Parliamentary reports have again and again revealed to us the miseries endured by certain portions of our working population.  They have described the people employed in factories, workshops, mines, and brickfields, as well as in the pursuits of country life.  We have tried to grapple with the evils of their condition by legislation, but it seems to mock us.  Those who sink into poverty are fed, but they remain paupers.  Those who feed them, feel no compassion; and those who are fed, return no gratitude.  There is no bond of sympathy between the givers and the receivers.  Thus the Haves and the Have-nots, the opulent and the indigent, stand at the two extremes of the social scale, and a wide gulf is fixed between them.

Among rude and savage people, the condition of poverty is uniform.  Provided the bare appetites are satisfied, suffering is scarcely felt.  Where slavery exists, indigence is little known; for it is the master’s interest to keep the slave in a condition fit for labour, and the employer generally takes care to supply the animal wants of the employed.  It is only when society becomes civilized and free, and man enters into competition with his fellows, that he becomes exposed to indigence, and experiences social misery.  Where civilization, as in this country, has reached its highest point, and where large accumulations of wealth have been made, the misery of the indigent classes is only rendered more acute by the comfort and luxury with which it is placed in immediate contrast.

Much of the existing misery is caused by selfishness—­by the greed to accumulate wealth on the one hand, and by improvidence on the other.  Accumulation of money has become the great desire and passion of the age.  The wealth of nations, and not the happiness of nations, is the principal aim.  We study political economy, and let social economy shift for itself.  Regard for “Number One” is the prevailing maxim.

High profits are regarded as the summum bonum,—­no matter how obtained, or at what sacrifice.  Money is our god:  “Devil take the hindmost” our motto.  The spirits of darkness rule supreme—­

“Mammon has led them on,
Mammon, the least erect of all the spirits
That fell from Heaven.”

With respect to the poorer classes,—­what has become of them in the midst of our so-called civilization?  An immense proportion of them remain entirely uncivilized.  Though living in a Christian country, Christianity has never reached them.  They are as uncivilized and unchristianized as the Trinobantes were at the landing of Julius Caesar, about nineteen hundred years ago.  Yet these uncivilized people live in our midst.  St. James’s and St. Giles’s lie close together.  In the Parks of London, you may see how gold is worshipped; in the East End of London, you may see to what depths human misery may fall.