"[1] In a time of prosperity, working-people feast, and in a
time of adversity they "clem." Their earnings, to use their own phrase,
"come in at the spigot and go out at the bunghole." When prosperity
comes to an end, and they are paid off, they rely upon chance and
providence--the providence of the Improvident!
[Footnote 1: _Address on Economy and Trade._ By EDWIN CHADWICK, C.B., p.
22.]
Though trade has invariably its cycles of good and bad years, like the
lean and fat kine in Pharaoh's dream--its bursts of prosperity, followed
by glut, panic, and distress--the thoughtless and spendthrift take no
heed of experience, and make no better provision for the future.
Improvidence seems to be one of the most incorrigible of faults. "There
are whole neighbourhoods in the manufacturing districts," says Mr. Baker
in a recent Report, "where not only are there no savings worth
mentioning, but where, within a fortnight of being out of work, the
workers themselves are starving for want of the merest necessaries." Not
a strike takes place, but immediately the workmen are plunged in
destitution; their furniture and watches are sent to the pawnshop,
whilst deplorable appeals are made to the charitable, and numerous
families are cast upon the poor-rates.
This habitual improvidence--though of course there are many admirable
exceptions--is the real cause of the social degradation of the artizan.
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