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Sociology

Poverty - by James Platt

There is room for improvement; and with a proper object before him in life - one that would cause a more earnest steady, plodding industry, allied to temperate, frugal, thrifty habits, the requirements of articles of comfort, use, and ornament will proportionately increase; to obtain these, much, very much, remains with the productive classes them- selves.

"Come, bright improvement, on the car of time, And rule the spacious world from clime to clime; Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, Trace every wave, and culture every shore."
Cambell

Poverty is a social disease, of which it is our duty to discover the hidden causes, and not the least of which will be found the inaptitude and incapacity of the unemployed to perform satisfactorily the work that is required to be done. Poverty is accepted as inevitable, as the ague used to be. Burke tells us, and it is generally believed, that "the labouring people are only poor because they are numerous. Numbers in their nature imply poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast multitude, none can have much." It is surprising so great a man should overlook the fact that it all depends upon what the multitude are able to produce, and that the quantity to each labourer will depend, not upon the number of the labourers, but upon the total product there is for distribution. In anticipation of Mr. George and his followers, Burke says: "That class of dependent pensioners called the rich is so extremely small that if all their throats were cut and a distribution made of all they