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they say, 'toil early and late' to make himself 'perfect' in his calling. 'He should _pinch and screw_ the family, even in the _commonest necessaries_,' until he gets 'a week's wages to the fore.' He should drink in his work 'water mixed with some powdered ginger,' which warms the stomach, and is 'extremely cheap.' He should remember that 'from three to four pounds of potatoes are equal in point of nourishment to a pound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of _filling_ the stomach. He is told that 'a lot of bones may always be got from the butchers for 2d., and they are never scraped so clean as not to have some scraps of meat adhering to them.' He is instructed to boil these two penny worth of bones, for the first day's family dinner, until the liquor 'tastes _something_ like broth.' For the second day, the bones are to be again boiled in the same manner, but for _a longer time_. Nor is this all, they say, 'that the bones, if again boiled for a _still longer_ time, will _once more_ yield a nourishing broth, which may be made into pea soup.' This is the system and this the schoolmastership expressly sanctioned by the Bishops of London and Chester. In piety nevertheless these prelates are not found wanting. They may starve the bodies but no one can charge them with neglecting the souls of our 'independent labourers.' Nothing can exceed their anxiety to feed and clothe the spiritually destitute. They raise their mitred fronts, even in palaces, to proclaim and lament over the spiritual destitution which so extensively prevails--but they seldom condescend to notice _physical_ destitution. When the cry of famine rings throughout the land they coolly recommend rapid church extension, thus literally offering stone to those who ask them for bread. To get the substantial and give the spiritual is their practical Christianity. To spiritualise the poor into contentment with the 'nourishing broth' from thrice boiled bones, and to die of hunger rather than demand relief, are their darling objects. Verily, if these and men like these do not grind the faces of the poor, the Author of this Apology is unable to conceive in what that peculiar process consists. In Scripture we are told, the bread of the poor is his life, and they who defraud him thereof are men of blood; and by whom are the poor defrauded of their bread if not by those who, like the Bishops of London and Chester, legislate for poverty as if it we
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