the subject has not hitherto received sufficient attention
to enable anyone to say that there are not more deaths in proportion
among the children of the poor, even in the country, than among those
of the middling and higher classes. Indeed, it seems difficult to
suppose that a labourer's wife who has six children, and who is
sometimes in absolute want of bread, should be able always to give them
the food and attention necessary to support life. The sons and
daughters of peasants will not be found such rosy cherubs in real life
as they are described to be in romances. It cannot fail to be remarked
by those who live much in the country that the sons of labourers are
very apt to be stunted in their growth, and are a long while arriving
at maturity. Boys that you would guess to be fourteen or fifteen are,
upon inquiry, frequently found to be eighteen or nineteen. And the lads
who drive plough, which must certainly be a healthy exercise, are very
rarely seen with any appearance of calves to their legs: a circumstance
which can only be attributed to a want either of proper or of
sufficient nourishment.

To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws
of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared, that though
they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual
misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger
surface. It is a subject often started in conversation and mentioned
always as a matter of great surprise that, notwithstanding the immense
sum that is annually collected for the poor in England, there is still
so much distress among them. Some think that the money must be
embezzled, others that the church-wardens and overseers consume the
greater part of it in dinners. All agree that somehow or other it must
be very ill-managed. In short the fact that nearly three millions are
collected annually for the poor and yet that their distresses are not
removed is the subject of continual astonishment. But a man who sees a
little below the surface of things would be very much more astonished
if the fact were otherwise than it is observed to be, or even if a
collection universally of eighteen shillings in the pound, instead of
four, were materially to alter it. I will state a case which I hope
will elucidate my meaning.

Suppose that by a subscription of the rich the eighteen pence a day
which men earn now was made up five shillings, it might be imagined,
perhaps, that t