had, it is true, been once in prosperity. But examples, where
the spirit of independence works with equal strength, though not with
like miserable accompaniments, are frequently to be found even yet among
the humblest peasantry and mechanics. There is not, then, sufficient
cause for doubting that a like sense of honour may be revived among the
people, and their ancient habits of independence restored, without
resorting to those severities which the new Poor Law Act has introduced.

But even if the surfaces of things only are to be examined, we have a
right to expect that lawgivers should take into account the various
tempers and dispositions of mankind: while some are led, by the
existence of a legislative provision, into idleness and extravagance,
the economical virtues might be cherished in others by the knowledge
that, if all their efforts fail, they have in the Poor Laws a 'refuge
from the storm and a shadow from the heat.' Despondency and distraction
are no friends to prudence: the springs of industry will relax, if
cheerfulness be destroyed by anxiety; without hope men become reckless,
and have a sullen pride in adding to the heap of their own wretchedness.
He who feels that he is abandoned by his fellow-men will be almost
irresistibly driven to care little for himself; will lose his
self-respect accordingly, and with that loss what remains to him of
virtue?

With all due deference to the particular experience and general
intelligence of the individuals who framed the Act, and of those who in
and out of Parliament have approved of and supported it; it may be said,
that it proceeds too much upon the presumption that it is a labouring
man's own fault if he be not, as the phrase is, before-hand with the
world. But the most prudent are liable to be thrown back by sickness,
cutting them off from labour, and causing to them expense: and who but
has observed how distress creeps upon multitudes without misconduct of
their own; and merely from a gradual fall in the price of labour,
without a correspondent one in the price of provisions; so that men who
may have ventured upon the marriage state with a fair prospect of
maintaining their families in comfort and happiness, see them reduced to
a pittance which no effort of theirs can increase? Let it be remembered,
also, that there are thousands with whom vicious habits of expense are
not the cause why they do not store up their gains; but they are
generous and kind-hearted, a