inhabitants as to the supply of the
Necessaries of life. He knows that nothing remains to be learned of the
domestic morals of people who are plunged in hopeless poverty. There is
no foundation for good morals among such. They herd together, desperate
or depressed; they have no prospect; their self-respect is prostrated;
they have nothing to lose, there is nothing for them to gain by any
effort that they can make.--But it is needless to speak of this. When we
treat of the domestic morals of any class, it is always presupposed that
they are not in circumstances which render total immorality almost
inevitable.

In agricultural districts, the condition of the inhabitants may be
learned by observation of the markets. An observing traveller has said,
"To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes on the
markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, the fields
well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say truly,
these people are barbarous and oppressed."[M] This, though a rather
sweeping judgment, is founded in truth, and is well worthy of being
borne in mind in travelling. It so happens that the negroes of Hayti are
abundantly supplied with the necessaries, and with many of the comforts
of life; that they are by no means barbarous, and far from being
oppressed; and yet they have few roads, and scarcely any markets. They
grow up in the midst of plenty; but, when a countryman is about to kill
a hog, he sends his son round among his neighbours on horseback, to give
notice to any who wish for pork, to send for it on a certain day. Their
wretched, barbarous, oppressed countrymen in South Carolina, meanwhile,
have excellent markets. The Saturday night's market at Charleston might
beguile a careless foreigner into the belief that those who throng it
are a free and prosperous people. Thus the rule above quoted does not
always hold. Yet it is true that the existence and good quality of
markets testify to the existence and good quality of other desirable
things.

Where markets are abundantly and variously supplied, it is clear that
there must be a large demand for the comforts of life, and a diversity
of domestic wants. It is clear that there must be industry to meet this
demand, and competence to justify it. There must be social security, or
the industry and competence would not be put to so hazardous a use. It
_may_ happen, as at Charleston, that the capital is the masters' (whose
the