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that the laws may be reformed. The police of most countries reasonably suspends the penalties ordinarily commanded, when the case is that of a starving man stealing a morsel of bread that he may eat. In the same manner, there are some sufferings, so great and so urgent, that a sound morality will teach us to dispense with our general maxims, and, for no possible calculation of distant evils, to turn a deaf ear to the cries of humanity.

One further observation occurs to me on this subject, and I will put it down. Among the persons who demand our charity in great towns there are various classes. One of these classes is of persons, who cannot earn a subsistence by labour, or who on account of some bodily imperfection will always be refused employment. I remember a man that I saw for twenty years in the streets of London, who was the mere trunk of a man, wanting all the lower members of the human body. His name was Samuel Horsley. Some accident had reduced him to this. He was almost irreversibly cut off from the world of those that labour. He was in good case, with a fresh colour, and a contented aspect. It was almost impossible to look upon him, and be angry. He scarcely ever asked an alms; only there he sat, constantly at his post. He at least did not degrade himself by an abject demeanour. Add to this, if you relieved him,

there could be little chance of your doing much harm, for such a man is almost unique. By and by I heard that this man was seized by the vigilance of the police, and sent to the House of Correction. For what was he to be corrected? Of what vice was he to be cured? Was he not entitled equally with myself, to look upon the blue heavens, and to feel the healthful and invigorating breeze play on his cheek?-There are others from whom we must withhold the censure to which common beggars are for the most part entitled, for they are disturbed in their minds, and therefore cannot be kept to labour. They are maniacs, who hurt nobody, and are therefore indulged in the privilege to go free. They also in this resemble the preceding they do not degrade themselves by an abject demeanour.

It is desirable that the number of common beggars should be diminished. But I do not altogether approve the method of discouraging them by a notice that has often met my eye in entering a country-town, Whoever is found begging in this town shall be whipped, or thrust into prison. Wherever there is great inequality, it is natural there should be some beggary; and to trample upon and maltreat persons indiscriminately, merely be cause they are wretched, must certainly be wrong. They have crossed with difficulty a long tract of country, they have proceeded along a hot and

weary road, where they saw none to help them; at length they arrive at the habitations of men, and are cheered. Must they be forbidden to enter this street; or, entering, must they be required to shroud their griefs and their wants in silence? To conclude; one of the worst schemes of conduct I can adopt is that which breeds moroseness and misanthropy. It is my duty not altogether to shut my ears to the person who addresses me: and, if his tale appears, not to my imbecility, but to a fair and upright humanity, to be a sad and a moving one, why should I not act as if I felt it to be such?

ESSAY IV.

OF SERVANTS.

ONE of the most considerable difficulties that present themselves in the execution of a plan of domestic education, relates to the degrees of intercourse which is to be allowed to take place between children and servants.

The parent and the preceptor may be in the utmost degree judicious in their conduct, and delicate in their treatment and communications. But servants will inevitably counteract the salu

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tary results. The friends of our infancy may conduct themselves towards us with an even hand and a prudent rule; but servants will sometimes be despotic and unreasonable, and perhaps oftener prompt to injurious indulgencies, infusing into the youthful bosom the passions of empire and command. They will initiate us in low maxims, and coarse and vulgar modes of thinking. They will instruct us in the practice of cunning, and the arts of deceit. They will teach us to exhibit a studied countenance to those who preside over us, and to triumph in the success of our duplicity as soon as they are withdrawn. They will make us the confidents of their vices. They will accustom us to the spectacle of falshood and imposture. They will terrify us with false fears, threaten us with fictitious evils, and inspire us with the groveling cowardice of a prevailing superstition.

Such are the evils to be apprehended from an intercourse of children and servants. Yet how, in domestic education, are they to be prevented? We cannot make our children prisoners. We have other concerns and other business in human life, which must occasionally draw us off from attention to them. In fact, it would be a strange perversion of the system of nature and the world, for the adult to devote themselves to a perpetual attendance on the young; for the trees of the forest to be sacrificed, that their slips and offsets

may take their growth in the most advantageous

manner.

A resource frequently employed in this case, is for parents to caution their offspring against the intercourse of menials, and explicitly tell them that the company of servants is by no means a suitable relaxation for the children of a family.

We are afraid of the improper lessons which our children should learn from our servants: what sort of lesson is it that we teach them, when we hold to them such language as this?

It is a lesson of the most insufferable insolence and magisterial aristocracy, that it is possible for any language to convey. We teach them that they are themselves a precious species of creatures, that must not be touched too rudely, and that are to be fenced round and defended from the common accidents of nature. We shew them other human creatures, upon whose forehead the system of the universe has written the appellation of man, whose limbs outwardly seem to have been formed in the same mold, but upon whom we think proper to fix a brand and attach a label with this inscription, Come not near me! In the exuberance of our humanity perhaps, we inform our children, that these creatures are to be tenderly treated, that we must neither scratch nor bite them, and that, poisonous and degraded as they are, we must rather soothe than aggravate their calamity. We

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