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. We have sumptuous garnitures for our
Life, but have forgotten to _live_ in the middle of them. It is
an enchanted wealth; no man of us can yet touch it. The class
of men who feel that they are truly better off by means of it,
let them give us their name!

Many men eat finer cookery, drink dearer liquors,--with what