others than injurious to themselves.

In a work just issued from the press, Mr. McCulloch tells his readers
that--

"For the reasons now stated, a village built in the immediate
vicinity of a gentleman's seat generally declines on his becoming an
absentee. That, however, is in most cases any thing but an injury.
The inhabitants of such villages are generally poor, needy
dependants, destitute of any invention, and without any wish to
distinguish themselves. But when the proprietors are elsewhere, they
are forced to trust to their own resources, and either establish some
sort of manufacture, or resort to those manufacturing and commercial
cities where there is _always_ a ready demand for labourers, and
where every latent spark of genius is sure to be elicited. Although,
therefore, it be certainly true that absenteeism has a tendency to
reduce the villages which are found in the neighbourhood of the
residences of extensive proprietors, it is not on that account
prejudicial to the country at large, but the reverse."[141]

It is here seen that the people who own large estates are supposed to
be surrounded by "poor and needy dependants," who are to be stimulated
to exertion by the pressure of want, and that this pressure is to be
produced by the absenteeism of the proprietor. We have here the master
administering the lash to his poor slave, and the only difference
between the English master and the Jamaica one appears to be, that
absenteeism in the one case forces the poor labourer to seek the lanes
and alleys of a great city, and in the other causes him to be worked
to death. The slavery of Ireland, Jamaica, and India is a natural
consequence of the absenteeism of the great land-owners; and the