Perils, pastimes, and pleasures of an emigrant in Australia, Vancouver's Island and California.

Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Perils, pastimes, and pleasures of an emigrant in Australia, Vancouver's Island and California. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which may well perplex the Statesman and affl ict the philanthropist. The first is, that our population has long been increasing at the rate of a thousand souls a day ; and the second, that pauperism has been increasing at a still faster rate than population. This may be truly termed an organic disease in our Social Condition, and the ultimate tendency of it, unless it be carried off* by some wise remedial treat- ment, must be obvious to every one* Now the nature of that remedial treatment of the disease can only be suggested to us by a careful considera¬ tion of the cause of it ; and the increase of popu¬ lation, 'per se, cannot be the cause of it, for the laws of God and nature are abhorrent to such a conclusion. Nor can the concurrent increase of pauperism be properly termed the cause of the disease, being, in fact, the ej^ect of it ; and what we really have tO’ consider then is, what is it that is continually ag¬ gravating this baneful effect ? And, first, what is Pauperism-—I mean able-bodied Pauperism ? Is it not an insufficiency of productive and remunerative employment; and, if so, how is it that this in¬ sufficiency of our resources for employing the in-