ive by habitual and
unnecessary beggary, great and continued adversity is a strong test
of the moral tone of any people. Extreme poverty, and the painful
things which follow in its train--these are "bad to bide" with the
best of mankind. Besides, there are always some people who, from
causes within themselves, are continually at their wits' end to keep
the wolf from the door, even when employment is plentiful with them;
and there are some natures too weak to bear any long strain of
unusual poverty without falling back upon means of living which, in
easy circumstances, they would have avoided, if not despised. It is
one evil of the heavy pressure of the times; for there is fear that
among such as these, especially the young and plastic, some may
become so familiar with that beggarly element which was offensive to
their minds at first--may so lose the tone of independent pride, and
become "subdued to what they work in, like the dyer's hand,"--that
they may learn to look upon mendicancy as an easy source of support
hereafter, even in times of less difficulty than the present.

Happily, such weakness as this is not characteristic of the English
people; but "they are well kept that God keeps," and perhaps it
would not be wise to cramp the hand of relief too much at a time
like this, to a people who have been, and will be yet, the hope and
glory of the land.

CHAPTER XX.

"Poor Tom's a-cold! Who gives anything to poor Tom?"
--King Lear.

One sometimes meets with remarkable differences of condition in the
households of poor folk, which stand side by side in the same
street. I am not speaking of the uncertain shelters of those who
struggle upon the skirts of civilisation, in careless, uncared-for
wretchedness, without settled homes, or regular occupation,--the
miserable camp followers of life's warfare,--living habitually from
hand to mouth, in a reckless wrestle with the world, for mere
existence. I do not mean these, but the households of our common
working people. Amongst the latter one sometimes meets with striking
differences, in cleanliness, furniture, manners, intellectual
acquirements, and that delicate compound of mental elements called
taste. Even in families whose earnings have been equal in the past,
and who are just now subject alike to the same pinch of adversity,
these disparities are sometimes very great. And, although there are
cases in which the immediate causes of these differences are evident