n
unprovided for; but then they are left in a rank of society that does not
prevent their going to work or to service, which is not the case with
the vast number left by those who enjoy, during life, a genteel and
easy existence under government.

The education of such persons is either neglected entirely, or ill fitted
for the line of life into which they are to go. If the sum-total of human
vice and misery was to be divided into shares, and if it were calculated
how much fell to each person, there is not a doubt but at least a double
portion would fall to the lot of those unfortunate persons who are left
by parents enjoying offices for life; who are generally obliged to
expend their income as they earn it. As, according to the natural
chance of things, a number of such persons must leave young families,
the seeds of misery are continually sowing a-fresh, to the great
detriment of society. This evil depends in a great degree upon the
habits and nature of the people, which augment or diminish it; and, in
commercial nations, the evil is far the greatest. Where commerce does
not flourish, persons belonging to the revenue-department are seldom
highly paid, and they by no means consider themselves as a class of
persons distinguished above the general run, or obliged to live more
expensively; but, in a manufacturing country, to live without working,
implies a degree of gentility that is extremely ruinous to those who
enjoy that fatal and flimsy pre-eminence. [end of page #109]

A manufacturer, who is getting a thousand pounds a year, will,
perhaps, not assume so much importance as a man in office who does
not get one hundred pounds; and the former, as well as his family,
knowing that they are beholden to industry for what they have, do not
think themselves above following it. {93}

Unfortunately, it also happens, that, in all sorts of occupation where
trust is reposed and punctuality required, more than in ordinary
business, it is rather late in life before those employed rise to
situations of considerable emolument. When they are old, their
families are generally young; thus it is, that the persons who are the
most unfit to marry late in life are generally those who do so. This
order of things cannot easily be changed. In the rate of payments
governments are regulated by the service done, and by the dependence
that can be placed on the person employed, who, on the other hand,
follows the natural propensities of human nat