at the bottom of all, muddled, starved, and
squalid, cannot _enjoy_ freedom, and must not have "license." They
seethe by thousands in ignorance and foulness, and, with our "British
Constitution" standing by in all its glory, they rot and perish, a
multitude dark and unclean.

That all the luxury and congestion of wealth in the head of the body
corporate, while its lowest limbs are in rags and pallid mortification,
should be permitted by the head, blinded by plethora, and peacefully
endured by the limbs, dispirited by inanition, is an astounding marvel.
But there are twinges of pain now and then. The very quiet is only that
of syncope, and any day it may be broken by a wild and furious paroxysm.
Unless the permission of this evil by the head ceases, then the endurance
of it by the limbs will cease.

If the rich are not mingled with the wretched, they are at least
entangled with them, and by knots that cannot be untied, and will not be
cut. The thief indeed, and the burglar, and more lately the lazy
vagabond, and now the assassin, have _forced_ us to consider them; and we
even attend to the drunkard, provided he pleads for notice by rolling in
our path.

Perhaps at last the wretched also will arrest us.

Is not the time come yet to rouse up head, and heart, and hand, to do
more than we have even attempted, and to raise at the least the
appearance of our lowest classes to the respectability now attained in
countries we are apt to despise?

What is the specific? I have no new one, and no new reason for the old
one, but it is easy enough to find tools to work with in this field, if
only we are persuaded that work has to be done and we are willing to take
our share. Numbers do this, and nobly, but far too few, and much is
done, but not half enough. Thousands are yet idle here, who will not
listen to God or their conscience or even their instinct in the matter,
who live comfortably apart from the evil places, and so hear only now and
then a message from the dying wafted on the sable wings of cholera or
typhus. Is it not shabby this, to shirk their share of the work and the
trouble, and to leave it to be done by softer hearts and a national
purse?

It is these, who are moved neither by religion, nor humanity, nor
self-respect, that a downright scolding may perhaps stir up; and if we
can show them that the state of our lowest classes is a _national shame_,
that we are beaten as in a battle and distanced in a race,