societies forget the first foundation of all wealth, happiness, and
power. That individuals should do so is not to be wondered at. They
never saw society in an infant state; nor is it the business of individual
citizens to occupy themselves with public affairs; but those who are
intrusted with their management, and whose business is to know the
original sources of prosperity, ought to attend to and counteract this
growing evil.

When the Romans were poor, the people depended on exertion, and
they enjoyed plenty; but when Lucullus and other citizens were
squandering millions, at a single banquet, the people were clamouring
for bread. While the person of a Roman lady was ornamented with the
wealth of a province, the multitude were covered with rags, and
depressed with misery. It would have been no hard matter, then, to
have foretold the fate of Rome. The natural order of things was
deranged to too violent an extreme to be of long duration. The state
was become like a wall that had declined from the perpendicular,
while age was every day weakening the cement, by which it was held
together, and though of the time and hour of destruction no man knew,
the event was certain.

It would, at first sight, appear that great cities are the only places in
which misery of this description arises; but that is not the case.

---
{135} It was never heard of, that a young horse, or any useful animal
of the brute creation, was left to die with hunger in a land of plenty;
but it happens to many of the human race, because there is no
provision made, by which those who furnish them food may be repaid
by their labour, which would be a very easy matter to adjust, if a little