On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
By the same process which Irishmen use when they come over to the English harvest—invincible perseverance and economy , added to that faculty which people brought up in misery mostly acquire , when not killed off in the seasoning , the power of eating when they can procure food , and of going without when they have it not , by no means considering eating as a matter of regular business , but chiefly as a casualty . But do they not get ill in health ?
Questionless , and many die outright , while the average length of days is lessened ; but worst of all , both themselves and children are deteriorated both in body and mind . Sudden death might be endurable to contemplate , but the deterioration of the germ , the debasing of the standard , is pregnant with monstrous evils . There is the baker ' s man coming out with the basket . He is a Scotchman , and he looks stout and strong .
He has widely improved his condition by leaving his own country . He is now well fed and lodged . You must not judge of the condition of either Scotchmen or Irishmen in their own countries , by the contion of those who are permanent settlers in England . Call to mind the Irish hordes of beggars we saw on the road from Liverpool . They scarcely looked human . Ragged , squalid , abject , and speaking an unknown tongue , there wanted but a wilderness instead of a peopled country to convey the perfect impression that a portion of the wild
followers of Peter the Hermit were bent upon a new crusade . Poor , wretched peojfle , my heart grieves over them , and the more miserable hordes they had left in their own country , of whom they were a sample even too favourable . Can nothing be done , father , to improve their condition ? They should not have been produced ; but being in existence they have an undoubted claim to support , so long as they are willing to work , to do their share of the task of food-producing . But who should support them ?
The land they were bred upon , in the first resort , even though it were to absorb the whole of the rents of those calling themselves the land lords ; a strange kind of title , into whose propriety the community will some day examine more deeply than at present . The old
Greek land lords cultivated their land by slaves , i . e . by bought and sold men and women , and consequently were saddled with the cost of their maintenance . When they became too numerous , they got rid of the surplus by planting colonies . The modern Irish land lords cultivate their estates by real though not nominal slaves . Their short
sight can only see the apparent advantage of having a numerous tenantry whom they are not obliged to support , bidding one against another for the possession of a misery patch , yclept a potato ground , and they overlook the gradual deterioration of the soil , and the entire stoppage of all improvement , owing to poverty . Their ignorance cannot see the advantages accruing from a wealthy tenantry . A wise
legislature , notwithstanding" all that has been said against poor laws , would establish poor laws in Ireland . The land lords would then become interested in the prosperity of the people under them , and learn to consider themselves as land holders for the benefit of others as well
Untitled Article
762 Juvenile Lessons .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1833, page 762, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2626/page/30/
-