_Pauperism: Its Causes and Remedies._ By HENRY FAWCETT, Fellow of
Trinity Hall, and Professor of Political Economy in the University of
Cambridge. Macmillan and Co.
In this very timely book Mr. Fawcett commences the discussion of his
subject by depicting, in somewhat gloomy colours, the pauperized state
of a large class of our population. This debased condition, he
believes, is not a dismal necessity which admits of no remedy, but the
fruit of unwise legislation, which has produced and still encourages a
disregard of those social virtues of prudence and self-restraint which
can alone permanently raise and maintain the social condition of any
class in the community. He proceeds to show how powerful was the
influence upon our population exerted by the old Poor-law, which was
in operation until 1834. The evil results which flow from bad
legislation, at that time reached a height which threatened the
dissolution of society, and this was averted only by the new Poor-law,
which yet has failed to provide a perfect remedy, and in some of its
provisions has even a tendency to discourage in our people those
qualities from which we may hope for the extinction of pauperism. The
practice of outdoor relief to able-bodied paupers is shown to be
pernicious, and indeed ruinous in its tendency; and a very shrewd
suggestion is made, or rather hinted at, for its abatement. The relief
of the poor is now, it is well known, a common charge upon a union of
parishes which is under the charge of a board of guardians. Permit
this to continue in the case of indoor relief, but provide that
outdoor relief should be a charge upon the parish in which the pauper
resides. This would no doubt soon lessen the amount of outdoor relief,
and would secure its administration only in cases of real and pressing
necessity. Against the modern practice of boarding out pauper
children, which has been recommended by many kindly and philanthropic
persons, a very heavy indictment is drawn, and grave doubt is shown to
exist as to its practical operation. Broadly, it may be said, that Mr.
Fawcett judges of the administration of relief to the poor mainly
according to its ultimate moral effects upon the class to which they
belong; because he holds that the existence of a high standard of
prudence and self-restraint is the only means by which any class can
attain and keep a high social and physical condition. If the working
classes of England are taught by the Poor-law and by misdirected
charity to abandon providence and self-restraint, no power on earth
can permanently improve their position, and every temporary
amelioration must be soon lost in a still larger class depressed to
the low level existing before the benefit was received. If, on the
other hand, the virtues of providence and self-restraint be but
sufficiently cultivated, it is difficult to say how high may be the
standard of comfort reached by the working classes of our country.
The views we have thus slightly sketched are expanded and enforced
with great clearness in the first three chapters of this book, and in
the postscript, on the boarding out of pauper children. We should be
glad indeed if all our legislators could be compelled to pass an
examination in the first half of Mr. Fawcett's little volume, and
should hope for the best results from their study of his vigorous and
thoughtful sentences. In the remaining four chapters the probable
effects upon the condition of the working classes of national
education, co-partnership, and co-operation, and an improved land
tenure, are carefully examined, and many valuable suggestions are
made; but it must be obvious, on Mr. Fawcett's own principles, that
except these remedial measures have a direct tendency to produce
prudence and self-restraint, they can only afford temporary relief, to
be followed by a depression to the previous low condition. This is the
great lesson taught by the learned professor, and taught with abundant
illustration and convincing argument; and we hold that it is a lesson
which our people greatly need to learn.
At the present time, probably, the greatest hindrance to a real
improvement in the condition of the working classes is the feeble
sentimentality which prevails so widely in modern society, and which
finds its natural expression in that maudlin pity which doles out
relief alike to idle and industrious, to the vicious and the
unfortunate. By this practice, so common both in public and private
charity, and which is far more deleterious in systematic and public
charity than in private gifts, all the springs of care and prudence
are weakened, and even that degree of providence which is admitted as
needful to the middle classes, to enable them to maintain their
position, is scouted as unnatural and cruel, when urged upon the
working classes. Mr. Fawcett is an advanced Liberal, and one of the
ablest leaders of the most democratic party in our country. We think
it greatly to his honour that he has the courage and honesty so
fearlessly to proclaim the true causes of most of the pauperism which
exists among us; and we trust his words will be received with all the
weight they deserve by that great body of working people who are
especially his clients, and whose cause he is ever ready to plead.
Mr. Fawcett's book is written with great clearness and force, and we
can hardly fancy any one finding political economy dull in his
company. Sometimes, perhaps, the strength of his convictions seems to
lead to statements so strong and unqualified as to need some
correction, but we fully concur in the main drift of his argument, and
recommend his book to the careful study of all interested in the
investigation of the causes of pauperism.
_General Outline of the Organization of the Animal Kingdom, and Manual
of Comparative Anatomy._ By THOMAS RYMER JONES, F.R.S. John Van Voorst
The fourth edition of Professor T. R. Jones's 'Outline' may be taken
as an evidence that his work is still in demand, notwithstanding the
formidable rivalry of Professor Rolleston's recent work on the same
subject addressed to the same class of readers. Perhaps the less
formal and technical style of treatment may be an attraction to some
students of comparative anatomy. Men who give themselves to the study
of what are called the descriptive sciences, have often had their
attention directed to them in the first instance by their pictorial
attractions, and they retain a certain license in dealing with these
branches of learning which neither instructors nor students of the
more exact sciences would permit themselves. Professor R. Jones has
taken his full poetical license, and the parts of the work which
display it in the highest degree are peculiarly his own. There is no
objection to this mode of treatment so long as it does not take off
the attention of the learners from the more general and harder parts
of the subject. But the comparative anatomy of the whole animal
kingdom is so vast that if the author allows himself to run after the
descriptions which are of most interest, his presentation of the whole
subject is likely to be fragmentary and imperfect.
The previous editions of this work have stood almost alone as popular
elementary manuals, and this edition contains very few additions to
the former ones--such only, in fact, as have been forced on the
author. He has designedly hung in the rearward of the science, and is
a collator rather than a critic or an investigator. Thus he cannot
resist the claims of the Cælenerata to be ranked as a sub-kingdom, and
the adoption of Free and Leuckart's classification has compelled him
to transpose the positions of the Anthozoa and Hydrozoa. This,
however, is almost his only classificatory innovation. By a convenient
conservation he still retains the Cirrepedia as a distinct class,
while the Rotifera are placed under the Crustacea. The Brachiopoda
are still interposed between the Conchifera and Gasteropoda. The
Amphibians are not separated from the Reptilia. These antiquated ideas
of classification are to be regretted; but inasmuch as the object of
the volume is to describe, rather than to classify, they need not be
condemned as erroneous. When treating of the vertebrate classes, the
author becomes little more than the interpreter of Professor R. Owen,
and we deplore that a theory of the elements of a vertebra which has
never been generally adopted by the scientific world should be
introduced into a student's book without criticism or comment.
The principal additions which appear in this edition are pictorial,
and the new pictures are, for the most part, illustrative of natural
history rather than of anatomy. An exception to this is, however,
found in the introduction of Mr. Albany Harcock's very instructive
delineation of Waldheimia Australis.
An absence of dogmatism in dealing with the natural sciences is, for
some reasons, commendable, but all instructional works must be
dogmatic. To place two quite contradictory descriptions taken from two
authors side by side, without aiding the student to determine in any
way which is the truthful one, is quite inexcusable, and yet this is
precisely what is done with regard to Dugè's and Dr. Williams's
descriptions and theories of the functions of the organs of the
earth-worm. Old errors are still retained in this new edition. Thus
the description of the generative system of the common snail is
repeated word for word from the old edition, although the views there
taken are certainly wrong.
We have freely remarked on the shortcomings of the work, but with all
its faults it has been long known as a very interesting and popular
treatise on a subject which is very difficult to treat as a whole, and
we do not doubt it will retain its popularity in its present form.
_Wonders of the Human Body._ From the French of A. Le Pileur. Blackie
and Son.
This is a work on human anatomy and physiology so treated as to form
an easy, familiar, and interesting book of study for the public of
both sexes. It is not of any special 'wonders,' but of the whole
structure of the body, _minus_ those parts of anatomy which are unfit
for the young, of which the book treats. No doubt the whole body is a
world of wonder, and therefore the title is allowable, and was meant
to be attractive, but it is a little liable to mislead. This is,
indeed, a painstaking and systematic description of the structure and
functions of all the anatomical elements and complex organs throughout
the body, illustrated by good clear diagrammatic drawings. It is by no
means so charming in its style as Professor Huxley's little volume on
the same subject, but it is more equable in the attention it bestows
on the several parts of the body, and so far is better suited for the
kind of general school instruction for which we assume it is intended.