Superstition Unveiled eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 79 pages of information about Superstition Unveiled.

Superstition Unveiled eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 79 pages of information about Superstition Unveiled.

will in all likelihood not object to cast his eyes around and about him, where proofs of modern priestly selfishness are in wonderful abundance.  By way of example may be cited the cases of those right reverend Fathers in God the Bishops of London and Chester, prelates high in the church; disposers of enormous wealth with influence almost incalculable; the former more especially.  And how stand they affected towards the poor?  By reference to the Times newspaper of September 27th, 1845, it will be seen that those very influential and wealthy Bishops are supporters en chef of a Reformed Poor Law,’ the virtual principle of which is ’to reduce the condition of those whose necessities oblige them to apply for relief, below that of the labourer of the lowest class.’  A Reformed Poor Law, having for its ‘object,’ yes reader, its object, the restoration of the pauper to a position below that of the independent labourer.’  This is their ‘standard’ of reference, by rigid attention to which they hope to fully carry out their ‘vital principle,’ and thus bring to a satisfactory conclusion the great work of placing ’the pauper in a worse condition than the ‘independent labourer.’  It appears, from the same journal, that in reply to complaints against their dietary, the Commissioners appointed to work the Reformed Poor Law, consider that twenty-one ounces of food daily ’is more than the hard working labourer with a family could accomplish for himself by his own exertions.’  This, observes a writer in the Times, being the Commissioners’ reading of their own ‘standard,’ it may be considered superfluous to refer to any other authority; but, as the Royal Agricultural Society of England have clubbed their general information on this subject in a compilation from a selection of essays submitted to them, we are bound to refer to such witnesses who give the most precise information on the actual condition of the independent labourer, with minute instructions for his general guidance, and the economical expenditure of his income.  ‘He should,’ they say, ‘toil early and late’ to make himself ‘perfect’ in his calling.  ’He should pinch and screw the family, even in the commonest necessaries,’ until he gets ‘a week’s wages to the fore.’  He should drink in his work ‘water mixed with some powdered ginger,’ which warms the stomach, and is ‘extremely cheap.’  He should remember that ’from three to four pounds of potatoes are equal in point of nourishment to a pound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of filling the stomach.  He is told that ’a lot of bones may always be got from the butchers for 2d., and they are never scraped so clean as not to have some scraps of meat adhering to them.’  He is instructed to boil these two penny worth of bones, for the first day’s family dinner, until the liquor ‘tastes something like broth.’  For the second day, the bones are to be again boiled in the same manner, but for a longer time.  Nor is this all, they say ’that the bones, if again boiled for a still longer time, will once more yield a nourishing broth, which may be made into pea soup.’

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Superstition Unveiled from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.