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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 1833, Edition 1 of 1, Page 361, Untitled Article

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    • POOR LAWS AND PAUPERS. *
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      Untitled Article

      This is the most painfully interesting of all Miss Martineau ' s productions . Many of her tales , as ' Ireland' and the Manchester Strike * for instance , leave a deep and melancholy impression ; but none are so thoroughly sad as this , in the scenery , the characters , the events , and the whole conduct and tendency of the story . This would be a fault in a work of pure fiction ; in the present case it necessarily arises from the nature of the story , and the purpose of the writer . The dreariness of it seems to have pressed upon her own mind ; and disposed as we are ever to hold fast our faith in human progressiveness , we yet cannot but feel , that as to any immediate counteraction of the tendency of her story , it is rather cold consolation which she administers in the brief preface to this work , when we remember how little disposition or ability has yet been shown by our rulers , to strike at the heart of any of the great evils of the political and social condition

      of the country . Nevertheless , those evils must be exposed ; the more thoroughly they are exposed , the more shall we abridge the season of palliatives ,, temporizing , and quackery ; the more shall we hasten the time when the real intellect and energy of the country shall look the mischief full in the face , and apply the remedy with an unflinching though a gentle hand . Meanwhile , let us comfort ourselves as we can with the author ' s prefatory suggestions . 1 pleasantest office of philanthropy , is , doubtless , to set forth persuasively whatever is pure in human nature , and lofty in social character ; but there is a satisfaction amidst the pain of exhibiting the reverse of the picture , when vice and misery can be indisputably

      referred to the errors of a system rather than to the depravity of individuals . All social systems being remediable , the task of exposing the unhappy results of any involves a definite hope of the amelioration which must sooner or later follow the exposure . The more clearly evils can be referred to an institution , the more cheering are the expectations of what may be effected by its amendment . JLet these rational hopes console the readers , as they have supported the writer of this tale . ' And need of support must the benevolent writer have felt while tracing the wretched aod disgusting influences of the poor law system ., as at present administered in agricultural districts . The demoralizing scenes of the workhouse and the beer-shop ; the breaking up of the respectable farmer , after his hard , vain struggle against the crushing pressure on his little property of parish pauperism ; the gradual hardening of indigent ignorance into impudence , vice , and the grossest profligacy ; the wild misleadings of the village demagogue , and the fearful excitement of poaching and rick-burning ; the tempting superiority of pauperism , * Under the superintendence of the . Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge , Poor Laws and Paupers illustrated . No . 1 , the Parish , a Tale , by Harriet Martineau No . 78 . 2 D

      Untitled Article

      361

      Poor Laws And Paupers. *

      POOR LAWS AND PAUPERS . *

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 361, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/1/