettles, when not distressed by fear
Of the reverend donor. OF this gift the de-
sign is so plain and offensive, that its eff
feet is contrary to what was intended, just
rs children from whom obedience is very
strictly exacted, are commonly rebels at heart.
What else! Is nothing else done by the rural
rich to win the love of the rural poor! Speak
ing generally, since all rules have exceptions.
the privileged classes Of our rural districts take
infinite pans to be abhorrcd by their poorest
neighbors. They enclose commons. They stop
foot-paths. They wall in their parks. They set
sprng-guns and men-traps. They spend on the
keep Of hgh-bred dogs what would support half
az many children, and yet persecute a aboring
man for owning one friend in his cur. They
minimum of food that will keep together the
soul and body of clodhopper. They breed
game in protusion for their own amusement,
and having thus tempted the poor man to knock
down hare for his pot, send him to the tread
mill the antipodes for that incapable offence.
They build jas, and fill them. They make new
crimes and new punishments for the poor. They
interfere with the marriages of the poor, com
polling some and forbidding others to come TO.
gether. They shut up paupers in warehouses;,
separating man and wife, in pounds by day, and
wards by night. They harness poor men to
carts. They superintend ale-houses, decry skt-
ties, deprecate beer-shops, NEEDLE with fairs,
and otherwise curtail the already narrow amuse-
ments of the poor Even in the church, where
some Of them preach that all are equal, they sit
on cushions, in pews matted, and sheltered from
the wind and the vnl gar gaze, while the lower
order must put up " it'll II bare bench on n stone
floor, which is good enough for them. Every
where they are ostentatiOus in their display of
wealth and cnioyments, while in their intercourse
with the poor, they arc suspicious, quick in
taking offence, vindictive when dispcased,
naughty, overbearing, tyrannical, and wolfsh."
page 45-46)
have thus given brief sketch of the state
OF society, and the moral and physical condition
of the people of England, drawn from one of
their own writer's In So doing, have been i'll
Auenced by no feeling of hostility, and certainly
felt no pleasure in copying details so painful to
every heart that sympathses with human suf
fering and degradation. would only ask,
whether all, and more than all, the charity and
philanthropy of EngIishmen, cannot find amply
sufficient employment at home? If not, let
them look to their fellow subjects in Ireland
where they will find millions Of men, women
and children, TO whom the imaginary wrongs
and sufierings of our Southern Slaves under the
worst Of masters, would, even if they were real,
be comparative happiness. | say, let them look
at home. There they will find mountains Of ig-
norance, misery and degradation staring them in
the face, and crying to heaven for relief or re-