And now Tom being killed, and all spent and eaten, Is it poor little starveling Jack that must go, or poor little starveling Will ?-- What an inquiry of ways and means! In starved sieged cities, in the uttermost doomed ruin of old Jerusalem fallen under the wrath of God, it was prophesied and said, 'The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children.' The stern Hebrew imagination could conceive no blacker gulf of wretchedness; that was the ultimatum of degraded god-punished man.

And we here, in modern England, exuberant with supply of all kinds, besieged by nothing if it be not by invisible Enchantments, are we reaching that ?--How come these things?
Wherefore are they, wherefore should they be?
Nor are they of the St.Ives workhouses, of the Glasgow lanes, and Stockport cellars, the only unblessed among us.

This successful industry of England, with its plethoric wealth, has as yet made nobody rich; it is an enchanted wealth, and belongs yet to nobody.

We might ask, Which of us has it enriched?
We can spend thousands where we once spent hundreds; but can purchase nothing good with them.

In Poor and Rich, instead of noble thrift and plenty, there is idle luxury alternating with mean scarcity and inability.