Demand of the prosperous man of trade—­of the man of funds, and houses, and land, acquired by successful projects—­what is Life?  He will try to call up a philosophic look, and passing his chin through his hand—­(there is a brilliant on his little finger worth at least fifty guineas)—­he will answer, “Life, sir—­Life has its ups and downs; but taken altogether, for my part, I think a man a great sinner, a very great sinner, who doesn’t look upon life as a very pretty thing.  But don’t let’s talk of such dry stuff—­take off your glass—­hang it!—­no heel-taps.”

Ask another, whose whole soul, like a Ready Reckoner, is composed of figures,—­what is Life?  He, perhaps, will answer, “Why, sir, Life—­if you insure at our office—­is worth more than at any other establishment.  We divide profits, and the rate of insurance decreases in proportion,” &c. &c.; and thus you will have Life valued, by the man who sees nothing in it but a privilege to get money, as the merest article of commercial stock.

Inquire of many an Alderman what is Life?  He will tell you that it is a fine, dignified, full-bellied, purple-faced creature, in a furred and violet-coloured gown.  “Life,” he will say, “always has its pleasures; but its day of great delight is the Ninth of November.  Life, however, is especially agreeable in swan-hopping season, when white-bait abounds at Blackwall and Greenwich, and when the Lord Mayor gives his Easter-ball; and ‘keeps up the hospitalities of his high office.’” Not, however, that life is without its graver duties—­its religious observations.  Oh, no! it is the duty of well-to-do Life to punish starving men for forgetting its surpassing loveliness—­it is a high obligation of Life to go to church in a carriage, and confess itself a miserable sinner—­it is the duty of Life to read its bible; and then the Alderman, to show that he is well versed in the volume, quotes a passage—­“when the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.”

Now ask the Paisley weaver what is Life?  Bid the famine-stricken multitudes of Bolton to describe with their white lips the surpassing beauty of human existence.  Can it be possible that the glorious presence—­the beneficent genius that casts its blessings in the paths of other men—­is such an ogre, a fiend, to the poor?  Alas! is he not a daily tyrant, scourging with meanest wants—­a creature that, with all its bounty to others, is to the poor and destitute more terrible than Death?  Let Comfort paint a portrait of Life, and now Penury take the pencil.  “Pooh! pooh!” cry the sage LAURIES of the world, looking at the two pictures—­“that scoundrel Penury has drawn an infamous libel. That Life! with that withered face, sunken eye, and shrivelled lip; and what is worse, with a suicidal scar in its throat! That Life!  The painter Penury is committed for a month as a rogue and vagabond.  We shall look very narrowly into these cases.”

We agree with the profound Sir PETER LAURIE that it is a most wicked, a most foolish act of the poor man to end his misery by suicide.  But we think there is a better remedy for such desperation than the tread-mill.  The surest way for the rich and powerful of the world to make the poor man more careful of his life is to render it of greater value to him.