“I wonder,” Mrs. Shortridge said, “the nation tolerates such a nuisance.”

“There are laws for its abatement,” answered L’Isle.  “John III. and Sebastian both warred against the beggars.  A law of the sixteenth century ordains that the lame should learn the trade of a tailor or shoemaker, the maimed serve for subsistence any who will employ them, and the blind, for food and raiment, give themselves to the labors of the forge, by blowing the bellows.  But we see how the law is enforced.  These men behind us are neither lame, halt, nor blind, but truly represent the sturdy vagrants with whom Queen Bess’s statute dealt so roughly.  With what result?  It is but the ancestor of a long line of laws which load our statute-books, and have built up our poor-law system, merely substituting for one evil another which burdens the country like an incubus, and, vulture-like, is eating out its entrails.”

“We have no such national institution for the breeding of beggars in Scotland,” said Moodie, from behind.

“Is it because Scotland is too poor to maintain paupers?” inquired Mrs. Shortridge.

“It is because it is not natural for a Scotchman to be a beggar,” replied Moodie, with patriotic pride.

“We cannot carry the system much further in England,” said L’Isle; “the resources of the country, and the sturdy character of the people, are breaking down under it.”

“Could our British population be brought down to as low a condition as these people?” Lady Mabel asked.

“Assuredly not,” said Mrs. Shortridge.

“Have you ever been in Ireland?” asked L’Isle.

No, neither of the ladies had been there.

“Or in an English poor-house?”

That, too, was terra incognita, especially to Lady Mabel.

“Either of them might assist you in finding an answer to a very difficult question.  Still, like Moodie, I have great faith in race, and in the fitness of climates to races.  There is something enervating to a northern race in these subtropical climates.  While the powers of enjoyment remain unimpaired, or are even stimulated, the energy of action is rapidly sapped.  We know that the Gothic conquerors of this peninsula lost, in a few generations, their energy and enterprise.  A war of seven centuries revived and sustained that of their descendants; but, after that stimulant was withdrawn, on the expulsion of the Moors, they gradually sunk to what we see them now.  Some persons attribute the character and condition of these peninsular nations to the vices of government, others to the corruption of the church.  I doubt the question’s admitting of so simple a solution as either, or both of these.  We may be putting effect for cause, and cause for effect.  An inferior people may deteriorate government, and corrupt the church.  The disciples of the apostles received Christianity in its purity.  Whence originated the rapid degeneracy of the early Church?  We see some portions of the human race betraying stronger downward tendencies than others.  But the ‘why’ is too complex a question to admit of a simple solution.  The Portuguese of this province especially are an inferior people.  They are probably a degenerate people; and one cause of that degeneracy may be an intermixture of dissimilar races.”