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Sociology

Poverty - by James Platt

and destroy those in existence ; can open play-grounds for the children, and get the children out of the gutters and dirty alleys and by-streets; can provide libraries and reading - rooms, open the museums and picture galleries on Sundays, and in this way expand the minds of the people, and elevate them above there at present dirty surroundings and unattractive lives. It is the duty of the State to equitably apportion the taxation necessary to pay for maintaining it. The State has no moral right to take of A or B, to pay a share of the rent, the education, the emigration of C and D. It will do it, because men that clamour for democracy forget that real democracy means the "reign of justice," man freed from the tyranny of his fellow man. Yet the first so-called act our democrats ash for is "confiscation," or spoliation of some kind. Believe me, that any violation of the moral laws will inevitably bring its punishment. "A man might not live long enough for Nemesis to have time to strike him in return for a violation of the laws of justice, but a nation would." This truism was received with applause when uttered by Professor Stuart, at Birmingham, December 11, 1883; and I sincerely hope the healthy moral instinct of the British people will always oppose attempts to better their condition by fraud and robbery. But the times need that their intelligence- be made equal to understand the danger of listening to that powerful party in the State, that will not get to the cause of the disease, and take steps to remove it, but are fertile in "expedients," and always ready to sacrifice "principles; " forgetting that such a policy is only putting off the difficulties of the moment, and settling nothing, but only tending to entangle still more hopelessly the