nd though I know he was pinched for money, as all men were,
but more especially the possessors of entailed estates, he absented
himself from London in order to pay, with ease to himself, the laborers
employed on his various estates. These amounted (for I have often seen
the roll and helped to check it) to nine hundred and fifty men, working
at day wages, each of whom on a moderate average might maintain three
persons, since the single men have mothers, sisters, and aged or very
young relations to protect and assist. Indeed it is wonderful how much
even a small sum, comparatively, will do in supporting the Scottish
laborer, who in his natural state is perhaps one of the best, most
intelligent, and kind-hearted of human beings; and in truth I have
limited my other habits of expense very much since I fell into the habit
of employing mine honest people. I wish you could have seen about a
hundred children, being almost entirely supported by their fathers' or
brothers' labor, come down yesterday to dance to the pipes, and get a
piece of cake and bannock, and pence apiece (no very deadly largess) in
honor of hogmanay. I declare to you, my dear friend, that when I thought
the poor fellows, who kept these children so neat, and well taught, and
well behaved, were slaving the whole day for eighteen pence or twenty
pence at most, I was ashamed of their gratitude, and of their becks and
bows. But after all, one does what one can, and it is better twenty
families should be comfortable according to their wishes and habits,
than that half that number should be raised above their situation."

* * * * *

142. I must pray Mr. Greg farther to observe, if he has condescended to
glance at these remains of almost prehistoric thought, that although the
modern philosopher will never have reason to blush for any man's
gratitude, and has totally abandoned the romantic idea of making even so
much as one family comfortable according to their wishes and habits, the
alternative suggested by Scott, that half "the number should be raised
above their situation" may become a very inconvenient one if the
doctrines of Modern Equality and competition should render the other
half desirous of parallel promotion.

143. It is now just sixteen years since Mr. Greg's present philosophy of
Expenditure was expressed with great precision by the Common Councilmen
of New York, in their report on the commercial crisis of 1857, in the
fo