Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846. Excerpt: ... THE RICH AND THE POOR. BY THE EDITOR. Happy, thrice happy childhood! The stern lessons of misfortune--lessons which must be learned alike by the wealthy and the penniless--have not yet hardened thee against those common feelings of humanity which should bind into one general family all human kind. Vain, indeed, would be the labour of the demagogue who should attempt, before an audience of children, to move the hostile feelings of the poor against the rich, or the rich against the poor: the guilelessness of infancy, unwarped, as yet, by prejudice, and incognizant of the conventional distinctions of society, consulting directly the unerring laws of nature in arriving at its earliest conclusions, would at once confound the wisdom of the selfish, by inquiring, how can the whole be happy when the part is suffering?" My head aches, and I cannot work," exclaims the humble operative; and all the world acknowledges the justice of this obvious excuse:--" My hand is injured, and I cannot think for pain," declares the sage philosopher: will any one dispute the sequence of the argument? Society is a unit, and the idea of a really individual interest conflicting with the general good, is as preposterous as the supposition that logic may resist the gout, or poetry indulge its airy dreams uninfluenced by the toothache. Children perceive this truth, but learned preceptors and enlightened legislators are often blind to such conclusions. Alas! the years are few--very few--during which the mind is allowed to expand upon truly rational principles. Almost from the moment when the infantile lisp has faded from the tongue, the child is taught that where God created one family, man has established many. The urchins whose prosperous position permits them to enjoy the luxury of sho...
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