It seems to be agreed that in England there is less wretchedness

and distress than in most of the kingdoms of the continent. In

England the poors' rates amount to the sum of two millions sterling
per annum. It has been calculated that one person in seven of the
inhabitants of this country derives at some period of his life
assistance from this fund. If to this we add the persons who, from
pride, a spirit of independence, or the want of a legal settlement,
though in equal distress receive no such assistance, the proportion
will be considerably increased.
I lay no stress upon the accuracy of this calculation; the general
fact is sufficient to give us an idea of the greatness of the abuse.
The consequences that result are placed beyond the reach of
contradiction. A perpetual struggle with the evils of poverty, if
frequently ineffectual, must necessarily render many of the
sufferers desperate. A painful feeling of their oppressed situation
will itself deprive them of the power of surmounting it. The
superiority of the rich, being thus unmercifully exercised, must
inevitably expose them to reprisals; and the poor man will be
induced to regard the state of society as a state of war, an unjust
combination, not for protecting every man in his rights and
securing to him the means of existence, but for engrossing all its
advantages to a
few favoured individuals, and reserving for the portion of the rest
want, dependence and misery.
A second source of those destructive passions by which the peace
of society is interrupted is to be found in the luxury, the pageantry
and magnificence with which enormous wealth is usually
accompanied. Human beings are capable of encountering with
cheerfulness considerable hardships when those hardships are
impartially shared with the rest of the society, and they are not
insulted with the spectacle of indolence and ease in others, no way
deserving of greater advantages than themselves. But it is a bitter
aggravation of their own calamity, to have the privileges of others

forced on their observation, and, while they are perpetually and

vainly endeavouring to secure for themselves and their families the
poorest conveniences, to find others revelling in the fruits of their
labours. This aggravation is assiduously administered to them
under most of the political establishments at present in existence.
There is a numerous class of individuals who, though rich, have
neither brilliant talents nor sublime virtues; and, however highly
they may prize their education, their affability, their superior polish
and the elegance of their manners, have a secret consciousness that
they possess nothing by which they can so securely assert their
pre-eminence and keep their inferiors at a distance as the splendour
of their equipage, the magnificence of their retinue and the
sumptuousness of their entertainments. The poor man is struck
with this exhibition; he feels his own miseries; he knows how
unwearied are his efforts to obtain a slender pittance of this
prodigal waste; and he mistakes opulence for felicity. He cannot
persuade himself that an embroidered garment may frequently
cover an aching heart