True enough:--and yet, human beings cannot be left to die! Scotland too, till something better come, must have a Poor-law, if Scotland is not to be a byword among the nations.

O, what a waste is there; of noble and thrice-noble national virtues; peasant Stoicisms, Heroisms; valiant manful habits, soul of a Nation's worth,--which all the metal of Potosi cannot purchase back; to which the metal of Potosi, and all you can buy with _it,_ is dross and dust! Why dwell on this aspect of the matter?
It is too indisputable, not doubtful now to any one.

Descend where you will into the lower class, in Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by Factory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by Mining-Labourer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself: you have to admit that the working body of this rich English Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any parallel.

At Stockport Assizes,-- and this too has no reference to the present state of trade, being of date prior to that,--a Mother and a Father are arraigned and found guilty of poisoning three of their children, to defraud a 'burial-society' of some _31.8s._ due on the death of each child: they are arraigned, found guilty; and the official authorities, it is whispered, hint that perhaps the case is not solitary, that perhaps you had better not probe farther into that department of things.

This is in the autumn of 1841; the crime itself is of the previous year or season.