the modern English Poor Law? What was the condition of England before 1830, when that law was loosely administered? It was a system ruinous to the indigent classes, and destructive to the ratepayers. The Poor Law Commissioners had shown that the only way in which the people could be guaranteed against starvation was by enforcing the workhouse test, and thus avoiding the creation of a pauper class too numerous to be alleviated. It is gratifying to find that Mr. Dodson is so well instructed in the affairs of the office in which he holds sway. Doubtless, he is also aware of the grand difficulty which opposes all State assistance of the poor at their own houses, and which consists in the utter recklessness still so prevalent among the uneducated classes as to the size of their families. To give out-door relief in the present state of public opinion would merely be to offer a premium upon large families, and this could, of course, only result in early death, degradation of the family, and a relapse into barbarism. Even in Australia it has been found possible to raise up a pauper class by such unwise out-door doles, which are no charity at all, but merely a means to degrade and enslave the poorest classes. [Illustration] CHAPTER X. WEALTH AS IT AFFECTS THE POOR. In the seventh chapter of book III. Mr. Malthus criticises an essay of Adam Smith, on “Increasing Wealth as it Affects the Condition of the Poor.” The professed object of Adam Smith’s enquiry is the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. “There is another, however, perhaps still more interesting (says our author) which he occasionally mixes with it, the causes which affect the happiness and comfort of the lower orders of society, which in every nation forms the most numerous class. I am sufficiently aware of the near connection of these two subjects, and that, generally speaking, the causes which contribute to increase the wealth of a state tend also to increase the happiness of the lower classes of the people. But perhaps Dr. Smith has considered these two inquiries as still more nearly connected than they really are; at least he has not stopped to take notice of those instances, when the wealth of a society may increase, according to his definition of wealth, without having a proportional tendency to increase the comforts of the labouring part of it.”