cerned, and of all other than purely moral provisions for these exigencies, will be dispelled. It is in these emergencies, that the greatest accessions are made to the number of recognised and permanent dependents upon poor-laws, and upon charitable societies. The difficulties, it may be the actual sufferings of the poor, but independent laborer, are then sometimes very great. A strong sense of character, it may be a strong sense of duty, is then required for the maintenance of his independence. His case is very proper to enlist private sympathy, to be manifested by giving him employment, or making him small loans; but let him manfully persevere in his independence, and avoid a resort to poor-laws. By receiving aid under poor-laws, during a pressure of this kind, many thousands have been brought to pauperism, who, aided by private sympathy as they should have been, might have obviated the temporary difficulties of their condition by their own exertions, have gained strength to principle and character from these very difficulties, and ultimately have been gainers through the very circumstances, which, causing them to depend on alms, have eventually brought them to degradation and ruin. I omit all consideration of the excessive burthens imposed upon the community in the way of taxes by pauperism, because this part of the subject belongs to the legislator and the political economist, rather than to the moral philosopher. But the effects of poor-laws upon the moral feelings and natural sympathies of paupers come fairly within my province. "The burthen of this" (the pecuniary) "tax upon its payers," says the highest authority, "sinks into insignificance, when compared with the dreadful effects, which the system produces upon the morals and happiness of the poor. It is as difficult to convey to the mind of the reader a true and faithful impression of the intensity and malignity of the evil, in this view of it, as it is by any description, however vivid, to give any adequate idea of the horrors of a shipwreck, or a pestilence. A person must converse with paupers, must enter workhouses and examine the inmates, must attend at the parish pay-table, before he can form a just conception of the moral debasement, which is the offspring of the present (poor-law) system. He must hear the pauper threaten to aban don an aged and bed-ridden mother, to turn her out of his house, and to lay her at the overseer's door, unless he is paid for giving her a shelter; he must hear parents threaten to follow the same course with regard to their sick children; and, when he finds that he can scarcely step into a town or parish in any county, without meeting with some instance or other of this character, he will no longer consider the pecuniary pressure upon the rate-payer as the first in the class of evils, which the poor-laws have entailed upon the community."* Again, another witness says, "Two laborers were reported to me as extremely industrious men. They maintained large families, and had neither of them ever applied for relief. I thought it advisable, that they should receive some mark of public approbation, and we gave them one pound each from the parish. Very shortly they both became applicants for relief, and have continued so ever since. I can decidedly state, as the result of my experience, that, when once a family has received relief, it is to be expected that their descendants for generations will receive it also. I remember, that, about two years ago, a father and mother and two young children were very ill, and reduced to great distress. They were obliged to sell all their little furniture for their subsistence. They were settled with us; and, as we heard of their extreme distress, went to offer them relief. They, however, strenuously refused the aid. I reported this to the church-warden, who determined to accompany me; and together we again pressed upon the family the necessity of receiving relief. But still they refused, and we could not persuade them to accept our offer. We felt so interested in the case, however, that we sent them four shillings in a parcel with a letter, desiring them to apply for more, if they continued ill. This they did. And from that time, I do not believe they have been three weeks off our books, although there has been little or no ill health in the family. Thus we effectually spoiled the habits acquired by their previous industry. And I have no hesitation in saying, that, in nine cases out of ten, such is the constant effect of having tasted parish bounty. This applies as much to Report of his (Britannic) Majesty's Commissioners on the Poor-Laws, 1834, p. 97. the young as to the middle-aged, and as much to the middle-aged as to the old. I state it confidently, as the result of my experience, that, if once a young lad gets a pair of shoes given him by the parish, he never afterwards lays by sufficient to buy a pair. So it is also with parents. The disease of pauperism is hereditary. When once a family has applied to the parish for relief, they are pressed down for ever."* The truth is, the English system of poor-laws has had the effect, so far as the poor are concerned, of repealing that great law of nature, by which the effects of each man's improvidence or misconduct are visited upon himself and his family. The effect has been, moreover, to repeal, to the same extent, the law, by which each man and his family enjoy the benefit of his own prudence and virtue. In abolishing punishment, we equally abolish reward. "It appears to the pauper," say the English Commissioners, "that the government has undertaken to repeal, in his favor, the ordinary laws of nature; to enact, that the children shall not suffer for the misconduct of their parents, the wife for that of the hushand, or the husband for that of the wife; that no one shall lose the means of comfortable subsistence, whatever be his indolence, prodigality, or vice; in short, that the penalty, which, after all, must be paid by some one for idleness and improvidence, is to fall, not on the guilty person, or on his family, but on the proprietors of the lands and houses encumbered by his settlement. Can we wonder," they continue, "if the uneducated are seduced into approving a system, which aims its allurements at all the weakest parts of our nature, which offers marriage to the young, security to the anxious, ease to the lazy, and impunity to the profligate?" Such are the chief evils which have attended the English system of poor-laws; and, in a certain measure, the same system so far as it has been established in this country. Still it is right to subjoin, that the English Commissioners consider these evils incidental to the system, and not its necessary consequences. They say, "From the evidence collected under * Report of his (Britannic) Majesty's Commissioners on the Poor-Laws, 1834, p. 93. Idem, pp. 59, 77. this commission, we are induced to believe, that a compulsory provision for the relief of the indigent can be generally administered on a sound and well-defined principle; and that, under the operation of this principle, the assurance, that no one need perish from want, may be rendered more complete than at present, and the mendicant and vagrant repressed by disarming them of their weapon, the plea of impending starvation." To secure this end, the new act of Parliament was framed, and the new system is stated to be working well.† * CHAPTER VIII. THE DUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP. THE question was discussed as early as the time of Cicero, whether mankind are accustomed to associate by the influence of a natural principle, or in consequence of the mutual aid which they may expect, and which they can most effectually give each other, by living in society and cultivating social intercourse.‡ Cicero decides the question in favor of a social principle natural to man, which leads him, independent of any expectation of aid, to associate with his kind; and his decision has received the general assent of those who have most extensively observed mankind.§ Social intercourse is seen in its highest perfection in the case of permanent and disinterested friendship; and every classical scholar must have had his fancy enlivened, and his heart and imagination warmed, in perusing the glowing descriptions of the satisfaction and delight which attend it, as given by the classical * Report of his (Britannic) Majesty's Commissioners on the Poor-Laws, 1834, p. 227. † See First Annual Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners, 1835. On the whole subject of almsgiving, the author has made much use of the Annual Report of the Association of Benevolent Societies in Boston, for October, 1835, a very valuable and instructive document. De Officiis, Lib. I. c. 44. § See Ferguson's Moral and Political Science, Vol. I. pp. 21-25. writers of antiquity. "To take friendship from life," says Cicero, "would be almost the same thing, as to take the sun from the world." And Pythagoras was accustomed to make the intimacy of friendship so strict, that each person was to be as much pleased with his friend as with himself; and he made the perfection of it to consist in several persons being made one (unus ex pluribus) by a union of affections and inclinations, and a resemblance of manners, morals, and excellences of every kind.* The duties of friendship respect 1. its commencement, 2. its continuance, 3. its abuses and violations, 4. its close, and under these divisions I shall consider it. 1. The first duty of friendship respects the choice of our friends. The importance of this choice is manifest, when we consider the influence over us, which we give to every one whom we admit to our confidence and intimacy. The moral maxim quoted by St. Paul, "Evil communications corrupt good manners," is applicable to all human intercourse, especially to the more intimate connexions of life, and to no one more than to friendship. Many writers have made useful suggestions respecting the choice of friends; but no one has more carefully summed up the necessary cautions to be used, than the author of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. "Be in peace with many," says he ; "nevertheless, have but one counsellor of a thousand. If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him. For some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is a friend, who, being turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach." Again, Again, "Some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thine affliction. But, in thy prosperity, he will be as thyself, and will be bold over thy servants. If thou be brought low, he will be against thee, and will hide himself from thy face. Separate thyself" (that is, as to the interchanges of confidence) "from thine enemies; and take heed," (that is, in the choice) "of thy friends. A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath * Cicero, De Amicitiâ, c. 13; De Officiis, Lib. I. c. 17. |