thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about
the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making
them easy _in_ poverty, but leading or driving them _out_ of it. In my
youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries that the
more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided
for themselves, and, of course, became poorer. And, on the contrary, the
less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became
richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are
established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are
sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many
almshouses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general
law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the
support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest,
humble, and thankful? And do they use their best endeavours to maintain
themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burden! On the contrary, I
affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more
idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent.[7] The day you passed that act
you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to
industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on
somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for
support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the
encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had
its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal this law, and you will
soon see a change in their manners; _Saint Monday_ and _Saint Tuesday_
will soon cease to be holydays. Six _days shalt thou labour_, though one
of the old commandments, long treated as out of date, will again be
looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with
it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and
more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for
themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.
[7] England in 1766
Excuse me, Messieurs the Public, if upon this _interesting_ subject I
put you to the trouble of reading a little of _my_ nonsense; I am sure I
have lately read a great deal of _yours_, and therefore, from you (at
least from those of you who are writers) I deserve a little indulgence.
I am yours, &c.
ARATOR.
* * * * *
SINGULAR CUSTOM AMONG THE AMERICANS, ENTITLED WHITEWASHING.
DEAR SIR,
My wish is to give you some account of the people of these new states;
but I am far from being qualified for the purpose, having as yet seen
but little more than the cities of New-York and Philadelphia. I have
discovered but few national singularities among them. Their customs and
manners are nearly the same with those of England, which they have long
been used to copy. For, previous to the revolution, the Americans were
from their infancy taught to look up to the English as patterns of
perfection in all things. I have observed, however, one custom, which,
for aught I know, is peculiar to this country. An account of it will
serve to fill up the remainder of this sheet, and may afford you some
amusement.
When a young couple are about to enter into the matrimonial state, a
never-failing article in the marriage treaty is, that the lady shall
have and enjoy the free and unmolested exercise of the rights of
_whitewashing_, with all its ceremonials, privileges, and appurtenances.
A young woman would forego the most advantageous connexion, and even
disappoint the warmest wish of her heart, rather than resign the
invaluable right. You would wonder what this privilege of _whitewashing_
is: I will endeavour to give you some idea of the ceremony, as I have
seen it performed.
There is no season of the year in which the lady may not claim her
privilege, if she pleases; but the latter end of May is most generally
fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge by certain
prognostics when the storm is nigh at hand. When the lady is unusually
fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the
children, and complains much of the filthiness of everything about her,
these are signs which ought not to be neglected; yet they are not
decisive, as they sometimes come on and go off again without producing
any farther effect. But if, when the husband rises in the morning, he
should observe in the yard a wheelbarrow with a quantity of lime in it,
or should see certain buckets with lime dissolved in water, there is
then no time to be lost; he immediately locks up the apartment or closet
where his papers or his private property is kept, and, putting the key
in his pocket, betakes himself to flight, for a husband, however
beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during the season of female rage;
his authority is superseded, his commission is suspended, and the very
scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more
consideration and importance than him. He has nothing for it but to
abdicate, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify.
The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are in a few minutes
stripped of their furniture: paintings, prints, and looking-glasses lie
in a huddled heap about the floors; the curtains are torn from the
testers, the beds crammed into the windows; chairs and tables, bedsteads
and cradles, crowd the yard; and the garden fence bends beneath the
weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats, and ragged
breeches. _Here_ may be seen the lumber of the kitchen, forming a dark
and confused mass: for the foreground of the picture, grid irons and
frying-pans, rusty shovels and broken tongs, spits and pots,
joint-stools, and the fractured remains of rush-bottomed chairs. _There_
a closet has disgorged its bowels, cracked tumblers, broken wineglasses,
vials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown powders, seeds, and dried
herbs, handfuls of old corks, tops of teapots, and stoppers of departed
decanters; from the raghole in the garret to the rathole in the cellar,
no place escapes unrummaged. It would seem as if the day of general doom
was come, and the utensils of the house were dragged forth to judgment.
In this tempest the words of Lear naturally present themselves, and
might, with some alteration, be made strictly applicable:
"Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes
Unwhipp'd of justice!
"Close pent-up guilt,
Raise your concealing continents, and ask
These dreadful summoners grace!"
This ceremony completed and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next
operation is to smear the walls and ceilings of every room and closet
with brushes dipped in a solution of lime, called _white wash_; to pour
buckets of water over every floor, and scratch all the partitions and
wainscots with rough brushes wet with soapsuds and dipped in
stonecutter's sand. The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A
servant scrambles out upon the penthouse, at the risk of her neck, and
with a mug in her hand and a bucket within reach, she dashes away
innumerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great
annoyance of the passengers in the street.
I have been told that an action at law was once brought against one of
these water nymphs, by a person who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by
this operation; but, after long argument, it was determined by the whole
court that the action would not lie, inasmuch as the defendant was in
the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences:
and so the poor gentleman was doubly nonsuited, for he lost not only his
suit of clothes, but his suit at law.
These smearings and scratchings, washings and dashings, being duly
performed, the next ceremonial is to cleanse and replace the distracted
furniture. You may have seen a house-raising or a ship-launch, when all
the hands within reach are collected together: recollect, if you can,
the hurry, bustle, confusion, and noise of such a scene, and you will
have some idea of this cleaning match. The misfortune is, that the sole
object is to make things clean; it matters not how many useful,
ornamental, or valuable articles are mutilated or suffer death under the
operation; a mahogany chair and carved frame undergo the same
discipline; they are to be made _clean_ at all events, but their
preservation is not worthy of attention. For instance, a fine large
engraving is laid flat on the floor, smaller prints are piled upon it,
and the superincumbent weight cracks the glasses of the lower tier: but
this is of no consequence. A valuable picture is placed leaning against
the sharp corner of a table, others are made to lean against that, until
the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the
canvass of the first. The frame and glass of a fine print are to be
_cleaned_; the spirit and oil used on this occasion are suffered to leak
through and spoil the engraving; no matter, if the glass is clean and
the frame shine, it is sufficient; the rest is not worthy of
consideration. An able arithmetician has made an accurate calculation,
founded on long experience, and has discovered that the losses and
destructions incident to two whitewashings are equal to one removal, and
three removals equal to one fire.
The cleaning frolic over, matters begin to resume their pristine
appearance. The storm abates, and all would be well again; but it is
impossible that so great a convulsion in so small a community should not
produce some farther effects. For two or three weeks after the
operation, the family are usually afflicted with sore throats or sore
eyes, occasioned by the caustic quality of the lime, or with severe
colds from the exhalations of wet floors or damp walls.
I know a gentleman who was fond of accounting for everything in a
philosophical way. He considers this, which I have called a custom, as a
real periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning
is ingenious and whimsical, but I am not at leisure to give you a
detail. The result was, that he found the distemper to be incurable;
but, after much study, he conceived he had discovered a method to divert
the evil he could not subdue. For this purpose he caused a small
building, about twelve feet square, to be erected in his garden, and
furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables, and a few prints of the
cheapest sort were hung against the walls. His hope was, that when the
whitewashing phrensy seized the females of his family, they might repair
to this apartment, and scrub, and smear, and scour to their heart's
content, and so spend the violence of the disease in this outpost, while
he enjoyed himself in quiet at headquarters. But the experiment did not
answer his expectation; it was impossible it should, since a principal
part of the gratification consists in the lady's having an uncontrolled
right to torment her husband at least once a year, and to turn him out
of doors, and take the reins of government into her own hands.
There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher, which
is, to cover the walls of the house with paper; this is generally done,
and though it cannot abolish, it at least shortens the period of female
dominion. The paper is decorated with flowers of various fancies, and
made so ornamental, that the women have admitted the fashion without
perceiving the design.
There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress; he
generally has the privilege of a small room or closet for his books and
papers, the key of which he is allowed to keep. This is considered as a
privileged place, and stands like the land of Goshen amid the plagues of
Egypt. But then he must be extremely cautious, and ever on his guard.
For should he inadvertently go abroad and leave the key in his door, the
housemaid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity,
immediately enters in triumph with buckets, brooms, and brushes; takes
possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers
_to rights_, to his utter confusion and sometimes serious detriment. For
instance:
A gentleman was sued by the executors of a tradesman, on a charge found
against him in the deceased's books to the amount of £30. The defendant
was strongly impressed with an idea that he had discharged the debt and
taken a receipt; but, as the transaction was of long standing, he knew
not where to find the receipt. The suit went on in course, and the time
approached when judgment would be obtained against him. He then sat
seriously down to examine a large bundle of old papers, which he had
untied and displayed on a table for that purpose. In the midst of his
search he was suddenly called away on business of importance; he forgot
to lock the door of his room. The housemaid, who had been long looking
out for such an opportunity, immediately entered with the usual
implements, and with great alacrity fell to cleaning the room and
putting things to _rights_. The first object that struck her eye was the
confused situation of the papers on the table; these were, without
delay, bundled together like so many dirty knives and forks; but, in the
action, a small piece of paper fell unnoticed on the floor, which
happened to be the very receipt in question: as it had no very
respectable appearance it was soon after swept out with the common dirt
of the room, and carried in a rubbish-pan into the yard. The tradesman
had neglected to enter the credit in his book; the defendant could find
nothing to obviate the charge, and so judgment went against him for the
debt and costs. A fortnight after the whole was settled and the money
paid, one of the children found the receipt among the rubbish in the
yard.
There is also another custom peculiar to the city of Philadelphia, and
nearly allied to the former. I mean that of washing the pavement before
the doors every Saturday evening. I at first took this to be a
regulation of the police, but, on a farther inquiry, find it is a
religious rite preparatory to the Sabbath, and is, I believe, the only
religious rite in which the numerous sectaries of this city perfectly
agree. The ceremony begins about sunset, and continues till about ten or
eleven at night. It is very difficult for a stranger to walk the streets
on those evenings; he runs a continual risk of having a bucket of dirty
water thrown against his legs; but a Philadelphian born is so much
accustomed to the danger that he avoids it with surprising dexterity. It
is from this circumstance that a Philadelphian may be known anywhere by
his gait. The streets of New-York are paved with rough stones; these,
indeed, are not washed, but the dirt is so thoroughly swept from before
the doors that the stones stand up sharp and prominent, to the great
inconvenience of those who are not accustomed to so rough a path. But
habit reconciles everything. It is diverting enough to see a
Philadelphian at New-York; he walks the streets with as much painful
caution as if his toes were covered with corns, or his feet lamed with
the gout: while a New-Yorker, as little approving the plain masonry of
Philadelphia, shuffles along the pavement like a parrot on a mahogany
table.
It must be acknowledged that the ablutions I have mentioned are attended
with no small inconvenience; but the women would not be induced, from
any consideration, to resign their privilege. Notwithstanding this, I
can give you the strongest assurances that the women of America make the
most faithful wives and the most attentive mothers in the world; and I
am sure you will join me in opinion, that if a married man is made
miserable only _one_ week in a whole year, he will have no great cause
to complain of the matrimonial bond.
I am, &c.
* * * * *
ON THE CRIMINAL LAWS AND THE PRACTICE OF PRIVATEERING.
_Letter to Benjamin Vaughan, Esq._
March 14, 1785.
MY DEAR FRIEND
Among the pamphlets you lately sent me was one entitled _Thoughts on
Executive Justice_. In return for that, I send you a French one on the
same subject, _Observations concernant l'Exécution de l'Article II. de
la Déclaration sur le Vol_. They are both addressed to the judges, but
written, as you will see, in a very different spirit. The English author
is for hanging _all_ thieves. The Frenchman is for proportioning
punishments to offences.
If we really believe, as we profess to believe, that the law of Moses
was the law of God, the dictate of Divine wisdom, infinitely superior to
human, on what principle do we ordain death as the punishment of an
offence which, according to that law, was only to be punished by a
restitution of fourfold? To put a man to death for an offence which does
not deserve death, is it not a murder? And as the French writer says,
_Doit-on punir un délit contre la société par un crime contre la
nature?_[8]
[8] Ought we to punish a crime against society by a crime against
nature?
Superfluous property is the creature of society. Simple and mild laws
were sufficient to guard the property that was merely necessary. The
savage's bow, his hatchet, and his coat of skins, were sufficiently
secured, without law, by the fear of personal resentment and
retaliation. When, by virtue of the first laws, part of the society
accumulated wealth and grew powerful, they enacted others more severe,
and would protect their property at the expense of humanity. This was
abusing their power and commencing a tyranny. If a savage, before he
entered into society, had been told, "Your neighbour, by this means, may
become owner of a hundred deer; but if your brother, or your son, or
yourself, having no deer of your own, and being hungry, should kill one,
an infamous death must be the consequence," he would probably have
preferred his liberty, and his common right of killing any deer, to all
the advantages of society that might be proposed to him.
That it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than that one
innocent person should suffer, is a maxim that has been long and
generally approved; never, that I know of, controverted. Even the
sanguinary author of the _Thoughts_ agrees to it, adding well, "that the
very thought of _injured_ innocence, and much more that of _suffering_
innocence, must awaken all our tenderest and most compassionate
feelings, and, at the same time, raise our highest indignation against
the instruments of it. But," he adds, "there is no danger of _either_
from a strict adherence to the laws." Really! is it then impossible to
make an unjust law? and if the law itself be unjust, may it not be the
very "instrument" which ought "to raise the author's and everybody's
highest indignation?" I see in the last newspapers from London that a
woman is capitally convicted at the Old Bailey for privately stealing
out of a shop some gauze, value fourteen shillings and threepence. Is
there any proportion between the injury done by a theft, value fourteen
shillings and threepence, and the punishment of a human creature, by
death, on a gibbet? Might not that woman, by her labour, have made the
reparation ordained by God in paying fourfold? Is not all punishment
inflicted beyond the merit of the offence, so much punishment of
innocence? In this light, how vast is the annual quantity of not only
_injured_, but _suffering_ innocence, in almost all the civilized states
of Europe!
But it seems to have been thought that this kind of innocence may be
punished by way of _preventing crimes_. I have read, indeed, of a cruel
Turk in Barbary, who, whenever he bought a new Christian slave, ordered
him immediately to be hung up by the legs, and to receive a hundred
blows of a cudgel on the soles of his feet, that the severe sense of
punishment and fear of incurring it thereafter might prevent the faults
that should merit it. Our author himself would hardly approve entirely
of this Turk's conduct in the government of slaves; and yet he appears
to recommend something like it for the government of English subjects,
when he applauds the reply of Judge Burnet to the convict horsestealer;
who, being asked what he had to say why judgment of death should not
pass against him, and answering that it was hard to hang a man for
_only_ stealing a horse, was told by the judge, "Man, thou art not to be
hanged _only_ for stealing a horse, but that horses may not be stolen."
The man's answer, if candidly examined, will, I imagine, appear
reasonable, as being founded on the eternal principle of justice and
equity, that punishments should be proportioned to offences; and the
judge's reply brutal and unreasonable, though the writer "wishes all
judges to carry it with them whenever they go the circuit, and to bear
it in their minds, as containing a wise reason for all the penal
statutes which they are called upon to put in execution. It at once
illustrates," says he, "the true grounds and reasons of all capital
punishments whatsoever, namely, that every man's property, as well as
his life, may be held sacred and inviolate." Is there, then, no
difference in value between property and life? If I think it right that
the crime of murder should be punished with death, not only as an equal
punishment of the crime, but to prevent other murders, does it follow
that I must approve of inflicting the same punishment for a little
invasion on my property by theft? If I am not myself so barbarous, so
bloody-minded and revengeful, as to kill a fellow-creature for stealing
from me fourteen shillings and threepence, how can I approve of a law
that does it? Montesquieu, who was himself a judge, endeavours to
impress other maxims. He must have known what humane judges feel on such
occasions, and what the effects of those feelings; and, so far from
thinking that severe and excessive punishments prevent crimes, he
asserts, as quoted by our French writer, that
"L'atrocité des loix en empêche l'exécution.
"Lorsque la peine est sans mesure, on est souvent obligé de lui préférer
l'impunité.
"La cause de tous les relâchemens vient de l'impunité des crimes, et non
de la modération des peines."[9]
[9] The extreme severity of the laws prevents their execution.
Where the punishment is excessive, it is frequently necessary to
prefer impunity.
It is the exemption from punishment, and not its moderation which
is the cause of crime.