Reform must either be got, and speedily, or else we die: and
nearly all the men that speak, instruct us, saying, "Have you
quite done your interesting Negroes in the Sugar Islands? Rush
to the Jails, then, O ye reformers; snatch up the interesting
scoundrel-population there, to them be nursing-fathers and
nursing-mothers. And oh, wash, and dress, and teach, and recover
to the service of Heaven these poor lost souls: so, we assure
you, will society attain the needful reform, and life be still
possible in this world." Thus sing the oracles everywhere;
nearly all the men that speak, though we doubt not, there are, as
usual, immense majorities consciously or unconsciously wiser who
hold their tongue. But except this of whitewashing the
scoundrel-population, one sees little "reform" going on. There
is perhaps some endeavor to do a little scavengering; and, as the
all-including point, to cheapen the terrible cost of Government:
but neither of these enterprises makes progress, owing to
impediments.

"Whitewash your scoundrel-population; sweep out your abominable
gutters (if not in the name of God, ye brutish slatterns, then in
the name of Cholera and the Royal College of Surgeons): do these
two things;--and observe, much cheaper if you please!"--Well,
here surely is an Evangel of Freedom, and real Program of a new
Era. What surliest misanthrope would not find this world lovely,
were these things done: scoundrels whitewashed; some degree of
scavengering upon the gutters; and at a cheap rate, thirdly?
That surely is an occasion on which, if ever on any, the Genius
of Reform may pipe all hands!--Poor old Genius of Reform; bedrid
this good while; with little but broken ballot-boxes, and
tattered stripes of Benthamee Constitutions lying round him; and