This too is the prolific source of social misery. But the misery is
entirely the result of human ignorance and self-indulgence. For though
the Creator has ordained poverty, the poor are not necessarily, nor as a
matter of fact, the miserable. Misery is the result of moral
causes,--most commonly of individual vice and improvidence.
The Rev. Mr. Norris, in speaking of the habits of the highly paid miners
and iron-workers of South Staffordshire, says, "Improvidence is too tame
a word for it--it is recklessness; here young and old, married and
unmarried, are uniformly and almost avowedly self-indulgent
spendthrifts. One sees this reckless character marring and vitiating the
nobler traits of their nature. Their gallantry in the face of danger is
akin to foolhardiness; their power of intense labour is seldom exerted
except to compensate for time lost in idleness and revelry; their
readiness to make 'gatherings' for their sick and married comrades seems
only to obviate the necessity of previous saving; their very creed--and,
after their sort, they are a curiously devotional people, holding
frequent prayer-meetings in the pits--often degenerates into fanatical
fatalism. But it is seen far more painfully and unmistakably in the
alternate plethora and destitution between which, from year's end to
year's end, the whole population seems to oscillate.
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