ranks of society have been described as bringing up their children not
to know the existence of necessity, others, who are depressed below
the natural situation of men, are bringing them up to feel the extreme
pressure of want.

There is no situation of things in which a man, with natural strength,
and a very slender capacity, may not gain sufficient to maintain
himself, if he will be industrious; but, in a wealthy country, numbers
are so pressed upon by penury, in their younger years, that neither the
powers of their body, nor of their mind, arrive at maturity.

Accustomed, from an early age, to depend rather upon chance, or
charity, for existence, than upon industry, or energy of their own, they
neither know the value of labour, nor are they accustomed to look to it
for a supply to their wants.

Whilst the foundation of idleness and poverty is laid in, for one part of
a nation, from the affluence of their parents, another portion seems as
if it were chained down to misery, from the indigence in which they
were born and brought up. [end of page #156]

The depressed and degraded populace of great and wealthy cities are
not the accidental victims of misfortune; they are born to its hard
inheritance, and their numbers contaminate more, who, were it not for
their own misconduct and imprudence, might have shared a better lot.

When nations increase in wealth, the fate of individuals ceases to
become an object of attention; and, of all the animals that exist, and
are capable of labour, the least value is set upon the human species.
{135} Like individuals who rise to wealth, and forget their origin,