Committees, penal enactments, nor military force, could have warded off the horrors of insurrection.-Suppose the benevolent had given in charity alone, what they have now given in charity and rates combined; what portion of the whole sum raised for the Poor, in the late season of distress, would this have amounted to? Not one fifth. Subtract four-fifths of the support the Poor have received, and they must have been lost from want.' Nicoll's Summary View. p. 87.

Those who grudge the labourer his living wages, would not, we may be well persuaded, have been very forward to give in charity a tenth of what is wrung from them by the parochial assessment, had they been wholly relieved from the burden of the rate. It is all very well to quote the maxim, Pas trop gouverner, and to talk of leaving the population to the natural operation of the self regulating principle of supply and demand; but while protecting enactments are continually being passed in favour of different classes of capitalists, and sufferers in foreign countries, as well as in our own, are permitted to indemnify themselves out of our taxes for losses which this country has only been remotely instrumental in occasioning, it should seem to require more than the ordinary sang froid of a theorist, to dispute the equitable pretensions of our own poor to a similar interference on their behalf. Just to stop short, in the full career of legislation, at this point, to pass over the class the most deserving of the best attentions of a wise policy, because as articles of commercial use there is a surplus of the human production, would argue the most depraved selfishness.⚫

But, in fact, the same specious objections which are urged against the legislative provision, are applicable to any other mode of relief; and why indeed, if the poor have no claims, should they be relieved at all? The idea of private relief, as superseding the compulsive maintenance, is mere delusion. We have already remarked that it would be inadequate to the relief of real indigence; but private relief, if carried to the implied extent, would become in effect public relief. The existence of such a source must be known; becoming known, it would as surely give rise to expectations on the part of the poor, and as directly tend to an improper reliance upon that means of relief, as in the case of the legal provision. A system of voluntary charity, in order to be effectual and impartial in its administration, must assume the form of an organized society, and to the funds thus obtained, the poor would soon learn to consider themselves as much entitled, as they do now to the legislative provision. A habit of receiving the alms of private beneficence would soon be formed, and it would equally give rise to a sense of right in the minds of the poor, to what should thus have been expressly provided for them. They would rarely be brought into contact

with their real benefactors; the distributors of the charity therefore would come to be regarded as the only persons with whom they had to deal. Can it be imagined that less deception in such a case would be practised by the indolent and the worthless? On the contrary, since those whose feelings prompt them to acts of beneficence, are far from being always disposed to be at the pains of closely investigating the obtruded cases of distress, or of hunting out for objects of compassion in the dark recesses of modest indigence, might we not have reason to fear, that exactly the least deserving class of poor, the practised impostor and the importunate mendicant, would engross the diminished funds of benevolence? For mendicity must in such a state of things exist and prevail. Mendicity feeds upon private charity, and the extent to which charity would then be practised, would act as a bounty upon pauperism.

What was the effect of the unavoidable publicity of the subscriptions for the Spitalfields poor? Hearing that money was to be given away, hundreds came and sought lodgings in the district, who, when those subscriptions ceased, relapsed into indigence, and became a burden upon their adopted parish. And who were relieved by the public contributions? Of course, the most distressed, that is, those who appeared the most distressed, from the rags which half covered them, although in some cases, the gin bottle might, perhaps, upon a narrower search, have accounted for part of that appearance. Much real misery was doubtless relieved, and the most miserable are not always the least deserving; but the more decent poor, who had struggled with the times, and still preserved some little shew of comfort, were, in numerous instances, either passed over as if they would be degraded by the alms, or denied relief from the idea that they less needed assistance. This undesigned partiality is almost inseparable from private charity. Relief given in this manner, is doubtless more grateful to the poor, and in a general way it will be more thankfully received. It has been said, too, that it has no tendency to degrade the character. But all these assertions proceed upon the mistaken supposition, that the same good which may be done by private occasional charity, would follow from the practice of voluntary relief on a plan co-extensive with the unrelieved indigence of the whole population. Of the sturdy mendicant and the parish pauper, if there is any difference between them, it cannot be doubted that the former is the most insolent and the most degraded. Take away the license of the one, and the resource of the other, and you leave the sufferer under real indigence, to all the exasperation of want, under circumstances which would palliate any act of desperate outrage. One dreadful risk alone is now left him, and upon this he will stake his all. Men will not starve

while philosophers are speculating about the natural operation of supply and demand. The only legislative expedient that would then remain, would be, to revive the old vagrant laws, add deeper horrors to our criminal code, and bring into action that positive check to the superfluous population-the gallows.

Among the eccentricities of eloquence which have been employed in reference to the present subject, one of the most extraordinary passages occurs in an article which appeared in a distinguished Critical Journal, the writer of which deliberately avows, that sooner than have such a system' of assessment as that at present in force, he would sit down under mendicity in its very worst form; he would let it roam, unrestricted and at large, as it does in France; he would suffer it to rise, without any control, to the height of unlicensed vagrancy; being thoroughly persuaded, that under such an economy the whole poverty of the land would be disposed of at less expense to the higher orders, and with vastly less both of suffering and depravity to the lower orders.' Nay, he appears to charge the Poor Laws with opposing the plan of Divine Providence, by a systematic attempt to extinguish the condition of poverty!

The zeal of regulation against the nuisance of public begging,' the Reviewer confesses he has long thought a violation of 'some of the clearest principles both of Nature and of Chris" tianity.'

The Rev, Mr. Jerram, than whom we must be allowed to say, while we thus withstand him openly, a better man does not exist, has taken a nearly similar view, not of the design indeed, but of the operation of the Poor Laws, as superseding private benevolence. By the compulsory assessment, the means of 6 charity,' he says, 6 are cut off; the sources from which the benevolent feelings are to flow are dried up.'

How can the individual whose last penny is extorted from him by the parish rates, indulge his wish to assist a brother in real distress? Hence many a case of great and unmerited affliction is past by for want of supplies to meet it. The patient and silent sufferer would have received a cordial,-but the obtrusive and rapacious hand of self-brought want arrested it in its course. The child of misfortune, who had seen better days, and who retires into a corner to escape the gaze of those who had envied him in better circumstances, would have received a portion of "the children's food," but the boisterous claimant, who had been rampant in vice, rushes before him, and seizes the prey.'

Is Mr. Jerram a poet? Is it possible that so grave a personage as one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace, can be the author of this fancy-sketch? And can he really be of opinion that the funds of charity are exhausted? He must be no friend then to penny-a-week associations. Saving Banks too, have

come into vogue quite too late, if the poor's rates have extorted from the parishioner his last penny,' so that though he labours ever so hard, he has nothing to give to him that needeth. But we are well persuaded that from the pulpit the much respected Vicar of Chobham would hold quite opposite language; that when he lays aside Malthus for the Bible, his own heart will lead him to deprecate all such hollow apologies for selfishness, as the above paragraph undesignedly conveys.

We are not insensible that the Poor Laws, as at present administered, bave a ruinous as well as a demoralizing operation. How to remedy the abuses which, in connexion with the circumstances of the times, have led to this state of things, is a very delicate and intricate problem. The principle of the System of Relief, properly understood, we regard as equitable, and what is equitable must consist with true policy. Nothing, at least, that we have as yet met with, has appeared to demonstrate the contrary; but it cannot be denied that the system has been perverted on all hands by selfish indolence and selfish rapacity. We shall in our next Number resume the subject, and shall then proceed to examine more in detail the alleged evils of the system, and the proposed remedies.

Art. II. Journey through Asia Minor, Armenia, and Koordistan, in the Years 1813 and 1814; with Remarks on the Marches of Alexander, and Retreat of the Ten Thousand. By John Macdonald Kinneir. 8vo. pp. 603. Map. price 18s. London. 1818.

(Concluded from page 116.)

THERE is something strangely seductive in the genuine spirit of travelling, and Mr. Kinneir seems to have been. under its full influence. Undismayed by former disasters, and not satisfied with prior acquisitions of knowledge, he prepared for further investigations in the same region, but in a different direction. Mr. Chavasse, of the Honourable East India Company's service, proposed to accompany him, and on the 29th April, 1814, they set out, with Costamboul as their first object. Mr. C. does not seem to have been altogether disposed to profit by his companion's experience, and with somewhat too high a spirit, which indeed he manifested on other occasions, determined on retaining the European dress, and Mr. K. contrary to his own judgement, chose to follow his friend's example, that they might be on equal terms, and share alike every danger and every privation. After encountering many difficulties at the very out-set, and even being compelled to change their route, they passed up the gulf of Nicomedia, and reached in safety that city, at one time the capital of Bithynia. At Sabanjali, where they were detained by the difficulty of procuring horses,

they met two Tatars, carrying with them in safe custody, the head of a rebel Pasha. Here they were compelled, by the inundations, to take a circuitous route along a highly romantic road to Gaiwa, the Aga of which place requested a pair of spectacles and a spy-glass, in return for his exertions to procure horses. By this time Mr. K. had made an unpleasant discovery. His Tatar, Mahomed Aga, began now to unfold his character; he was insolent, selfish, cowardly and treacherous, and to his gross and infamous misconduct nearly the whole of the misfortunes which made this journey so calamitous, were to be attributed.

At Terekli, numerous remains of antiquity indicated the site of the ancient Heraclea. After a very delightful ride through wild and broken scenery, the travellers reached Tereboli. About seven miles from this last stage, which they quitted late in the evening, they came suddenly upon a large caravan, halting in a small recess of a forest, and refreshing themselves round à blazing fire. In the greatest alarm, the party sprung to their arms, and began a random fire, to terrify the supposed banditti, who, with some trouble, quieted their fears and passed quietly on. Had Mr. K. and his companions been really robbers, nothing could, as he remarks, have saved the caravan, since the fire rendered every object conspicuous, while the assailants would have been concealed by the darkness and by the trees. About six miles further on, they encountered two suspicious looking men, well mounted, and completely armed, who passed along their line, and then headed the horses, disarming the valiant Tatar; but when Mr. Kinneir and Mr. Chavasse rode up with cocked pistols, the plunderers disappeared in an instant. From Modoorly, they travelled by night through a fine mountainous country, the effect of which was much increased by the roaring of cataracts, the noise of saw-mills, and the frequent kindling of immense fires. At length, they reached Boli, the ancient Hadrianopolis. At Geirida, they found four of the Sultan's Tatars still waiting for horses, after a detention of many days; a bribe, however, procured them instantly for the Europeans, who set off, leaving the Tatars cursing both them and the post-master.' Their next day's journey led them over part of the Asiatic Olympus, which separated Bithynia from Galatia, and in the course of it they met many parties of Armenians travelling in search of employment. On the banks of the ancient Parthenius, they discovered several curious excavations, and among them one which occupied the whole of an insulated rock. On the 14th of May they reached Costamboul, and were billeted by the Pasha, on an Armenian Priest. They found here the former physician of Chapwan Oglu, and Mr. Kinneir renewed with him the acquaintance of the preceding summer. The death of that Chief was, as we have before