Chap. VII.]

DUTY OF MUTUAL ASSISTANCE.

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there. But we have experience enough of these results to satisfyus, that they are not fictions. It is to be considered, also, inthis connexion, that every addition to the number so supported,exerts some influence in breaking down the sense of shame inregard to this kind of support, in those who are in the same, orin similar, circumstances. On this subject, the experience ofEngland is too instructive to be passed by lightly. “ I am everyweek astonished,” says the overseer of an English parish, “byseeing persons come for relief, who I never thought would havecome. Among them are respectable mechanics, whose workand means are tolerably good. The greater number of out-doorpaupers are worthless people. But still, the number of decentpeople, who ought to make provision for themselves, and whocome, is very great and increasing. Indeed, the malady of pau-perism has not only got among respectable mechanics. We findeven persons, who may be considered as the middle classes,such as petty masters, who have never before been seen makingapplications to parish officers, now applying. My opinion is,that they apply in consequence of witnessing the ease with whichothers, who might have provided for themselves, obtain relief.”*Thus, in England, circle has gradually been added to circle,and the whirling eddy has extended, until it has ingulfed multi-tudes who once thought themselves, and were universally thought,far from its brink. Here, too, the great secret is disclosed, ofthe pauperism of very many in this country. They might haveprovided for their own necessities. But they have seen, thatothers obtain relief amid their wants, simply by asking for it, andthus they, also, have been led to ask for it. And if, moreover,we take into account the peculiar pressure for aid, which alwayshas been, and always will be, incidental to seasons of scarcity, andto those fluctuations of the commercial and manufacturing interests,by which many, for a time, are thrown out of employment, andthe wages of labor are reduced to those who may still be employ-ed, while the price of provisions may even be considerably en-hanced, the whole mystery of the danger of permanent provisionsfor the relief of want, so far as the increase of pauperism is con-

* Report of Commissioners upon the Poor-Laws, p. 45.

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