This Is The Lesson I Have Been Taught By My Observations Of
Uncivilized Man.
I now bid my readers - Farewell!
NOTE.
THOSE who believe that our social condition approaches
perfection, will think the above word harsh and exaggerated, but
it seems to me the only word that can be truly applied to us. We
are the richest country in the world, and yet cue-twentieth of
our population are parish paupers, and one-thirtieth known
criminals. Add to these, the criminals who escape detection; and
the poor who live mainly on private charity, (which, according to
Dr. Hawkesley, expends seven millions sterling annually is London
alone,) and we may be sure that more than ONE-TENTH of our
population are actually Paupers and Criminals. Both these classes
we keep idle or at unproductive labour, and each criminal costs
us annually in our prisons more than the wages of an honest
agricultural labourer. We allow over a hundred thousand persons
known to have no means of subsistence but by crime, to remain at
large and prey upon the community, and many thousand children to
grow up before our eyes in ignorance and vice, to supply trained
criminals for the next generation. This, in a country which
boasts of its rapid increase in wealth, of its enormous commerce
and gigantic manufactures, of its mechanical skill and scientific
knowledge, of its high civilization and its pure Christianity, - I
can but term a state of social barbarism. We also boast of our
love of justice, and that the law protects rich and.
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