a year; the labourer had no need to hasten himself to seek work, or to
please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all
the slave's security for support, without the slave's liability to
punishment. The parish paid parents for nursing their little children,
and children for supporting their aged parents, thereby destroying
in both parties all feelings of natural affection and all sense of
Christian duty.

I hope I shall be excused in giving, from a former work of my own,
these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade and
demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite of race
and creed and public opinion; and that, where class interests are
involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are trampled in the mire
of corruption. Even now the pauperism resulting of necessity from the
large-farm system is degrading the English people, and threatening to
rot away the foundations of society. On this subject I am glad to find
a complete corroboration of my own conclusions in a work by one of the
ablest and most enlightened Christian ministers in England, the Rev.
Dr. Rigg. He says:--

'Notwithstanding a basis of manly, honest, and often generous
qualities, the common character of all the uneducated and unelevated
classes of the English labouring population includes, as marked
and obvious features, improvidence, distrust of their superiors,
discontent at their social position, and a predominant passion for
gross animal gratification. Of this general character we regard the
rude, heavy, unhopeful English peasant, who knows no indulgence
or relaxation but that of the ale-house, and lives equally without
content and without ambition, as affording the fundamental
type, which, like all other things English, possesses a marked