much beneath the truth,
but at all events it leaves out of consideration much the heaviest and
saddest form of charity--the maintenance, by the working members of
families, of the unfortunate or ill-conducted persons whom the general
course of misrule now leaves helpless to be the burden of the rest.

Now I want to get first at some, I do not say approximate, but at all
events some suggestive, estimate of the quantity of real distress and
misguided life in this country. Then next, I want some fairly
representative estimate of our private expenditure in luxuries. We won't
spend more, publicly, it appears, than eight hundred thousand a year, on
educating men gratis. I want to know, as nearly as possible, what we
spend privately a year, in educating horses gratis. Let us, at least,
quit ourselves in this from the taunt of Rabshakeh, and see that for
every horse we train also a horseman; and that the rider be at least as
high-bred as the horse, not jockey, but chevalier. Again, we spend eight
hundred thousand, which is certainly a great deal of money, in making
rough _minds_ bright. I want to know how much we spend annually in
making rough _stones_ bright; that is to say, what may be the united
annual sum, or near it, of our jewellers' bills. So much we pay for
educating children gratis;--how much for educating diamonds gratis? and
which pays best for brightening, the spirit or the charcoal? Let us get
those two items set down with some sincerity, and a few more of the same
kind. _Publicly_ set down. We must not be ashamed of the way we spend
our money. If our right hand is not to know what our left does, it must
not be because it would be ashamed if it did.

That is, therefore, quite the first practical thing to be done. Let
every man who wishes well to his country, render it yearly an account of
his income, and of the main heads of his expenditure; or, if he is
ashamed to do so, let him no more impute to the poor their poverty as a
crime, nor set them to break stones in order to frighten them from
committing it. To lose money ill is indeed often a crime; but to get it
ill is a worse one, and to spend it ill, worst of all. You object, Lords
of England, to increase, to the poor, the wages you give them, because
they spend them, you say, unadvisedly. Render them, therefore, an
account of the wages which _they_ give _you_; and show them, by your
example, how to spend theirs, to the last farthing advisedly.

It is indeed ti