SENSE OF COMFORT.

97

III.

CLASSES OF AMÜSEMENT.

§1-

Sense of Comfoktand Luxuky — Ideas of "Home"' — Casinos,

CoNCEETS, AND "KeEMESES" ---- WiNE-GaKDENS ---- ShOOTING-

FeASTS — DlUNKING AND SMOKING.

The pleasures of a people are a delicate test of tlie nationalmorals.

All labour is performed and all business pursued merelyto obtain a supply of articles of necessity, comfort, or luxury.An article of necessity is that which, like bread, tends to removea physical pain or want; an article of comfort, on the otherband, that which serves to relieve a mere uneasiness or incon-venience (as baths, beds, carpets, &c.); while an article ofluxnry is what confers a positive pleasure (as jewels, wines,mnsic).

Now of these three kinds of commodities, into which theproduce and riches of every country are divisible,* it is

* Not only is the produce of erery country divisible into articles of necessity,comfort, and luxury, but according as the capital is devoted, in a greater or lessproportion, to the production of one or other of these three classes of com-modities, so is the happiness of the people more or less general: or, in piainEnglish, so is their condition more or less necessitous, or more or lesscomfortable,or more or less luxurious. In young countries, for instance, the greater part ofthe wealth set aside for future production is applied to the increase of articlesof necessity ; and hence food becomes plentiful and cheap, whilst articles ofcomfort and luxury are correspondingly scarce and dear, so that the people

YOL. II. II