What a _twist_ a head must have before it can come to the conclusion that the nation gains in wealth by the government being able to cause the work to be done by those who have hardly any share in the fruit of the labour! What a _twist_ such a head must have! The Scotch _feelosofers_, who seem all to have been, by nature, formed for negro-drivers, have an insuperable objection to all those establishments and customs which occasion _holidays_. They call them a great hindrance, a great bar to industry, a great drawback from "national wealth." I wish each of these unfeeling fellows had a spade put into his hand for ten days, only ten days, and that he were compelled to dig only just as much as one of the common labourers at Fulham. The metaphysical gentlemen would, I believe, soon discover the _use of holidays_! But _why_ should men, why should _any_ men, work _hard_? Why, I ask, should they work incessantly, if working part of the days of the week be sufficient? Why should the people at Milton, for instance, work incessantly, when they now raise food and clothing and fuel and every necessary to maintain well five times their number? Why should they not have some holidays? And, pray, say, thou conceited Scotch feelosofer, how the "national wealth" can be increased by making these people work incessantly, that they may raise food and clothing, to go to feed and clothe people who do not work at all? The state of this Valley seems to illustrate the infamous and really diabolical assertion of Malthus, which is, that the human kind have a natural tendency _to increase beyond the means of sustenance for them_. Hence, all the schemes of this and the other Scotch writers for what they call checking population. Now, look at this Valley of Avon. Here the people raise nearly twenty times as much food and clothing as they consume. They raise five times as much, even according to my scale of living. They have been doing this for many, many years. They have been doing it for several generations. Where, then, is their natural tendency to increase beyond the means of sustenance for them? Beyond, indeed, the means of that sustenance which a system like this will leave them. Say that, Sawneys, and I agree with you. Far beyond the means that the taxing and monopolizing system will leave in their hands: that is very true; for it leaves them nothing but the scale of the poor-book; they must cease to breed at all, or they must exceed this mark; but the _earth_, give them their fair share of its products, will always give sustenance in sufficiency to those who apply to it by skilful and diligent labour.