Many of what are
called the "upper" classes are no more excusable than the "lower." They
waste their means on keeping up appearances, and in feeding folly,
dissipation, and vice.
No one can reproach the English workman with want of industry. He works
harder and more skilfully than the workman of any other country; and he
might be more comfortable and independent in his circumstances, were he
as prudent as he is laborious. But improvidence is unhappily the defect
of the class. Even the best-paid English workmen, though earning more
money than the average of professional men, still for the most part
belong to the poorer classes because of their thoughtlessness. In
prosperous times they are not accustomed to make provision for adverse
times; and when a period of social pressure occurs, they are rarely
found more than a few weeks ahead of positive want.
Hence, the skilled workman, unless trained in good habits, may exhibit
no higher a life than that of the mere animal; and the earning of
increased wages will only furnish him with increased means for indulging
in the gratification of his grosser appetites. Mr. Chadwick says, that
during the Cotton Famine, "families trooped into the relief rooms in the
most abject condition, whose previous aggregate wages exceeded the
income of many curates,--as had the wages of many of the individual
workmen.
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