ness, the worthlessness, and the improvidence of the poor, will, on a cool examination of the subject here presented to view, be filled with astonishment and deep regret at the infatuation, whereby they have attempted to dry up the sources of charity and benevolence in the breasts of the rich, and, as far as in them lay, doomed the poor to remediless pauperism—an unholy and ungodly employment. To superior beings, looking down on human affairs, nothing can be a more just subject of amazement than a wealthy man, with an income of 5, 6, or 7000 dollars a year, enjoying not only all the comforts but all the luxuries of life, and laying the four quarters of the globe under contribution for his raiment and the gratification of his appetites, who denies occasional relief to persons circumstanced as I have stated in the case cited, from a conscientious apprehension of injuring society by affording encouragement to idleness and improvidence! and nothing can be a more genuine subject of holy indignation, than a wealthy person, not labouring under such a delusion, and yet refusing to aid in cases of distress and wretchedness.
Calculations respecting city labourers, hod-men, wood-pilers, scavengers, and various other classes, whose sole dependence is on the casual employment of their hands, are attended with considerable difficulty. I have made inquiries of different persons, particularly of master-builders, as regards labourers and hod-men. Their statements vary extremely. One eminent builder, who employs a number of hands, states, that allowing for occasional heavy rains, in spring, summer, and fall, and the partial suspension of building in winter, those persons are not sure of employment more than 200 days in the year. This appears to be quite too low. Another, who states that wages vary from 25 to 3712 cents per day in winter, and from 6212, 75, 8712 to 100 cents, in spring, summer, and fall, assumes an average of 60 cents per day throughout the year. This again is apparently too low. Be this as it may, whatever the wages assumed, of the various estimates, it will be manifest from the preceding statements, that the most rigid economy will not secure persons with families, of the description in question, from occasional distress, in the event of any of the calamities to which they are subject, that is, accidents, sickness, want of employment, &c.
I do not pretend my calculations are strictly accurate. They are, however, a sufficiently near approximation, to satisfy every candid mind of the enormous and pernicious errors which prevail on this subject. When a labourer has a wife and only one child, or neither one nor the other, he can support himself tolerably and is not within the scope of this essay. When, on the other hand, he has a sickly wife and three or four or five children, and is himself occasionally sick, his case is truly deplorable; and many of them have four, five, and six children. Their children are, I believe, generally more numerous than those of the rich.[1]
I might extend these views to a greater length, and embrace various other occupations, which stand on nearly the same ground as those I have specified: but I presume it cannot be necessary; and hope I have established a point of infinite importance to the poor, and highly interesting to the rich—that is, that even among the occupations of males, there are some which are so indiffer-
- ↑ I submit a story, recorded, I believe, by Montaigne. A lady who had been long married, and never had a child, paid a visit to one of her tenants who had ten or eleven. The farmer's wife was complaining to the lady how hard she found it to provide for her numerous family; the lady soothingly said, "Be comforted, good woman; when God sends mouths, he always sends meat." "Yes, truly, my dear Madam; but unfortunately he sends the meat to you, and the mouths to me." Such is the case with many of our wealthy men, who are blessed with a superabundance of all the good things of this world, with few or no children—while many of our weavers and labourers, who have half a dozen or a dozen, have not means to afford them proper nourishment.
