le drink!

279. The next thing after good and plentiful and plain food is _good
air_. This is not within the reach of every one; but, to obtain it is
worth great sacrifices in other respects. We know that there are
_smells_ which will cause _instant death_; we know, that there are
others which will cause death _in a few years_; and, therefore, we know
that it is the duty of parents to provide, if possible, against this
danger to the health of their offspring. To be sure, when a man is so
situated that he cannot give his children sweet air without putting
himself into a jail for debt: when, in short, he has the dire choice of
sickly children, children with big heads, small limbs, and ricketty
joints: or children sent to the poor-house: when this is his hard lot,
he must decide for the former sad alternative: but before he will
convince me that this _is_ his lot, he must prove to me, that he and his
wife expend not a penny in the _decoration_ of their persons; that on
his table, morning, noon, or night, _nothing_ ever comes that is not the
produce of _English soil_; that of his time not one hour is wasted in
what is called pleasure; that down his throat not one drop or morsel
ever goes, unless necessary to sustain life and health. How many scores
and how many hundreds of men have I seen; how many thousands could I go
and point out, to-morrow, in London, the money expended on whose
guzzlings in porter, grog and wine, would keep, and keep well, in the
country, a considerable part of the year, a wife surrounded by healthy
children, instead of being stewed up in some alley, or back room, with a
parcel of poor creatures about her, whom she, though their fond mother,
is almost ashamed to call hers! Compared with the life of such a woman,
that of the labourer, however poor, is paradise. Tell me not of the
necessity of _providing money for them_, even if you waste not a
farthing: you can provide them with no money equal in value to health
and straight limbs and good looks: these it is, if within your power,
your _bounden duty_ to provide for them: as to providing them with
money, you deceive yourself; it is your own avarice, or vanity, that you
are seeking to gratify, and not to ensure the good of your children.
Their most precious possession is _health_ and _strength_; and you have
_no right_ to run the risk of depriving them of these for the sake of
heaping together money to bestow on them: you have the desire to see
them rich: