The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-30


noble Lord, ''we shall want them
when trade revives." Poor rates can be
borne with, for those who are
themselves little more than paupers
share the burden of them. Even trades
unions and strikes can be borne with so long
as the men confne themselves to higgling
over the wages rate. Hunger will bring
them to terms in time. Anything but large
emigratisn, for with emigration wages will
rise in earnest and profits lessen. The man
by whose toll the master has prospered has
gone where his toll is for hi nself, where he
is taking root upon the land, a sturdy men,
Der of the commonwealth, and the home mar
ket is relieved of his competition. The ma.
tion is richer for the change so long as he re-
mains an English subject, but the ca litalist
employer loses percentage of his profits.
By way of enforcing these arguments, Mr..
Froude cites incontrovertible facts, such as
the following
INFINITE wRETCHEDNEss.
The infinite wretchedness produced by the
present state of things ought not to pass for
nothing. 1t has become not uncommon in
these days to hear of miserable fathers and
mothers unable aliketo support their families
or see them starve, destroying their children
and themselves, and making an end of their
troubles thus. Again, if we please, we may
call in Providence. The classes which suffe
most are toughest-hearted. The poor old
Devonshire woman with eight hungry mouths
about her and 9s. week to feed them, looks
with envy on the Lords mercy to her neigh
bors whose babies die in arms, and sighs
out, "We never have no luck" but this cal
lousness itself is frightful and is in itself one
of the causes of the enormous mortality.
KILLING INFANTS.
- y Omitting for the present those who
are starved and those who are murdered, and
| confning ourselves to the great bulk of infant
! mortality, let us ask whether any means exist
! by which it can be successfully encountered.
! Encountered, presume il ought to be if
| possible; we have not yet wholly outgrown
| the idea that there is something in humaa
| life more sacred than in the lives of animals,
and murrain among the cattle is considered
a sufficient subjec for an act of Parliament.
Men say impatiently that the parents are to
blame; if the father spent the money which
he wastes at the ginshop in providing better
clothes and food for his family, this alone
would save half those who die; but duty is
matter of conscience, and you cannot make
people moral by statute.
HOLES FOR HOMES.
The artisans in the great cities,
the agricultural laborers driven out of the
! old-fashioned hamlets and huddled into vii
lagos, are heaped together in masses where
wholesome life is impossible. Their wages
may be nominally rising, sufficiently, per-
haps, to keep pace with the rise of prices,
but wages form only a small part of the mat
ter. The laborer lodges now many miles
from his work. He leaves his home
in the early morning, he returns to
it late at night. The ground in town has
become SO enormously valuable that the
factory hand and the mechanic can afford but
a single room, at the best two. When his
day toll is over he has no temptation to re-
turn to the squulid nest which is all that
society can allow him, and he finds the beer
house and the gin palace grateful exchange
The wife, obliged herself to work to supply
the empty platters, must be absent also many
hours from home; she has leisure to at
tend to her children, and they grow up as
they can; to fall a prey to disease and acci-
dents which lie in wait for them at every
| turn.
LAND MONOPOLY.
A stranger travelling on railway from end
to end of England would think that there was
no civilized country in the world where there
was SO much elbow room. He sees enormous
extents of pasture land and undulating fall
lows cultivated to the highest point of pro-
ductiveness, with only at intervals symptoms
of human habitations He sees the palaces
of the noble and wealthy set in the midst of
magnificent parks, studded with forest trees
and sheets of ornamental water, or main
tanned for game preserves and artificial will
dernesses. In Scotland he sees whole coun'
ties kept as deer forests and grouse
moors that the great of the land may
have their six weeks enjoyment there
in the autumn. Room enough and to spare
he would naturally think there must be in a
land where ground could be devoted SO Law
ishly to mere amusement. If he is guest at
one of these grand mansions he will be told,
as Mr. Goschen says, that over-popuation is
afdream. He gazes across the broad-reaching
lawns or down the stately avenues. Miles
distant he sees the belt of forest which
bounds the domain and holds the outer world
at bay. His host tells him with pride that
from his own coal and iron are made the rails
which shall link together the provinces OF
India, that there is no limit to English pro-
duction, to English wealth, to English great
ness.
WHAT MUST COME OF ALL THIS?
If we allow our industrial system to extend
in the same manner and at the same rate OF
increase as hitherto, every feature most
fraught with danger must increase along Will
it. The boundary line between rich and pool
will be more and more sharply defined. The
number of those who can afford to hold lane
must diminish as by law of nature. The
wealthy will become more wealthy, the luXu
rious more luxurious, while there will be al
ever enlarging multitude deeply tincturet
with mere heathenism, left to shift for them
selves, and resentful of the neglect, with the
cost of living keeping pace with the advance
of wages, and therefore in the presence of al
enormous accumulation of capital, con
demned, apparently for ever, to the same
hopeless condition, and yet with politica
power in their hands if they care to use it.
The remedy suggested to amend the evils
L i l.