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NOTE III.

UNEASINESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS.

Who compose the aristocracy-particular distresses the middle class-uneasiness of farmers--of manufacturers-of dealers-low profits-uneasiness of professional men-of several classes possessing the common run of knowledge, or superior knowledge-of persons having fixed incomes and families—primary cause of prostitution-domestic life amongst the English middle

class.

IN America, it is a common mistake to suppose, that the English aristocracy consists entirely of the nobility, squires of good estate, wealthy churchmen and highly paid public servants. The aristocracy means the privileged class. Except the privilege of being born to make laws, there is none in England that money will fail to procure; and even that one, any man, having abundance of money, may obtain for his unborn, first-born son. A judge, a bishop, or a secretary of state, does not consider the trouble of his vocation a privilege; his privileges consist of money, patronage, power; the respect, the adulation, the devotion of his inferiors. In England, with plenty

of the first of these privileges, you have all the others in abundance. Any Englishman, being very rich, would find it hard, if such a whim should take him, to avoid the respect, the adulation, the devotion, of numerous parasites. Not the man, but the wealth, is worshipped. The man may be ignorant, stupid, selfish, dishonest, in every way worthless; but if he have £50,000. a year, he will have fifty, nay, five hundred, devoted friends, telling him continually that he is wise, just, generous, all over noble. Poor lords, though of Norman descent, are very little esteemed, and would be quite despised, but that as hereditary legislators they commonly obtain a good deal of the public money. The money is given to them avowedly for the purpose of maintaining their dignity. On the other hand, money will purchase the reputation of Norman descent. Mr. Thistlethwaite, whose father wore wooden shoes and made a million by cotton spinning; Mr. Thistlethwaite, who has purchased a mansion called Thistlethwaite Hall, intends, when he obtains a peerage, to take the title of Thistlethwaite and Vermont (his mother's name was Greenhill), in order to make it be believed that he descends in the female line from the Norman lords of Vermont and this will be believed, religiously, on account of the million of money. In short, there is nothing that the English will not do to please him who can dispose of a great deal of money,

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either his own or that of the public. All rich Englishmen, therefore, belong to the aristocracy quite as much as any duke, minister or archbishop; not excluding tradesmen, provided they be called great, like Calvert the great brewer, Baring the great stockjobber, Crawshay the great iron-founder, Mellish the great butcher, and Morrison the great draper. Still, one cannot draw a very distinct line between the aristocracy and the class next below them. I thought at one time of counting amongst the aristocracy all who are called respectable; but respectability has various meanings in England: with some it means to keep a carriage, with others a gig. I have it the privileged class consists of those who, whenever they are wronged, or would injure, can buy law without depriving themselves of any other costly luxury; those, in short, who, be their rank what it may, have more money than they know how to spend. Captain Basil Hall calls them the Spending Class.

After these comes the middle or uneasy class. Uneasiness, according to Johnson, is care, trouble, perplexity. By the uneasy class, I mean those who, not being labourers, suffer from agricultural distress, manufacturing distress, commercial distress, distress of the shipping interest, and many more kinds of distress, of which the names and descriptions have appeared over and oyer again during the last fifteen years, in the

journals of parliament, in pamphlets without number, and in all political publications, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily. In English politics, the word distress is used more frequently than any other comprehensive word, except pauperism. Distress, applied to any particular class, signifies the trouble, care, perplexity of that class, but not that the trouble, care and perplexity are unequal, or confined to any one set of people; for each distress has lasted fifteen years, and all the distresses together make permanent general distress. This steady national distress is attributed to causes more numerous than the several distresses of which it is composed; to transition from war to peace; to the admission of foreign corn; to restrictions on the admission of foreign corn; to taxation; to diminution of the public expenditure; to inadequate production; to overproduction; to change in the currency; to free trade, and restrictions on trade; to political economy, and the blunders of practical men ; and, finally, to rotten boroughs. For an evil attributed to so many causes, it was natural that numerous methods of cure should be proposed. Accordingly, the business of English politicians for about fifteen years, has been to devise remedies for general distress or particular distresses. Some of these specifics will be noticed hereafter, and especially reform of parliament, from which the uneasy class expect the most happy results ;

but here the many alleged causes, and supposed remedies, of distress are alluded to, merely with a view to show that the distress itself is real, extensive, severe, not imaginary, as some of the spending class assert, nor confined, as in former periods, to the idle and thriftless. In fact, the uneasy class consists of three-fourths, or rather perhaps nine-tenths, of all who are engaged in trades and professions, as well as all who, not being very rich, intend that their children should follow some industrious pursuit. The proof of this assertion is very easy.

There are some English farmers, though but few, so rich as to be called great; and these do not belong to the uneasy class. Even these, however, complain of low profits. But if he whose farming capital is, say, 30,000l., grumbles because his annual profit is only two and a-half per cent, or 750l., what must be the state of that farmer whose capital is only 5,000l.? Supposing his profits to be equal to those of the great farmer, his annual income is only 125l.; not so much, allowing for the difference of prices, as the income of a common labourer in America. Any where in America, a farming capital of 5,000l. would return a profit of fifteen per cent.; so that taking the common rate of farming profit in England to be two and a-half per cent., the American farmer possessing 5,000l. enjoys an income, equal to that of the English farmer possessing 30,000Z.