[Footnote 1: Introduction to "Men of Capital."]

The love of gold threatens to drive everything before it. The pursuit of money has become the settled custom of the country. Many are so absorbed by it, that every other kind of well-being is either lost sight of, or altogether undervalued. And then the lovers of money think to recover their moral tone by bestowing charity! Mountains of gold weigh heavily upon the heart and soul. The man who can withstand the weight of riches, and still be diligent, industrious, and strong in mind and heart, must be made of strong stuff. For, people who are rich, are almost invariably disposed to be idle, luxurious, and self-indulgent.

"If money," said the Rev. Mr. Griffiths, Rector of Merthyr, "did not make men forget men, one-half of the evil that is in the world would never occur. If masters drew nearer to the men, and men were permitted to draw nearer their masters, we should not be passing through this fiery ordeal. Let them do something to win the men out of the public-houses; let them spare more of their enormous gains to build places of amusement and recreation for the people; let them provide better houses to live in, better conveniences for decency, better streets; and if all these things are done we shall have neither lock-outs nor strikes. We hear with pomp and triumph of the millions and millions that have been dug out of this old Welsh land of ours, but we hear nothing—and we see, indeed, less—of the public buildings, the people's parks, the public libraries and public institutions, and other civilizing agencies. Fifteen months ago, when we were in the highest tide of prosperity, I said all this, and no notice was taken of it. Why should any notice be taken of a preaching parson or a Christian minister of any kind, when sovereigns fly about like snowflakes in winter, or may be gathered like blackberries in summer?"[1]

[Footnote 1: Sermon preached at Merthyr during the South Wales strike.]

Men go on toiling and moiling, eager to be richer; desperately struggling, as if against poverty, at the same time that they are surrounded with abundance. They scrape and scrape, add shilling to shilling, and sometimes do shabby things in order to make a little more profit; though they may have accumulated far more than they can actually enjoy. And still they go on, worrying themselves incessantly in the endeavour to grasp at an additional increase of superfluity. Perhaps such men have not enjoyed the advantages of education in early life. They have no literary pleasures to fall back upon; they have no taste for books; sometimes they can scarcely write their own names. They have nothing to think of but money,—and of what will make money. They have no faith, but in riches! They keep their children under restriction and bring them up with a servile education.

At length, an accumulation of money comes into the children's hands. They have before been restricted in their expenditure; now they become lavish. They have been educated in no better tastes. They spend extravagantly. They will not be drudges in business as their father was. They will be "gentlemen," and spend their money "like gentlemen." And very soon the money takes wings and flies away. Many are the instances in which families have been raised to wealth in the first generation, launched into ruinous expense in the second, and disappeared in the third,—being again reduced to poverty. Hence the Lancashire proverb, "Twice clogs, once boots." The first man wore clogs, and accumulated a "a power o' money;" his rich son spent it; and the third generation took up the clogs again. A candidate for parliamentary honours, when speaking from the hustings, was asked if he had plenty brass. "Plenty brass?" said he; "ay, I've lots o' brass!—I stink o' brass!"

The same social transformations are known in Scotland. The proverb there is, "The grandsire digs, the father bigs, the son thigs,"[1]—that is, the grandfather worked hard and made a fortune, the father built a fine house, and the son, "an unthrifty son of Linne," when land and goods were gone and spent, took to thieving. Merchants are sometimes princes to-day and beggars to-morrow; and so long as the genius for speculation is exercised by a mercantile family, the talent which gave them landed property may eventually deprive them of it.

[Footnote 1: Dublin University Magazine.]

To be happy in old age—at a time when men should leave for ever the toil, anxiety, and worry of money-making—they must, during youth and middle life, have kept their minds healthily active. They must familiarize themselves with knowledge, and take an interest in all that has been done, and is doing, to make the world wiser and better from age to age. There is enough leisure in most men's lives to enable them to interest themselves in biography and history. They may also acquire considerable knowledge of science, or of some ennobling pursuit different from that by which money is made. Mere amusement will not do. No man can grow happy upon amusement. The mere man of pleasure is a miserable creature,—especially in old age. The mere drudge in business is little better. Whereas the study of literature, philosophy, and science is full of tranquil pleasure, down to the end of life. If the rich old man has no enjoyment apart from money-making, his old age becomes miserable. He goes on grinding and grinding in the same rut, perhaps growing richer and richer. What matters it? He cannot eat his gold. He cannot spend it. His money, instead of being beneficial to him, becomes a curse. He is the slave of avarice, the meanest of sins. He is spoken of as a despicable creature. He becomes base, even in his own estimation.

What a miserable end was that of the rich man who, when dying, found no comfort save in plunging his hands into a pile of new sovereigns, which had been brought to him from the bank. As the world faded from him, he still clutched them; handled and fondled them one by one,—and then he passed away,—his last effort being to finger his gold! Elwes the miser died shrieking, "I will keep my money!—nobody shall deprive me of my property!" A ghastly and humiliating spectacle!

Rich men are more punished for their excess of economy, than poor men are for their want of it. They become miserly, think themselves daily growing poorer, and die the deaths of beggars. We have known several instances. One of the richest merchants in London, after living for some time in penury, went down into the country, to the parish where he was born, and applied to the overseers for poor's relief. Though possessing millions, he was horror-struck by the fear of becoming poor. Relief was granted him, and he positively died the death of a pauper. One of the richest merchants in the North died in the receipt of poor's relief. Of course, all that the parish authorities had doled out to these poor-rich men was duly repaid by their executors.

And what did these rich persons leave behind them? Only the reputation that they had died rich men. But riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches. Money is a drug in the market. Some of the most wealthy men living are mere nobodies. Many of them are comparatively ignorant. They are of no moral or social account. A short time since, a list was published of two hundred and twenty-four English millionaires. Some were known as screws; some were "smart men" in regard to speculations; some were large navvies, coal-miners, and manufacturers; some were almost unknown beyond their own local circle; some were very poor creatures; very few were men of distinction. All that one could say of them was, that they died rich men.

"All the rich and all the covetous men in the world," said Jeremy Taylor, "will perceive, and all the world will perceive for them, that it is but an ill recompense for all their cares, that by this time all that shall be left will be this, that the neighbours shall say, He died a rich man: and yet his wealth will not profit him in the grave, but hugely swell the sad accounts of his doomsday."

"One of the chief causes," says Mrs. Gore, "which render the pursuit of wealth a bitterer as well as more pardonable struggle in England than on the Continent, is the unequal and capricious distribution of family property.... Country gentlemen and professional men,—nay, men without the pretension of being gentlemen,—are scarcely less smitten with the mania of creating 'an eldest son' to the exclusion and degradation of their younger children; and by the individuals thus defrauded by their nearest and dearest, is the idolatry of Mammon pursued without the least regard to self-respect, or the rights of their fellow-creatures. Injured, they injure in their turn. Their days are devoted to a campaign for the recovery of their birthright. Interested marriages, shabby bargains, and political jobbery, may be traced to the vile system of things which converts the elder son into a Dives, and makes a Lazarus of his brother."

But democrats have quite as great a love for riches as aristocrats; and many austere republicans are eager to be millionaires. Forms of government do not influence the desire for wealth. The elder Cato was a usurer. One of his means of making money was by buying young half-fed slaves at a low price; then, by fattening them up, and training them to work, he sold them at an enhanced price. Brutus, when in the Isle of Cyprus, lent his money at forty-eight per cent. interest,[1] and no one thought the worse of him for his Usury. Washington, the hero of American freedom, bequeathed his slaves to his wife. It did not occur to him to give them their liberty. Municipal jobbery is not unknown in New York; and its influential citizens are said to be steeped to the lips in political corruption. Mr. Mills says, that the people of the North-Eastern States have apparently got rid of all social injustices and inequalities; that the proportion of population to capital and land is such as to ensure abundance for every able-bodied man; that they enjoy the six points of the Charter, and need never complain of poverty. Yet "all that these advantages have done for them is, that the life of the whole of our sex is devoted to dollar-hunting; and of the other, to breeding dollar-hunters. This," Mr. Mill adds, "is not a kind of social perfection which philanthropists to come will feel any very eager desire to assist in realizing."[2]

[Footnote 1: Cicero's Letters]

[Footnote 2: Principles of Political Economy, Book iv., ch. vi.]

Saladin the Great conquered Syria, Arabia, Persia, and Mesopotamia. He was the greatest warrior and conqueror of his time. His power and wealth were enormous. Yet he was fully persuaded of the utter hollowness of riches. He ordered, by his will, that considerable sums should be distributed to Mussulmans, Jews, and Christians, in order that the priests of the three religions might implore for him the mercy of God. He commanded that the shirt or tunic which he wore at the time of his death should be carried on the end of a spear throughout the whole camp and at the head of his army, and that the soldier who bore it should pause at intervals and say aloud, "Behold all that remains of the Emperor Saladin!—of all the states he had conquered; of all the provinces he had subdued; of the boundless treasures he had amassed; of the countless wealth he possessed, he retained, in dying, nothing but this shroud!"

Don Jose de Salamanca, the great railway contractor of Spain, was, in the early part of his life, a student at the University of Granada. He there wore, as he himself says, the oldest and most worn of cassocks. He was a diligent student; and after leaving college he became a member of the Spanish press. From thence he was translated to the Cabinet of Queen Christina, of which he became Finance Minister. This brought out his commercial capacities, and induced him to enter on commercial speculations. He constructed railways in Spain and Italy, and took the principal share in establishing several steam-shipping companies. But while pursuing commerce, he did not forget literature. Once a week he kept an open table, to which the foremost men in literature and the press were invited. They returned his hospitality by inviting him to a dinner on the most economic scale. Busts of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, Schiller, and other literary men, adorned the room.

In returning thanks for his health, Salamanca referred to his university experience, and to his labours in connection with the press. "Then," he went on to say, "the love of gold took possession of my soul, and it was at Madrid that I found the object of my adoration; but not, alas! without the loss of my juvenile illusions. Believe me, gentlemen, the man who can satisfy all his wishes has no more enjoyment. Keep to the course you have entered on, I advise you. Rothschild's celebrity will expire on the day of his death. Immortality can be earned, not bought. Here are before us the effigies of men who have gloriously cultivated liberal arts; their busts I have met with in every part of Europe; but nowhere have I found a statue erected to the honour of a man who has devoted his life to making money."

Riches and happiness have no necessary connection with each other. In some cases it might be said that happiness is in the inverse proportion to riches. The happiest part of most men's lives is while they are battling with poverty, and gradually raising themselves above it. It is then that they deny themselves for the sake of others,—that they save from their earnings to secure a future independence,—that they cultivate their minds while labouring for their daily bread,—that they endeavour to render themselves wiser and better—happier in their homes and more useful to society at large. William Chambers, the Edinburgh publisher, speaking of the labours of his early years, says, "I look back to those times with great pleasure, and I am almost sorry that I have not to go through the same experience again; for I reaped more pleasure when I had not a sixpence in my pocket, studying in a garret in Edinburgh, than I now find when sitting amidst all the elegancies and comforts of a parlour."

There are compensations in every condition of life. The difference in the lot of the rich and the poor is not so great as is generally imagined. The rich man has often to pay a heavy price for his privileges. He is anxious about his possessions. He may be the victim of extortion. He is apt to be cheated. He is the mark for every man's shaft. He is surrounded by a host of clients, till his purse bleeds at every pore. As they say in Yorkshire when people become rich, the money soon "broddles through." Or, if engaged in speculation, the rich man's wealth may fly away at any moment. He may try again, and then wear his heart out in speculating on the "chances of the market." Insomnia is a rich man's disease. The thought of his winnings and losings keeps him sleepless. He is awake by day, and awake by night. "Riches on the brain" is full of restlessness and agony.

The rich man over-eats or over-drinks; and he has gout. Imagine a man with a vice fitted to his toe. Let the vice descend upon the joint, and be firmly screwed down. Screw it again. He is in agony. Then suddenly turn the screw tighter—down, down! That is gout! Gout—of which Sydenham has said, that "unlike any other disease, it kills more rich men than poor, more wise than simple. Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals, and philosophers, have died of gout. Hereby nature shows her impartiality, since those whom she favours in one way, she afflicts in another Or, the rich man may become satiated with food, and lose his appetite; while the poor man relishes and digests anything. A beggar asked alms of a rich man "because he was hungry." "Hungry?" said the millionaire; "how I envy you!" Abernethy's prescription to the rich man was, "Live upon a shilling a day, and earn it!" When the Duke of York consulted him about his health, Abernethy's answer was, "Cut off the supplies, and the enemy will soon leave the citadel." The labourer who feels little and thinks less, has the digestion of an ostrich; while the non-worker is never allowed to forget that he has a stomach, and is obliged to watch every mouthful that he eats. Industry and indigestion are two things seldom found united.

Many people envy the possessions of the rich, but will not pass through the risks, the fatigues, or the dangers of acquiring them. It is related of the Duke of Dantzic that an old comrade, whom he had not seen for many years, called upon him at his hotel in Paris, and seemed amazed at the luxury of his apartments, the richness of his furniture, and the magnificence of his gardens. The Duke, supposing that he saw in his old comrade's face a feeling of jealousy, said to him bluntly, "You may have all that you see before you, on one condition." "What is that?" said his friend. "It is that you will place yourself twenty paces off, and let me fire at you with a musket a hundred times." "I will certainly not accept your offer at that price." "Well," replied the Marshal, "to gain all that you see before you, I have faced more than a thousand gunshots, fired at not move than ten paces off."

The Duke of Marlborough often faced death. He became rich, and left a million and a half to his descendants to squander. The Duke was a penurious man. He is said to have scolded his servant for lighting four candles in his tent, when Prince Eugene called upon him to hold a conference before the battle of Blenheim. Swift said of the Duke, "I dare hold a wager that in all his compaigns he was never known to lose his baggage." But this merely showed his consummate generalship. When ill and feeble at Bath, he is said to have walked home from the rooms to his lodgings, to save sixpence. And yet this may be excused, for he may have walked home for exercise. He is certainly known to have given a thousand pounds to a young and deserving soldier who wished to purchase a commission. When Bolingbroke was reminded of one of the weaknesses of Marlborough, he observed, "He was so great a man, that I forgot that he had that defect."

It is no disgrace to be poor. The praise of honest poverty has often been sung. When a man will not stoop to do wrong, when he will not sell himself for money, when he will not do a dishonest act, then his poverty is most honourable. But the man is not poor who can pay his way, and save something besides. He who pays cash for all that he purchases, is not poor but well off. He is in a happier condition than the idle gentleman who runs into debt, and is clothed, shod, and fed at the expense of his tailor, shoemaker, and butcher. Montesquieu says, that a man is not poor because he has nothing, but he is poor when he will not or cannot work. The man who is able and willing to work, is better off than the man who possesses a thousand crowns without the necessity for working.

Nothing sharpens a man's wits like poverty. Hence many of the greatest men have originally been poor men. Poverty often purifies and braces a man's morals. To spirited people, difficult tasks are usually the most delightful ones. If we may rely upon the testimony of history, men are brave, truthful, and magnanimous, not in proportion to their wealth, but in proportion to their smallness of means. And the best are often the poorest,—always supposing that they have sufficient to meet their temporal wants. A divine has said that God has created poverty, but He has not created misery. And there is certainly a great difference between the two. While honest poverty is honourable, misery is humiliating; inasmuch as the latter is for the most part the result of misconduct, and often of idleness and drunkenness. Poverty is no disgrace to him who can put up with it; but he who finds the beggar's staff once get warm in his hand, never does any good, but a great amount of evil.

The poor are often the happiest of people—far more so than the rich; but though they may be envied, no one will be found willing to take their place. Moore has told the story of the over-fed, over-satisfied eastern despot, who sent a messenger to travel through the world, in order to find out the happiest man. When discovered, the messenger was immediately to seize him, take his shirt off his back, and bring it to the Caliph. The messenger found the happiest man in an Irishman,—happy, dancing, and flourishing his shillelagh. But when the ambassador proceeded to seize him, and undress him, he found that the Irishman had got no shirt to his back!

The portion of Agur is unquestionably the best: "Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me." The unequal distribution of the disposition to be happy, is of far greater importance than the unequal distribution of wealth. The disposition to be content and satisfied, said David Hume, is at least equal to an income of a thousand a year. Montaigne has observed that Fortune confers but little. Human good or ill does not depend upon it. It is but the seed of good, which the soul, infinitely stronger than wealth, changes and applies as it pleases, and is thus the only cause of a happy or unhappy disposition.

England is celebrated for its charities. M. Guizot declares that there is nothing in this land that so fills the mind of the stranger with amazement at our resources, and admiration at our use of them, as the noble free-gift monuments raised on every side for the relief of multiform suffering. The home philanthropist, who looks a little deeper than the foreign visitor, may be disposed to take another view of the effects of money-giving. That charity produces unmixed good, is very much questioned. Charity, like man, is sometimes blind, and frequently misguided. Unless money is wisely distributed, it will frequently do more harm than good. If charity could help or elevate the poor, London would now be the happiest city in the world; for about three millions of money are spent on charity, and about one in every three of the London population are relieved by charitable institutions.

It is very easy to raise money for charity. Subscription lists constantly attest the fact. A rich man is asked by some influential person for money. It is very easy to give it. It saves time to give it. It is considered a religious duty to give it. Yet to give money unthinkingly, to give it without considering how it is to be used,—instead of being for the good of our fellow-creatures,—may often prove the greatest injury we could inflict upon them. True benevolence does not consist in giving money. Nor can charitable donations, given indiscriminately to the poor, have any other effect than to sap the foundations of self-respect, and break down the very outworks of virtue itself. There are many forms of benevolence which create the very evils they are intended to cure, and encourage the poorer classes in the habit of dependence upon the charity of others,—to the neglect of those far healthier means of social well-being which lie within their own reach.

One would think that three million a year were sufficient to relieve all the actual distress that exists in London. Yet the distress, notwithstanding all the money spent upon it, goes on increasing. May not the money spent in charity, create the distress it relieves,—besides creating other distress which it fails to relieve? Uneducated and idle people will not exert themselves for a living, when they have the hope of obtaining the living without exertion. Who will be frugal and provident, when charity offers all that frugality and providence can confer? Does not the gift of the advantages, comforts, and rewards of industry, without the necessity of labouring for them, tend to sap the very foundations of energy and self-reliance? Is not the circumstance that poverty is the only requisite qualification on the part of the applicant for charity, calculated to tempt the people to self-indulgence, to dissipation, and to those courses of life which keep them poor?

Men who will not struggle and exert themselves, are those who are helped first. The worst sort of persons are made comfortable: whilst the hard-working, self-supporting man, who disdains to throw himself upon charity, is compelled to pay rates for the maintenance of the idle. Charity stretches forth its hand to the rottenest parts of society; it rarely seeks out, or helps, the struggling and the honest. As Carlyle has said, "O my astonishing benevolent friends! that never think of meddling with the material while it continues sound; that stress and strain it with new rates and assessments, till even it has given way and declared itself rotten; whereupon you greedily snatch at it, and say, 'Now let us try to do some good upon it!'"

The charity which merely consists in giving, is an idle indulgence—often an idle vice. The mere giving of money will never do the work of philanthropy. As a recent writer has said, "The crimes of the virtuous, the blasphemies of the pious, and the follies of the wise, would scarcely fill a larger volume than the cruelties of the humane. In this world a large part of the occupation of the wise has been to neutralize the efforts of the good."

"Public charities," said the late Lord Lytton, "are too often merely a bonus to public indolence and vice. What a dark lesson of the fallacy of human wisdom does this knowledge strike into the heart! What a waste of the materials of kindly sympathies! What a perversion individual mistakes can cause, even in the virtues of a nation! Charity is a feeling dear to the pride of the human heart—it is an aristocratic emotion! Mahomet testified his deep knowledge of his kind when he allowed the vice hardest to control,—sexual licentiousness; and encouraged the virtue easiest to practise,—charity."[1]

[Footnote 1: LORD LYTTON—England and the English, p. 124.]

There are clergymen in London who say that charity acts against the extension of religion amongst the people. The Rev. Mr. Stone says, "He is an unwelcome visitor to the poor who brings the Bible in one hand, without a loaf, a blanket, or a shilling in the other. And no wonder. By the prevailing system of charitable relief they have been nursed in this carnal spirit; they have been justified in those selfish expectations. Instead of being allowed to learn the great and salutary lesson of providence, that there is a necessary connection between their conduct and their condition, they have, by this artificial system, been taught that indigence is of itself sufficient to constitute a claim to relief. They have been thus encouraged in improvidence, immorality, fraud, and hypocrisy."

The truest philanthropists are those who endeavour to prevent misery, dependence, and destitution; and especially those who diligently help the poor to help themselves. This is the great advantage of the "Parochial Mission-Women Association."[1] They bring themselves into close communication with the people in the several parishes of London, and endeavour to assist them in many ways. But they avoid giving indiscriminate alms. Their objects are "to help the poor to help themselves, and to raise them by making them feel that they can help themselves." There is abundant room for philanthropy amongst all classes; and it is most gratifying to find ladies of high distinction taking part in this noble work.

[Footnote 1: See East and West, edited by the Countess Spencer.]

There are numerous other societies established of late years, which afford gratifying instances of the higher and more rational, as well as really more Christian, forms of charity. The societies for improving the dwellings of the industrial classes,—for building baths and washhouses,—for establishing workmen's, seamen's, and servants' homes,—for cultivating habits of providence and frugality amongst the working-classes,—and for extending the advantages of knowledge amongst the people,—are important agencies of this kind. These, instead of sapping the foundations of self-reliance, are really and truly helping the people to help themselves, and are deserving of every approbation and encouragement. They tend to elevate the condition of the mass; they are embodiments of philanthropy in its highest form; and are calculated to bear good fruit through all time.

Rich men, with the prospect of death before them, are often very much concerned about their money affairs. If unmarried and without successors, they find a considerable difficulty in knowing what to do with the pile of gold they have gathered together during their lifetime. They must make a will, and leave it to somebody. In olden times, rich people left money to pay for masses for their souls. Perhaps many do so still. Some founded almshouses; others hospitals. Money was left for the purpose of distributing doles to poor persons, or to persons of the same name and trade as the deceased.

"These doles," said the wife of a clergyman in the neighbourhood of London, "are doing an infinite deal of mischief: they are rapidly pauperising the parish." Not long since, the town of Bedford was corrupted and demoralized by the doles and benefactions which rich men had left to the poorer classes. Give a man money without working for it, and he will soon claim it as a right. It practically forbids him to exercise forethought, or to provide against the vicissitudes of trade, or the accidents of life. It not only breaks down the bulwarks of independence, but the outposts of virtue itself.

Large sums of money are left by rich men to found "Charities." They wish to do good, but in many cases they do much moral injury. Their "Charities" are anything but charitable. They destroy the self-respect of the working-classes, and also of the classes above them. "We can get this charity for nothing. We can get medical assistance for nothing. We can get our children educated for nothing. Why should we work? Why should we save?" Such is the idea which charity, so-called, inculcates. The "Charitable Institution" becomes a genteel poor-house; and the lesson is extensively taught that we can do better by begging than by working.

The bequeathment of Stephen Girard, the wealthy American merchant, was of a different character. Girard was a native of Bordeaux. An orphan at an early age, he was put on board a ship as a cabin boy. He made his first voyage to North America when about ten or twelve years old. He had little education, and only a limited acquaintance with reading and writing. He worked hard. He gradually improved in means so that he was able to set up a store. Whilst living in Water Street, New York, he fell in love with Polly Luna, the daughter of a caulker. The father forbade the marriage. But Girard persevered, and at length he won and married Polly Lum. It proved a most unfortunate marriage. His wife had no sympathy with him; and he became cross, snappish, morose. He took to sea again; and at forty he commanded his own sloop, and was engaged in the coasting trade between New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.

Then he settled in Philadelphia, and became a merchant. He devoted his whole soul to his business; for he had determined to become rich. He practised the most rigid economy. He performed any work by which money could be made. He shut his heart against the blandishments of life. The desire for wealth seems to have possessed his soul. His life was one of unceasing labour. Remember, that Girard was unhappy at home. His nature might have been softened, had he been blessed with a happy wife. He led ten miserable years with her; and then she became insane. She lay for about twenty years in the Pennsylvania hospital, and died there.

Yet there was something more than hardness and harshness in Girard. There was a deep under-current of humanity in him. When the yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia, in 1793, his better nature showed itself. The people were smitten to death by thousands. Nurses could not be found to attend the patients in the hospital. It was regarded as certain death to nurse the sick.

"Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor; But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger; Only, alas I the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants, Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless."

It was at this time, when many were stricken with fever, that Girard abandoned his business, and offered his services as superintendent of the public hospital. He had Peter Helm for his associate. Girard's business faculty immediately displayed itself. His powers of organization were immense, and the results of his work were soon observed. Order began to reign where everything had before been in confusion. Dirt was conquered by cleanliness. Where there had been wastefulness, there was now thriftiness. Where there had been neglect, there was unremitting attention. Girard saw that every case was properly attended to. He himself attended to the patients afflicted by the loathsome disease, ministered to the dying, and performed the last kind offices for the dead. At last the plague was stayed; and Girard and Helm returned to their ordinary occupations.

The visitors of the poor in Philadelphia placed the following minute on their books: "Stephen Girard and Peter Helm, members of the committee, commiserating the calamitous state to which the sick may probably be reduced for want of suitable persons to superintend the hospital, voluntarily offered their services for that benevolent employment, and excited a surprise and satisfaction that can be better conceived than expressed."

The results of Stephen Girard's industry and economy may be seen in Philadelphia—in the beautiful dwelling houses, row after row,—but more than all, in the magnificent marble edifice of Girard College. He left the greater part of his fortune for public purposes,—principally to erect and maintain a public library and a large orphanage. It might have been in regard to his own desolate condition, when cast an orphan amongst strangers and foreigners, that he devised his splendid charity for poor, forlorn, and fatherless children. One of the rooms in the college is singularly furnished. "Girard had directed that a suitable room was to be set apart for the preservation of his books and papers; but from excess of pious care, or dread of the next-of kin, all the plain homely man's effects were shovelled into this room. Here are his boxes and his bookcase, his gig and his gaiters, his pictures and his pottery; and in a bookcase, hanging with careless grace, are his braces—old homely knitted braces, telling their tale of simplicity and carefulness."[1]

[Footnote 1: Gentleman's Magazine, April. 1875. George Dawson on "Niagara and Elsewhere."]

One of the finest hospitals in London is that founded by Thomas Guy, the bookseller. He is said to have been a miser. At all events he must have been a thrifty and saving man. No foundation such as that of Guy's can be accomplished without thrift. Men who accomplish such things must deny themselves for the benefit of others. Thomas Guy appears early to have projected schemes of benevolence. He first built and endowed almshouses at Tamworth for fourteen poor men and women, with pensions for each occupant; and with a thoughtfulness becoming his vocation, he furnished them with a library. He had himself been educated at Tamworth, where he had doubtless seen hungry and homeless persons suffering from cleanness of teeth and the winter's rage; and the almshouses were his contribution for their relief. He was a bookseller in London at that time. Guy prospered, not so much by bookselling, as by buying and selling South Sea Stock. When the bubble burst, he did not hold a share: but he had realized a profit of several hundred thousand pounds. This sum he principally employed in building and endowing the hospital which bears his name. The building was roofed in before his death, in 1724.

Scotch benefactors for the most part leave their savings for the purpose of founding hospitals for educational purposes. There was first the Heriot's Hospital, founded in Edinburgh by George Heriot, the goldsmith of James I., for maintaining and educating a hundred and eighty boys. But the property of the hospital having increased in value—the New Town of Edinburgh being for the most part built on George Heriot's land—the operations of the charity have been greatly extended; as many as four thousand boys and girls being now educated free of expense, in different parts of the city. There are also the George Watson's Hospital, the John Watson's Hospital, the Orphan Hospital, two Maiden Hospitals, the Cauven's Hospital, the Donaldson's Hospital, the Stewart's Hospital, and the splendid Fettes College (recently opened),—all founded by Scottish benefactors for the ordinary education of boys and girls, and also for their higher education. Edinburgh may well be called the City of Educational Endowments. There is also the Madras College, at St. Andrews, founded by the late Andrew Bell, D.D.; the Dollar Institution, founded by John Macrat; and the Dick Bequest, for elevating the character and position of the parochial schools and schoolmasters, in the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray. The effects of this last bequest have been most salutary. It has raised the character of the education given in the public schools, and the results have been frequently observed at Cambridge, where men from the northern counties have taken high honours in all departments of learning.

English benefactors have recently been following in the same direction. The Owen's College at Manchester; the Brown Library and Museum at Liverpool; the Whitworth Benefaction, by which thirty scholarships of the annual value of L100 each have been founded for the promotion of technical instruction; and the Scientific College at Birmingham, founded by Sir Josiah Mason, for the purpose of educating the rising generation in "sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge,"—form a series of excellent institutions which will, we hope, be followed by many similar benefactions. A man need not moulder with the green grass over his grave, before his means are applied to noble purposes. He can make his benefactions while living, and assist at the outset in carrying out his liberal intentions.

Among the great benefactors of London, the name of Mr. Peabody, the American banker, cannot be forgotten. It would take a volume to discuss his merits, though we must dismiss him in a paragraph. He was one of the first to see, or at all events to make amends for, the houseless condition of the working classes of London. In the formation of railways under and above ground, in opening out and widening new streets, in erecting new public buildings,—the dwellings of the poor were destroyed, and their occupants swarmed away, no one knew whither. Perhaps they crowded closer together, and bred disease in many forms. Societies and companies were formed to remedy the evil to a certain extent. Sir Sydney Waterlow was one of the first to lead the way, and he was followed by others. But it was not until Mr. Peabody had left his splendid benefaction to the poor of London, that any steps could be taken to deal with the evil on a large and comprehensive scale. His trustees have already erected ranges of workmen's dwellings in many parts of the metropolis,—which will from time to time be extended to other parts. The Peabody dwellings furnish an example of what working men's dwellings ought to be. They are clean, tidy, and comfortable homes. They have diminished drunkenness; they have promoted morality. Mr. Peabody intended that his bounty should "directly ameliorate the condition and augment the comforts of the poor," and he hoped that the results would "be appreciated, not only by the present, but by future generations of the people of London." From all that the trustees have done, it is clear that they are faithfully and nobly carrying out his intentions.

All these benefactors of the poor were originally men of moderate means. Some of them were at one time poor men. Sir Joseph Whitworth was a journeyman engineer with Mr. Clement, in Southwark, the inventor of the planing machine. Sir Josiah Mason was by turns a costermonger, journeyman baker, shoemaker, carpet weaver, jeweller, split-steel ring maker (here he made his first thousand pounds), steel-pen maker, copper-smelter, and electro-plater, in which last trade he made his fortune. Mr, Peabody worked his way up by small degrees, from a clerk in America to a banker in London. Their benefactions have been the result of self-denial, industry, sobriety, and thrift.

Benevolence throws out blossoms which do not always ripen into fruit. It is easy enough to project a benevolent undertaking, but more difficult to carry it out. The author was once induced to take an interest in a proposed Navvy's Home; but cold water was thrown upon the project, and it failed. The navvy workmen, who have made the railways and docks of England, are a hard-working but a rather thriftless set. They are good-hearted fellows, but sometimes drunken. In carrying out their operations, they often run great dangers. They are sometimes so seriously injured by wounds and fractures as to be disabled for life. For instance, in carrying out the works of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, there were twenty-two cases of compound fractures seventy-four simple fractures, besides burns from blasts, severe contusions, lacerations, and dislocations. One man lost both his eyes by a blast, another had his arm broken by a blast. Many lost their fingers, feet, legs, and arms; which disabled them for further work. Knowing the perils to which railway labourers were exposed, it occurred to a late eminent contractor to adopt some method for helping and comforting them in their declining years. The subject was brought under the author's notice by his friend the late Mr. Eborall, in the following words: "I have just been visiting a large contractor—a man of great wealth; and he requests your assistance in establishing a 'Navvy's Home.' You know that many of the contractors and engineers, who have been engaged in the construction of railways, are men who have accumulated immense fortunes: the savings of some of them amount to millions. Well, my friend the contractor not long since found a miserable, worn-out old man in a ditch by the roadside. 'What,' said he, 'is that you?' naming the man in the ditch by his name. 'Ay,' replied the man, ''deed it is!' 'What are you doing there?' 'I have come here to die. I can work no more.' 'Why don't you go to the workhouse? they will attend to your wants there.' 'No! no workhouse for me! If I am to die, I will die in the open air.' The contractor recognized in the man one of his former navvies. He had worked for him and for other contractors many years; and while they had been making their fortunes, the navvy who had worked for them had fallen so low as to be found dying in a ditch. The contractor was much affected. He thought of the numerous other navvies who must be wanting similar help. Shortly after, he took ill, and during his illness, thinking of what he might do for the navvies, the idea occurred to him of founding a 'Navvy's Home;' and he has desired me to ask you to assist him in bringing out the institution."

It seemed to the author an admirable project, and he consented to do all that he could for it. But when the persons who were the most likely to contribute to such an institution were applied to, they threw such floods of cold water upon it,[1] that it became evident, in the face of their opposition, that "The Navvy's Home" could not be established. Of course, excuses were abundant. "Navvies were the most extravagant workmen. They threw away everything that they earned. They spent their money on beer, whisky, tally-women, and champagne. If they died in ditches, it was their own fault. They might have established themselves in comfort, if they wished to do so. Why should other people provide for them in old age, more than for any other class of labourers? There was the workhouse: let them go there." And so on. It is easy to find a stick to beat a sick dog. As for the original projector, he recovered his health, he forgot to subscribe for "The Navvy's Home," and the scheme fell to the ground.

"The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be: The devil grew well, the devil a saint was he.'

[Footnote 1: With one admirable exception. A noble-hearted man, still living volunteered a very large subscription towards the establishment of "the Navvy's Home."]



CHAPTER XV.

HEALTHY HOMES.

"The best security for civilization is the dwelling. "—B. Disraeli.

"Cleanliness is the elegance of the poor."—English Proverb.

"Sanitas sanitatum, et omnia sanitas."—Julius Menochius.

"Virtue never dwelt long with filth and nastiness."—Count Rumford.

"More servants wait on Man Than he'll take notice of: in every path He treads down that which doth befriend him When sickness makes him pale and wan."—George Herbert.

Health is said to be wealth. Indeed, all wealth is valueless without health. Every man who lives by labour, whether of mind or body, regards health as one of the most valuable of possessions. Without it, life would be unenjoyable. The human system has been so framed as to render enjoyment one of the principal ends of physical life. The whole arrangement, structure, and functions of the human system are beautifully adapted for that purpose.

The exercise of every sense is pleasurable,—the exercise of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and muscular effort. What can be more pleasurable, for instance, than the feeling of entire health,—health, which is the sum-total of the functions of life, duly performed? "Enjoyment," says Dr. Southwood Smith, "is not only the end of life, but it is the only condition of life which is compatible with a protracted term of existence. The happier a human being is, the longer he lives; the more he suffers, the sooner he dies. To add to enjoyment, is to lengthen life; to inflict pain, is to shorten its duration."

Happiness is the rule of healthy existence; pain and misery are its exceptional conditions. Nor is pain altogether an evil; it is rather a salutary warning. It tells us that we have transgressed some rule, violated some law, disobeyed some physical obligation. It is a monitor which warns us to amend our state of living. It virtually says,—Return to nature, observe her laws, and be restored to happiness. Thus, paradoxical though it may seem, pain is one of the conditions of the physical well-being of man; as death, according to Dr. Thomas Brown, is one of the conditions of the enjoyment of life.

To enjoy physical happiness, therefore, the natural laws must be complied with. To discover and observe these laws, man has been endowed with the gift of reason. Does he fail to exercise this gift,—does he neglect to comply with the law of his being,—then pain and disease are the necessary consequence.

Man violates the laws of nature in his own person, and he suffers accordingly. He is idle and overfeeds himself: he is punished by gout, indigestion, or apoplexy. He drinks too much: he becomes bloated, trembling, and weak; his appetite falls off, his strength declines, his constitution decays; and he falls a victim to the numerous diseases which haunt the steps of the drunkard.

Society suffers in the same way. It leaves districts undrained, and streets uncleaned. Masses of the population are allowed to live crowded together in unwholesome dens, half poisoned by the mephitic air of the neighbourhood. Then a fever breaks out,—or a cholera, or a plague. Disease spreads from the miserable abodes of the poor into the comfortable homes of the rich, carrying death and devastation before it. The misery and suffering incurred in such cases, are nothing less than wilful, inasmuch as the knowledge necessary to avert them is within the reach of all.

Wherever any number of persons live together, the atmosphere becomes poisoned, unless means be provided for its constant change and renovation. If there be not sufficient ventilation, the air becomes charged with carbonic acid, principally the product of respiration. Whatever the body discharges, becomes poison to the body if introduced again through the lungs. Hence the immense importance of pure air. A deficiency of food may be considerably less injurious than a deficiency of pure air. Every person above fourteen years of age requires about six hundred cubic feet of shut-up space to breathe in during the twenty-four hours.[1] If he sleeps in a room of smaller dimensions, he will suffer more or less, and gradually approach the condition of being smothered.

[Footnote 1: Where six hundred cubic feet of space is allowed, the air requires to be changed, by ventilation, five times in the hour, in order to keep it pure. The best amount of space to be allowed for a healthy adult is about eight hundred cubic feet. The air which is breathed becomes so rapidly impure, that a constant supply of fresh air must be kept up to make the air of the shut-up space fit for breathing. The following are some amounts of space per head which are met with in practice:—

Artizan rooms 200 cubic feet. Metropolitan Lodging Houses 240 " Poor Law Board Dormitories 300 " Barrack Regulation 60 " The best Hospitals 1,500 to 2,000 cubic feet.]

Shut up a mouse in a glass receiver, and it will gradually die by rebreathing its own breath. Shut up a man in a confined space, and he will die in the same way. The English soldiers expired in the Black Hole of Calcutta because they wanted pure air. Thus about half the children born in some manufacturing towns die, before they are five years old, principally because they want pure air. Humboldt tells of a sailor who was dying of fever in the close hold of a ship. His comrades brought him out of his hold to die in the open air. Instead of dying, he revived, and eventually got well. He was cured by the pure air.

The most common result of breathing impure air, amongst adults, is fever. The heaviest municipal tax, said Dr. Southwood Smith, is the fever tax. It is estimated that in Liverpool some seven thousand persons are yearly attacked by fever, of whom about five hundred die. Fever usually attacks persons of between twenty and thirty, or those who generally have small families depending on them for support. Hence deaths from fever, by causing widowhood and orphanage, impose a very heavy tax upon the inhabitants of all the large manufacturing towns. Dr. Playfair, after carefully considering the question, is of opinion that the total pecuniary loss inflicted on the county of Lancashire from preventible disease, sickness, and death, amounts to not less than five millions sterling annually. But this is only the physical and pecuniary loss. The moral loss is infinitely greater.

Where are now the "happy humble swains" and the "gentle shepherds" of the old English poets? At the present time, they are nowhere to be found. The modern Strephon and Phyllis are a very humble pair, living in a clay-floored cottage, and maintaining a family on from twelve to fifteen shillings a week. And so far from Strephon spending his time in sitting by a purling stream playing "roundelays" upon a pipe,—poor fellow! he can scarcely afford to smoke one, his hours of labour are so long, and his wages are so small. As for Daphnis, he is a lout, and can neither read nor write; nor is his Chloe any better.

Phineas Fletcher thus sang of "The Shepherd's Home:"—

"Thrice, oh, thrice happie shepherd's life and state! When courts are happinesse, unhappie pawns!

His cottage low, and safely humble gate. Shuts out proud Fortune, with her scorns and fawns: No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep: Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep: Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.

His certain life, that never can deceive him, Is full of thousand sweets and rich content: The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him With coolest shades, till noontide's rage is spent: His life is neither tost in boist'rous seas Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease; Pleased and full blest he lives, when he his God can please.'

Where, oh where, has this gentle shepherd gone? Have spinning-jennies swallowed him up? Alas! as was observed of Mrs. Harris, "there's no such a person." Did he ever exist? We have a strong suspicion that he never did, save in the imaginations of poets.

Before the age of railroads and sanitary reformers, the pastoral life of the Arcadians was a beautiful myth, The Blue Book men have exploded it for ever. The agricultural labourers have not decent houses,—only miserable huts, to live in. They have but few provisions for cleanliness or decency. Two rooms for sleeping and living in, are all that the largest family can afford. Sometimes they have only one. The day-room, in addition to the family, contains the cooking utensils, the washing apparatus, agricultural implements, and dirty clothes. In the sleeping apartment, the parents and their children, boys and girls, are indiscriminately mixed, and frequently a lodger sleeps in the same and only room, which has generally no window,—the openings in the half-thatched roof admitting light, and exposing the family to every vicissitude of the weather. The husband, having no comfort at home, seeks it in the beershop. The children grow up without decency or self-restraint. As for the half-hearted wives and daughters, their lot is very miserable.

It is not often that village affairs are made the subject of discussion in newspapers, for the power of the press has not yet reached remote country places. But we do hear occasionally of whole villages being pulled down and razed, in order to prevent them "becoming nests of beggars' brats." A member of Parliament did not hesitate to confess before a Parliamentary Committee, that he "had pulled down between twenty-six and thirty cottages, which, had they been left standing, would have been inhabited by young married couples." And what becomes of the dispossessed? They crowd together in the cottages which are left standing, if their owners will allow it; or they crowd into the workhouses; or, more generally, they crowd into the towns, where there is at least some hope of employment for themselves and their children.

Our manufacturing towns are not at all what they ought to be; not sufficiently pure, wholesome, or well-regulated. But the rural labourers regard even the misery of towns as preferable to the worse misery of the rural districts; and year by year they crowd into the seats of manufacturing industry in search of homes and employment. This speaks volumes as to the actual state of our "boasted peasantry, their country's pride."

The intellectual condition of the country labourers seems to be on a par with their physical state. Those in the western counties are as little civilized as the poor people in the east of London. A report of the Diocesan Board of the county of Hereford states that "a great deal of the superstition of past ages lingers in our parishes. The observation of lucky and unlucky days and seasons is by no means unusual; the phases of the moon are regarded with great respect,—in one, medicine may be taken, in another it is advisable to kill a pig; over the doors of many houses may be found twigs placed crosswise, and never suffered to lose their cruciform position; and the horseshoe preserves its old station on many a stable-door. Charms are devoutly believed in; a ring made from a shilling, offered at the communion, is an undoubted cure for fits; hair plucked from the crop on an ass's shoulder, and woven into a chain, to be put round a child's neck, is powerful for the same purpose; and the hand of a corpse applied to the neck is believed to disperse a wen. The 'evil eye,' so long dreaded in uneducated countries, has its terrors among us; and if a person of ill life be suddenly called away, there are generally some who hear his 'tokens,' or see his ghost. There exists, besides, the custom of communicating deaths to hives of bees, in the belief that they invariably abandon their owners if the intelligence be withheld."

Sydney Smith has said, with more truth than elegance, that in the infancy of all nations, even the most civilized, men lived the life of pigs; and if sanitary reporters had existed in times past as they do now, we should doubtless have received an account of the actual existence and domestic accommodation of the old English "swains" and "shepherds," very different from that given by Phineas Fletcher. Even the mechanics of this day are more comfortably lodged than the great landed gentry of the Saxon and Norman periods: and if the truth could be got at, it would be found that, bad as is the state of our agricultural labourers now, the condition of their forefathers was no better.

The first method of raising a man above the life of an animal is to provide him with a healthy home. The Home is after all the best school for the world. Children grow up into men and women there; they imbibe their best and their worst morality there; and their morals and intelligence are in a great measure well or ill trained there. Men can only be really and truly humanized and civilized through the institution of the Home. There is domestic purity and moral life in the good home; and individual defilement and moral death in the bad one. The schoolmaster has really very little to do with the formation of the characters of children. These are formed in the home, by the father and mother,—by brothers, sisters, and companions. It does not matter how complete may be the education given in schools. It may include the whole range of knowledge: yet if the scholar is under the necessity of daily returning to a home which is indecent, vicious, and miserable, all this learning will prove of comparatively little value. Character and disposition are the result of home training; and if these are, through bad physical and moral conditions, deteriorated and destroyed, the intellectual culture acquired in the school may prove an instrumentality for evil rather than for good.

The home should not be considered merely as an eating and sleeping place; but as a place where self-respect may be preserved, and comfort secured, and domestic pleasures enjoyed. Three-fourths of the petty vices which degrade society, and swell into crimes which disgrace it, would shrink before the influence of self-respect. To be a place of happiness, exercising beneficial influences upon its members,—and especially upon the children growing up within it,—the home must be pervaded by the spirit of comfort, cleanliness, affection, and intelligence. And in order to secure this, the presence of a well-ordered, industrious, and educated woman is indispensable. So much depends upon the woman, that we might almost pronounce the happiness or unhappiness of the home to be woman's work. No nation can advance except through the improvement of the nation's homes; and these can only be improved through the instrumentality of women. They must know how to make homes comfortable; and before they can know, they must have been taught.

Women must, therefore, have sufficient training to fit them for their duties in real life. Their education should be conducted throughout, with a view to their future position as wives, mothers, and housewives. But amongst all classes, even the highest, the education of girls is rarely conducted with this object. Amongst the working people, the girls are sent out to work; amongst the higher classes, they are sent out to learn a few flashy accomplishments; and men are left to pick from them, very often with little judgment, the future wives and mothers of England.

Men themselves attach little or no importance to the intelligence or industrial skill of women; and they only discover their value when they find their homes stupid and cheerless. Men are caught by the glance of a bright eye, by a pair of cherry cheeks, by a handsome figure; and when they "fall in love," as the phrase goes, they never bethink them of whether the "loved one" can mend a shirt or cook a pudding. And yet the most sentimental of husbands must come down from his "ecstatics" so soon as the knot is tied; and then he soon enough finds out that the clever hands of a woman are worth far more than her bright glances; and if the shirt and pudding qualifications be absent, then woe to the unhappy man, and woe also to the unhappy woman! If the substantial element of physical comfort be absent from the home, it soon becomes hateful; the wife, notwithstanding all her good looks, is neglected; and the public-house separates those whom the law and the Church have joined together.

Men are really desperately ignorant respecting the home department. If they thought for a moment of its importance, they would not be so ready to rush into premature housekeeping. Ignorant men select equally ignorant women for their wives; and these introduce into the world families of children, whom they are utterly incompetent to train as rational or domestic beings. The home is no home, but a mere lodging, and often a very comfortless one.

We speak not merely of the poorest labourers, but of the best-paid workmen in the large manufacturing towns. Men earning from two to three pounds a week,—or more than the average pay of curates and bankers' clerks,—though spending considerable amounts on beer, will often grudge so small a part of their income as half-a-crown a week to provide decent homes for themselves and their children. What is the consequence? They degrade themselves and their families. They crowd together, in foul neighbourhoods, into dwellings possessing no element of health or decency; where even the small rental which they pay is in excess of the accommodation they receive. The results are inevitable,—loss of self-respect, degradation of intelligence, failure of physical health, and premature death. Even the highest-minded philosopher, placed in such a situation, would gradually gravitate towards brutality.

But the amount thus saved, or rather not expended on house-rent, is not economy; it is reckless waste. The sickness caused by the bad dwelling involves frequent interruptions of work, and drains upon the Savings Bank or the Benefit Society; and a final and rapid descent to the poor-rates. Though the loss to the middle and upper classes is great, the loss is not for a moment to be compared with that which falls upon the working classes themselves, through their neglect in providing wholesome and comfortable dwellings for their families. It is, perhaps, not saying too much to aver, that one-half the money expended by benefit societies in large towns, may be set down as pecuniary loss arising from bad and unhealthy homes.

But there is a worse consequence still. The low tone of physical health thereby produced is one of the chief causes of drunkenness. Mr. Chadwick once remonstrated with an apparently sensible workman on the expenditure of half his income on whisky. His reply was, "Do you, sir, come and live here, and you will drink whisky too." Mr. Leigh says, "I would not be understood that habits of intoxication are wholly due to a defective sanitary condition; but no person can have the experience I have had without coming to the conclusion that unhealthy and unhappy homes,—loss of vital and consequently of industrial energy, and a consciousness of inability to control external circumstances,—induce thousands to escape from miserable depression in the temporary excitement of noxious drugs and intoxicating liquors. They are like the seamen who struggle for awhile against the evils by which they are surrounded, but at last, seeing no hope, stupefy themselves with drink, and perish."

It may be said, in excuse, that working people must necessarily occupy such houses as are to be had, and pay the rental asked for them, bad and unwholesome though they be. But there is such a thing as supply and demand; and the dwellings now supplied are really those which are most in demand, because of their lowness of rental. Were the working classes to shun unwholesome districts, and low-priced dwellings, and rent only such tenements as were calculated to fulfil the requirements of a wholesome and cleanly home, the owners of property would be compelled to improve the character of their houses, and raise them to the required standard of comfort and accommodation. The real remedy must lie with the working classes themselves. Let them determine to raise their standard of rental, and the reform is in a great measure accomplished.

We have already shown how masters have done a great deal for the better accommodation of their work-people—how the benefactors of the poor, such as Mr. Peabody and Lady Burdett Coutts, have promoted the building of healthy homes. Yet the result must depend upon the individual action of the working classes themselves. When they have the choice of living in a dwelling situated in a healthy locality, and of another situated in an unhealthy locality, they ought to choose the former. But very often they do not. There is perhaps a difference of sixpence a week in the rental, and, not knowing the advantages of health, they take the unhealthy dwelling because it is the cheapest. But the money that sickly people have to pay for physic, doctors' bills, and loss of wages, far more than exceeds the amount saved by cheaper rental,—not to speak of the loss of comfort, the want of cleanliness, and the depression of spirits, which is inevitable where foul air is breathed.

To build a wholesome dwelling costs little more than to build an unwholesome one. What is wanted on the part of the builder is, a knowledge of sanitary conditions, and a willingness to provide the proper accommodation. The space of ground covered by the dwelling is the same in both cases; the quantity of bricks and mortar need be no greater; and pure air is of the same price as foul air. Light costs nothing.

A healthy home, presided over by a thrifty, cleanly woman, may be the abode of comfort, of virtue, and of happiness. It may be the scene of every ennobling relation in family life. It may be endeared to a man by many delightful memories, by the affectionate voices of his wife, his children, and his neighbours. Such a Home will be regarded, not as a mere nest of common instinct, but as a training-ground for young immortals, a sanctuary for the heart, a refuge from storms, a sweet resting-place after labour, a consolation in sorrow, a pride in success, and a joy at all times.

Much has been done to spread the doctrines of Sanitary Science. There is no mystery attached to it, otherwise we should have had professors teaching it in colleges (as we have now), and graduates practising it amongst the people. It is only of recent years that it has received general recognition; and we owe it, not to the medical faculty, but to a barrister, that it has become embodied in many important Acts of Parliament.

Edwin Chadwick has not yet received ordinary justice from his contemporaries. Though he has been one of the most indefatigable and successful workers of the age, and has greatly influenced the legislation of his time, he is probably less known than many a fourth-rate parliamentary talker.

Mr. Chadwick belongs to a Lancashire family, and was born near Manchester. He received his education chiefly in London. Having chosen the law for his profession, he was enrolled a student of the Inner Temple in his twenty-sixth year. There he "ate his way" to the Bar; maintaining himself by reporting and writing for the daily press. He was not a man of an extraordinary amount of learning. But he was a sagacious and persevering man. He was ready to confront any amount of labour in prosecuting an object, no matter how remote its attainment might at first sight appear to be.

At an early period in his career, Edwin Chadwick became possessed by an idea. It is a great thing to be thoroughly possessed by an idea, provided its aim and end be beneficent. It gives a colour and bias to the whole of a man's life. The idea was not a new one; but being taken up by an earnest, energetic, and hard-working man, there was some hope for the practical working out of his idea in the actual life of humanity. It was neither more nor less than the Sanitary Idea,—the germ of the sanitary movement.

We must now briefly state how he worked his way to its practical realization. It appears that Mr. Morgan, the Government actuary, had stated before a parliamentary committee, that though the circumstances of the middle classes had improved, their "expectation of life" had not lengthened. This being diametrically opposed to our student's idea, he endeavoured to demonstrate the fallacy of the actuary's opinion. He read up and sifted numerous statistical documents,—Blue Books, life-tables, and population-tables. He bored his way through the cumbrous pile, and brought an accumulation of facts from the most unlooked-for quarters, for the purpose of illustrating his idea, and elucidating his master-thought.

The result was published in the Westminster Review for April, 1828. Mr. Chadwick demonstrated, by an immense array of facts and arguments, that the circumstances which surround human beings must have an influence upon their health; that health must improve with an improvement of these circumstances; that many of the diseases and conditions unfavourable to human life were under man's control, and capable of being removed; that the practice of vaccination, the diminution of hard drinking amongst the middle and upper classes, the increase of habits of cleanliness, the improvements in medical science, and the better construction of streets and houses, must, according to all medical and popular experience, have contributed, a priori, to lengthen life; and these he proved by a citation of facts from numerous authentic sources. In short, Mr. Morgan was wrong. The "expectancy of life," as is now universally admitted, has improved and is rapidly improving amongst the better classes; but it was never thoroughly demonstrated until Edwin Chadwick undertook the discussion of the question.

Another article, which Mr. Chadwick published in the London Review, in 1829, on "Preventive Police," was read by Jeremy Bentham, then in his eighty-second year, who so much admired it, that he craved an introduction to the writer. The consequence was the formation of a friendship that lasted without interruption until the death of the philosopher in 1832. Mr. Bentham wished to engage the whole of his young friend's time in assisting him with the preparation of his Administrative Code, and he offered to place him in independent circumstances if he would devote himself exclusively to the advancement of his views. The offer was, however, declined.

Mr. Chadwick completed his law studies, and was called to the bar in November, 1830. He was preparing to enter upon the practice of common law, occasionally contributing articles to the Westminster, when he was, in 1832, appointed a commissioner, in conjunction with Dr. Southwood Smith and Mr. Tooke, to investigate the question of Factory Labour, which Lord Ashley and Mr. Sadler were at that time strongly pressing upon public attention. The sanitary idea again found opportunity for expression in the report of the commission, which referred to "defective drainage, ventilation, water supply, and the like, as causes of disease,—acting, concurrently with excessive toil, to depress the health and shorten the lives of the factory population."

In the same year (1832) an important Commission of Inquiry was appointed by Lord Grey's Government, in reference to the operation of the Poor Laws in England and Wales. Mr. Chadwick was appointed one of the assistant commissioners, for the purpose of taking evidence on the subject; and the districts of London and Berkshire were allotted to him. His report, published in the following year, was a model of what a report should be. It was full of information, admirably classified and arranged, and was so racy,—by virtue of the facts brought to light, and the care taken to preserve the very words of the witnesses as they were spoken,—that the report may be read with interest by the most inveterate enemy of blue-books.

Mr. Chadwick showed himself so thoroughly a master of the subject,—his suggestions were so full of practical value,—that he was, shortly after the publication of the report, advanced from the post of assistant commissioner to that of chief commissioner: and he largely shared, with Mr. Senior, in the labours and honours of the commissioners' report submitted to the House of Commons in 1834, and also in the famous Poor-Law Amendment Act passed in the same year, in which the recommendations of the commissioners were substantially adopted and formalized.

One may venture to say now, without fear of contradiction, that that law was one of the most valuable that has been placed on the statute-book in modern times. And yet no law proved more unpopular than this was, for years after it had been enacted. But Mr. Chadwick never ceased to have perfect faith in the soundness of the principles on which it was based, and he was indefatigable in defending and establishing it. It has been well said, that "to become popular is an easy thing; but to do unpopular justice,—that requires a Man." And Edwin Chadwick is the man who has never failed in courage to do the right thing, even though it should prove to be the unpopular thing.

Whilst burrowing amidst the voluminous evidence on the Poor Laws, Mr. Chadwick never lost sight of his sanitary idea. All his reports were strongly imbued with it. One-fourth of the then existing pauperism was traced by him to the preventible causes of disease. His minute investigations into the condition of the labouring population and of the poorer classes generally, gave him a thorough acquaintance with the physical evils that were preying upon the community, carrying them off by fevers, consumption, and cholera; and the sanitary idea took still firmer possession of his mind.

One day, in 1838, while engaged in his official vocation of Secretary to the Poor-Law Commission, an officer of the Whitechapel Union hastily entered the Board-room of the Poor-Law Commission, and, with a troubled countenance, informed the secretary that a terrible fever had broken out round a stagnant pool in Whitechapel; that the people were dying by scores; and that the extreme malignity of the cases gave reason to apprehend that the disease was allied to Asiatic cholera. On hearing this, the Board, at Mr. Chadwick's instance, immediately appointed Drs. Arnott, Kay, and Southwood Smith to investigate the causes of this alarming mortality, and to report generally upon the sanitary condition of London. This inquiry at length ripened into the sanitary inquiry.

In the meantime, Mr. Chadwick had been engaged as a member of the Commission, to inquire as to the best means of establishing an efficient constabulary force in England and Wales. The evidence was embodied in a report, as interesting as a novel of Dickens, which afforded a curious insight into the modes of living, the customs and habits, of the lowest classes of the population. When this question had been dismissed, Mr. Chadwick proceeded to devote himself almost exclusively to the great work of his life,—the Sanitary Movement.

The Bishop of London, in 1839, moved in the Lords, that the inquiry which had been made at Mr. Chadwick's instance by Drs. Southwood Smith, Arnott, and Kay, into the sanitary state of the metropolis, should be extended to the whole population, city, rural, and manufacturing, of England and Wales. Some residents in Edinburgh also petitioned that Scotland might be included; and accordingly, in August, 1839, Lord John Russell addressed a letter to the Poor-Law Board, authorizing them by royal command to extend to the whole of Great Britain the inquiry into preventible disease, which had already been begun with regard to the metropolis. The onerous task of setting on foot and superintending the inquiry throughout,—of sifting the evidence, and classifying and condensing it for the purposes of publication,—devolved upon Mr. Chadwick.

The first Report on the Health of Towns was ready for publication in 1842. It ought to have appeared as the Official Report of the Poor-Law Board; but as the commissioners (some of whom were at variance with Mr. Chadwick with respect to the New Poor-Law) refused to assume the responsibility of a document that contained much that must necessarily offend many influential public bodies, Mr. Chadwick took the responsibility upon himself, and it was published as his report,—which indeed it was,—and accepted from him as such by the commissioners.

The amount of dry, hard work encountered by Mr. Chadwick in the preparation of this and his other reports can scarcely be estimated, except by those who know anything of the labour involved in extracting from masses of evidence, written and printed, sent in from all parts of the empire, only the most striking results bearing upon the question in hand, and such as are deemed worthy of publication. The mountains of paper which Mr. Chadwick has thus bored through in his lifetime must have been immense; and could they now be presented before him in one pile, they would appal even his stout heart!

The sensation excited throughout the country by the publication of Mr. Chadwick's Sanitary Report was immense. Such a revelation of the horrors lying concealed beneath the fair surface of our modern civilization, had never before been published. But Mr. Chadwick had no idea of merely creating a sensation. He had an object in view, which he persistently pursued. The report was nothing, unless its recommendations were speedily carried into effect. A sanitary party was formed; and the ministers for the time being, aided by members of both sides in politics, became its influential leaders.

A Sanitary Commission was appointed in 1844, to consider the whole question in its practical bearings. The Commission published two reports, with a view to legislation, but the Free-Trade struggle interfered, and little was done for several years. Meanwhile our sanitary reformer was occupied as a Commissioner in inquiring into the condition of the metropolis. The Commission published three reports, in which the defective drainage, sewage, and water-supply of London were discussed in detail; and these have recently been followed by important acts of legislation.

The sanitary idea at length had its triumph in the enactment of the Public Health Act of 1848, and the appointment of a General Board of Health (of which Mr. Chadwick was a member) to superintend its administration. Numerous supplemental measures have since been enacted, with the view of carrying into practical effect the sanitary principles adopted by the Board. Reports continued to be published, from time to time, full of valuable information: for instance, in reference to the application of Sewage water to agricultural purposes; on Epidemic Cholera; on Quarantine; on Drainage; on Public Lodging-houses; and the like. The sanitary movement, in short, became a "great fact;" and that it is so, we have mainly to thank Edwin Chadwick—the missionary of the Sanitary idea. It is true he was eventually dismissed from his position of influence at the Board of Health,—partly through spleen, but chiefly because of his own unaccommodating nature,—unaccommodating especially to petty local authorities and individual interests opposed to the public good. But with all thinking and impartial men, his character stands as high as it ever did. At all events, his works remain.

We do not know a more striking instance than that presented by this gentleman's career, of the large amount of good which a man strongly possessed by a beneficent idea can accomplish, provided he have only the force of purpose and perseverance to follow it up. Though Mr. Chadwick has not been an actual legislator, he has nevertheless been the mover of more wise measures than any legislator of our time. He created a public opinion in favour of sanitary reform. He has also impressed the minds of benevolent individuals with the necessity for providing improved dwellings for the people; and has thus been the indirect means of establishing the Peabody Dwellings, the Baroness Coutts' Dwellings, and the various Societies for erecting improved dwellings for the industrial classes.

Edwin Chadwick has thus proved himself to be one of the most useful and practical of public benefactors. He deserves to be ranked with Clarkson or Howard. His labours have been equally salutary; some will say that they have been much more so in their results.

Sanitary science may be summed up in the one word—Cleanliness. Pure water and pure air are its essentials. Wherever there is impurity, it must be washed away and got rid of. Thus sanitary science is one of the simplest and most intelligible of all the branches of human knowledge. Perhaps it is because of this, that, like most common things, it has continued to receive so little attention. Many still think that it requires no science at all to ventilate a chamber, to clean out a drain, and to keep house and person free from uncleanness.

Sanitary science may be regarded as an unsavoury subject. It deals with dirt and its expulsion—from the skin, from the house, from the street, from the city. It is comprised in the words—wherever there is dirt, get rid of it instantly; and with cleanliness let there be a copious supply of pure water and of pure air for the purposes of human health.

Take, for instance, an unhealthy street, or block of streets, in a large town. There you find typhus fever constantly present. Cleanse and sewer the street; supply it with pure air and pure water, and fever is forthwith banished. Is not this a much more satisfactory result than the application of drugs? Fifty thousand persons, says Mr. Lee, annually fall victims to typhus fever in Great Britain, originated by causes which are preventible. The result is the same as if these fifty thousand persons were annually taken out of their wretched dwellings, and put to death! We are shocked by the news of a murder—by the loss of a single life by physical causes! And yet we hear, almost without a shudder, the reiterated statement of the loss of tens of thousands of lives yearly from physical causes in daily operation. The annual slaughter from preventible causes of typhus fever is double the amount of what was suffered by the allied armies at the battle of Waterloo! By neglect of the ascertained conditions of healthful living, the great mass of the people lose nearly half the natural period of their lives. "Typhus," says a medical officer, "is a curse which man inflicts upon himself by the neglect of sanitary arrangements."

Mr. Chadwick affirmed that in the cellars of Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds, he had seen amongst the operatives more vice, misery, and degradation than those which, when detailed by Howard, had excited the sympathy of the world. The Irish poor sink into the unhealthy closes, lanes, and back streets of large towns; and so frequent are the attacks of typhus among them, that in some parts of the country the disease is known as "the Irish fever." It is not merely the loss of life that is so frightful; there is also the moral death that is still more appalling in these unhealthy localities. Vice and crime consort with foul living. In these places, demoralization is the normal state. There is an absence of cleanliness, of decency, of decorum; the language used is polluting, and scenes of profligacy are of almost hourly occurrence,—all tending to foster idleness, drunkenness, and vicious abandonment. Imagine such a moral atmosphere for women and children!

The connection is close and intimate between physical and moral health, between domestic well-being and public happiness. The destructive influence of an unwholesome dwelling propagates a moral typhus worse than the plague itself. Where the body is enfeebled by the depressing influences of vitiated air and bodily defilement, the mind, almost of necessity, takes the same low, unhealthy tone. Self-respect is lost; a stupid, inert, languid feeling overpowers the system; the character becomes depraved; and too often—eager to snatch even a momentary enjoyment, to feel the blood bounding in the veins,—the miserable victim flies to the demon of strong drink for relief; hence misery, infamy, shame, crime, and wretchedness.

This neglect of the conditions of daily health is a frightfully costly thing. It costs the rich a great deal of money in the shape of poor-rates, for the support of widows made husbandless, and children made fatherless, by typhus. It costs them also a great deal in disease; for the fever often spreads from the dwellings of the poor into the homes of the rich, and carries away father, mother, or children. It costs a great deal in subscriptions to maintain dispensaries, infirmaries, houses of recovery, and asylums for the destitute. It costs the poor still more; it costs them their health, which is their only capital. In this is invested their all: if they lose it, their docket is struck, and they are bankrupt. How frightful is the neglect, whether it be on the part of society or of individuals, which robs the poor man of his health, and makes his life a daily death!

Why, then, is not sanitary science universally adopted and enforced? We fear it is mainly through indifference and laziness. The local authorities—municipalities and boards of guardians—are so many Mrs. Maclartys in their way. Like that dirty matron, they "canna be fashed." To remove the materials of disease requires industry, constant attention, and—what is far more serious—increased rates. The foul interests hold their ground, and bid defiance to the attacks made upon them. Things did very well, they say, in "the good old times,"—why should they not do so now? When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame.

That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides. Nobody adulterates our food. Nobody poisons us with bad drink. Nobody supplies us with foul water. Nobody spreads fever in blind alleys and unswept lanes. Nobody leaves towns undrained. Nobody fills gaols, penitentiaries, and convict stations. Nobody makes poachers, thieves, and drunkards.

Nobody has a theory too—a dreadful theory. It is embodied in two words—Laissez faire—Let alone. When people are poisoned by plaster of Paris mixed with flour, "Let alone" is the remedy. When Cocculus indicus is used instead of hops, and men die prematurely, it is easy to say, "Nobody did it." Let those who can, find out when they are cheated: Caveat emptor. When people live in foul dwellings, let them alone. Let wretchedness do its work; do not interfere with death.

"It matters nothing to me," said a rich man who heard of a poor woman and her sick child being driven forth from a town for begging. The workhouse authorities would have nothing to do with her, and sent her away. But the poor woman went and sat down with her child at the rich man's door; the child died there; the contagion of typhus was wafted into the gilded saloon and the luxurious bed-chamber and the rich man's child fell a victim to the disease.

But Nobody has considerably less power in society than he once had: and our hope is, that he may ultimately follow in the wake of Old Bogie, and disappear altogether. Wherever there is suffering and social depression, we may depend upon it that Somebody is to blame. The responsibility rests somewhere; and if we allow it to remain, it rests with us. We may not be able to cope with the evil as individuals, single-handed; but it becomes us to unite, and bring to bear upon the evil the joint moral power of society in the form of a law. A Law is but the expression of a combined will; and it does that for society, which society, in its individual and separate action, cannot so well or efficiently do for itself. Laws may do too much; they may meddle with things which ought to be "let alone;" but the abuse of a thing is no proper argument against its use, in cases where its employment is urgently called for.

Mere improvement of towns, however,—as respects drainage, sewerage, paving, water supply, and abolition of cellar dwellings,—will effect comparatively little, unless we can succeed in carrying the improvement further,—namely, into the Homes of the people themselves. A well-devised system of sanitary measures may ensure external cleanliness,—may provide that the soil on which the streets of houses are built shall be relieved of all superfluous moisture, and that all animal and vegetable refuse shall be promptly removed,—so that the air circulating through the streets, and floating from them into the houses of the inhabitants, shall not be laden with poisonous miasmata, the source of disease, suffering, and untimely death. Cellar dwellings may be prohibited, and certain regulations as to the buildings hereafter to be erected may also be enforced. But here municipal or parochial authority stops: it can go no further; it cannot penetrate into the Home, and it is not necessary that it should do so.