Thus the northern nations of Europe owe a portion of their prosperity to
the rigour of their climate. Cold makes them save during summer, to
provide food, coal, and clothing during winter. It encourages
house-building and housekeeping. Hence Germany is more industrious than
Sicily; Holland and Belgium than Andalusia; North America and Canada
than Mexico.
When the late Edward Denison, M.P. for Newark, with unexampled
self-denial, gave up a large portion of his time and labour to reclaim
the comparatively uncivilized population of the East End of London, the
first thing he did was to erect an iron church of two stories, the lower
part of which was used as a school and lecture room, and also as a club
where men and boys might read, play games, and do anything else that
might keep them out of the drinking-houses. "What is so bad in this
quarter," said Mr. Denison, "is the habitual condition of this mass of
humanity--its uniform mean level, the absence of anything more
civilizing than a grinding organ to raise the ideas beyond the daily
bread and beer, the utter want of education, the complete indifference
to religion, with the fruits of all this--improvidence, dirt, and their
secondaries, crime and disease.... There is no one to give a push to
struggling energy, to guide aspiring intelligence, or to break the fall
of unavoidable misfortune.
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