seventeenth part of a pin or the eightieth part of a button,” he becomes stupid. Education is neglected. In Scotland the meanest porter can read and write, but at Birmingham boys of six or seven can earn threepence or sixpence a day, so that their parents set them to work early and their education is neglected. To be able merely to read is good as it “gives people the benefit of religion, which is a great advantage, not only considered in a pious sense, but as it affords them subject for thought and speculation.” There is too “another great loss which attends the putting boys too soon to work.” The boys throw off parental authority, and betake themselves to drunkenness and riot. The workmen in the commercial parts of England are consequently in a “despicable condition; their work through half the week is sufficient to maintain them, and through want of education they have no amusement for the other but riot and debauchery. So it may very justly be said that the people who clothe the whole world are in rags themselves.”
Further, commerce sinks courage and extinguishes martial spirit; the defence of the country is handed over to a special class, and the bulk of