NEARLY ALL THE EVILS THAT AFFLICT THE SONS OF MEN, FLOW FROM ONE SOURCE-WEALTH, THE APPROPRIATION OF THINGS TO INDIVIDUALS AND TO SOCIETIES.

TAKE AWAY THIS MOTHER-CURSE AND ALL ITS CURSED PROGENY, AND THE WORLD WOULD BE, COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, A PARADISE! WE passed by the residence of Polydore. We saw his gorgeous palace and widely extended fields. We examined his gardens, his park, his orchards; and were struck with astonishment at the splendour of his establishment. And is this all, we inquired, designed for the accommodation of one man? Can one creature, not six feet high, occupy all these splendid apartments? Behold the flocks and herds, and fields of corn! Can all these be necessary for the sustenance of one? But if all this be the product of his own labour, he has full liberty to enjoy it. Polydore must be a giant. Did he pile up these massy stones, and erect these ponderous buildings? Did he subdue the lordly forest, and cover the fields with waving grain? No: Polydore has done nothing. He owes all this to the labour of others. But how then, we inquired with amazement, did Polydore gain this ascendancy over others? How did he compel his fellows to cultivate his fields, or labour in his ditches? Polydore did not compel them; they were compelled by their necessities. A fortunate concurrence of circumstances, and the laws of the country, have made Polydore rich; but these men are poor. A small portion of the product of their labour goes to the support of themselves and their families; but the far greater part is applied to the aggrandizement of Polydore's establishment. And as this aggrandizement increases, in like manner increases his ascendancy over others.

We saw through the whole in a moment. It is therefore absolutely necessary that every rich man should be surrounded by men more indigent than himself. If it were otherwise, in what manner would he induce them to supply his factitious wants, or gratify his luxurious inclinations? Cottages, then, must necessarily be found in the vicinity of palaces; and lordly cities must be surrounded by suburbs of wretchedness! Sordidness is the offspring of splendour; and luxury is the parent of want. Civilization consists in the refinement of a few, and the barbarism and baseness of many.

As the grandeur of any establishment is augmented, servile and base offices are multiplied. Poverty and baseness must be united in the same person in order to qualify him for such situations.-The Savage.

Riches are attended with Luxury, and Luxury ends in Despotism.-Erasmus.

The Monopoly of Wealth.-All wealth in a state of civilized society is the produce of human industry. To be rich, is merely to possess a patent, entitling one man to dispose of the produce of another man's industry.

The fruitful source of crimes consists in one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute.- Godwin.

Tithes bear a higher price than Conscience in any market in England.

A reward offered to indolence impoverishes the state and corrupts the people.-Bentham.

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The rich man's policy. There is no deficiency of charity towards the poor of this country, but there is a total absence of justice in regard to them; and if the justice, which is wanting, prevailed, the charity that exists would We level the poor to the dust not have the same occasions for its exercise. by our general policy, and then take infinite credit to ourselves for raising them up again with the grace of charity.-Fonblanque.

Slavery.-The weight of chains, number of stripes, hardness of labour, and other effects of a master's cruelty, may make one servitude more miserable than another; but he is a slave, who serves the best and gentlest man in the world, as well as he who serves the worst-and he does serve him if he must obey his commands and depend upon his will.-Algernon Sydney.

White Slaves.-The laws and the progress of civilization have made the indigent labourer a slave to every man in the possession of riches. He may change his master, but he is condemned to perpetual servitude; and his reward is the reward of every other slave-subsistence. The situation of the white slave is often more unfortunate than that of the black: he is probably harassed by domestic cares, and compelled to be a helpless witness of the distresses of his family; or he changes his employer so often, with the vain hope of meliorating his condition, that he becomes sick, infirm, or old, without having had it in his power to secure the friendship or protection of any of his masters. What then is the consequence? The wretched outcast, after a life of slavery, is neglected by those who have enjoyed the fruit of his labour: he may perish in the streets, expire on the highway, or linger out a miserable existence in some infirmary or poor-house, till death shall relieve him of his pain, and the world of a burthen. And the pitiful assistance, which is granted by the rich to their sick, decrepid, or superannuated slave, is given as a charity, accompanied with reproaches and expressions of contempt; and the dying pauper must receive it with all becoming humility. He is upbraided with his vices, reproached with his follies, and unfeelingly insulted by every purseproud fool who may man age theconcerns, or have the superintendence, of the poor. The black slave is compelled to labour; but he is destitute of care. He is not at liberty to change one service for another; but, when he grows old, or infirm, he is sure of being maintained, without having recourse to the tender mercies of a justice of the peace, overseer of the poor, or superintendent of a workhouse.

Is it not a little strange that the opulent man, when he contributes his quota to the necessities of a wretch who has been, in every sense of the word, a slave to the community of the rich, considers himself as bestowing a charity; whereas the slaveholder considers himself bound in justice to support the blacks who are worn out in his service?-Is it not a little strange that we should hear men pour forth reproaches against their brethren for holding slaves, when they themselves are supported by the labour of slaves? hypocrite! first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye."-The Savage.

"Thou

A noble heart will disdain to subsist like a drone upon honey gathered by others' labour, like a vermin to filch its food out of the public granary, or like a shark to prey upon the lesser fry; but will rather outdo his private obligations to other men's care and toil, by considerable service and beneficence to the public.-Barrow.

Individual Accumulation.The accumulation of that power which is conferred by wealth, in the hands of the few, is the perpetual source of

oppression and neglect for the mass of mankind. The power of the wealthy is farther concentrated by their tendency to combination, from which, number, dispersion, indigence, and ignorance, equally preclude the poor. The wealthy are formed into bodies by their professions, their different degrees of opulence called ranks, their knowledge, and their small number. They necessarily, in all countries, administer government; for they alone have skill and leisure for its functions. Thus circumstanced, nothing can be more evident than their inevitable preponderance in the political scale. The preference of partial to general interests is, however, the greatest of all public evils. It should, therefore, have been the object of laws to repress this malady; but it has been their perpetual tendency to aggravate it. Not content with the inevitable inequality of fortune, they have superadded to it honorary and political distinctions. Not content with the inevitable tendency of the wealthy to combine, they have embodied them in classes. They have fortified these conspiracies against the general interest, which they ought to have resisted though they could not disarm. Laws, it is said, cannot equalize men. No. But ought they for that reason to aggravate the inequality which they cannot cure? Laws cannot inspire unmixed patriotism; but ought they for that reason to foment that corporation spirit which is its most fatal enemy?— Sir James Mackintosh.

The Abolition of Money in Sparta.-The second establishment made by Lycurgus, says Plutarch, was the division of the lands, and the abolition of gold and silver. This bold undertaking, adds the biographer, was made in order to banish fraud, envy, and luxury, and those two ancient plagues of society, poverty and avarice; and in order likewise that honour should be rendered only to virtue.

*

When we come to examine, under a moral point of view, the benefits which mankind have received from the use of the precious metals, we shall not perhaps condemn the step taken by Lycurgus upon this occasion. If money has contributed to the comfort of mankind by facilitating their commercial intercourse with each other; and if it has rendered the sciences more flourishing, not only by exciting invention, and by rewarding industry,†t but by dividing into innumerable branches the pursuits and occupations of men; it has also given birth to some of the most violent of those passions which distract and agitate the soul, and which stifle in the human breast its noblest affections. Who that looks upon the chequered scene of life, can fail to remark, on each woe-worn visage, the traces left by care-creating avarice? It is this which multiplies grief in the cottage-it is this which imbitters disappointment in the palace. What is that which dries up the tears of filial sorrow; which dissolves the bonds of friendship; and which, while it occupies the sordid heart, shuts out compassion, and leaves no room for mercy? IT IS GOLD-that false semblance of happiness-that ideal standard of all other possessions-that idol of human affections-and that universal Baal, worshipped alike by the Jew and by the Gentile.-Sir W. Drummond.

[ It may be as well to mention that morality is the most important among the conducers to happiness. Witness our jails for honest debtors.]

↑ In prisons or poor-houses.

Gold! yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarist. Roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black, white; foul, fair;
Wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant.
Why this

Will lug your priests and servants from your sides;
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd;
Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen'd* widow wed again;
Her, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again.-Damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st odds
Among the rout of nations!-

O, thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
"Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!

Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god,
That solderest close impossibilities,

And mak❜st them kiss; that speak'st with every tongue,
To every purpose! O, thou touch of hearts!-

All that you meet are thieves.

Shakspere.-Timon of Athens.

Money is the sov'reign power,
That all mankind falls down before:
"Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all
That men divine and sacred call;
For what's the worth of any thing,
But so much money as 'twill bring?

Butler.-Hudibras.

Commerce. The venal interchange
Of all that human art or nature yield;

Which wealth should purchase not, but want demand,
And natural kindness hasten to supply

From the full fountain of its boundless love,

For ever stifled, drain'd, and tainted now.

Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade

No solitary virtue dares to spring,
But poverty and wealth with equal hand
Scatter their withering curses, and unfold
The doors of premature and violent death
To pining famine and full-fed disease,
To all that shares the lot of human life,

Which, poison'd body and soul, scarce drags the chain,
That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind.

Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,
The signet of its all-enslaving power,
Upon a shining ore, and call'd it gold:
Before whose image bow the vulgar great,
The vainly rich, the miserable proud,

Cast down and crushed by sorrow.

The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings,
And with blind feelings reverence the power
That grinds them to the dust of misery.

Since tyrants, by the sale of human life,
Heap luxuries to their sensualism, and fame
To their wide-wasting and insatiate pride,
Success has sanction'd to a credulous world
The ruin, the disgrace, the woe, of war.
His hosts of blind and unresisting dupes
The despot numbers; from his cabinet
These puppets of his schemes he moves at will,
Even as the slaves by force or famine driven,
Beneath a vulgar master, to perform
A task of cold and brutal drudgery;-
Harden'd to hope, insensible to fear,
Scarce living pulleys of a dead machine,
Mere wheels of work and articles of trade,
That grace the proud and noisy pomp of wealth.

The harmony and happiness of man

Yield to the wealth of nations; that which lifts
His nature to the heaven of its pride,

Is barter'd for the poison of his soul;

The weight that drags to earth his towering hopes,
Blighting all prospect but of selfish gain,
Withering all passion but of slavish fear,
Extinguishing all free and generous love
Of enterprise and daring, even the pulse
That fancy kindles in the beating heart
To mingle with sensation, it destroys,-
Leaves nothing but the sordid lust of pelf,
The groveling hope of interest and gold,
Unqualified, unmingled, unredeem'd
Even by hypocrisy.

And statesmen boast

Of wealth! the wordy eloquence that lives
After the ruin of their hearts, can gild
The bitter poison of a nation's woe,
Can turn the worship of the servile mob
To their corrupt and glaring idol, Fame.

All things are sold: the very light of heaven
Is venal;-even life itself,

And the poor pittance which the laws allow
Of liberty, the fellowship of man,

Those duties which his heart of human love
Should urge him to perform instinctively,
Are bought and sold as in a public mart
Of undisguising selfishness, that sets

On each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign.
Even love is sold; the solace of all woe
Is turn'd to deadliest agony, old age
Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms,
And youth's corrupted impulses prepare
A life of horror from the blighting bane
Of COMMERCE.

Falsehood demands but gold, to pay the pangs
Of outraged conscience.

Shelley-Queen Mab.