Some districts, or some classes, may perhaps suffer less than others, but the malady continues its progress and its extension: if it decrease in one place, it grows in another. It is indeed evident that it contains within itself the elements of its own increase. Not merely the annual augmentation of the number of paupers, but their constantly increasing misconduct, their carelessness, and insolence, and above all, their utter immorality, prove the augmenting force of the evil; an evil which must destroy all benevolent feelings, and swallow up, without being satisfied, all that charity can supply. The contagious nature of the disease carries it beyond the indigent, to invade and destroy the classes immediately above them. Those whose daily labour ought to have supported them, and those small proprietors whose properties ought to have enabled them to maintain their families, satisfy their engagements, and contribute to the relief of the poor, even these classes throw themselves among the really indigent, and add weight to the load which oppresses those who cannot escape the poor tax. [8] It is not easy to say what is meant by the original; whether labour in irons, “enchainement au bloc,” is a necessary part of the punishment or not. Causes favourable to the working of the above institutions. We have now given a very brief outline of the institutions of those portions of the Continent which appear, from the returns, to have adopted the English principle of acknowledging in every person a right to be supported by the public. It will be observed that in no country, except, perhaps, the Canton de Berne, has compulsory relief produced evils resembling, either in intensity or in extent, those which we have experienced; and that in the majority of the nations which have adopted it, the existing system appears to work well. These opposite consequences from the adoption of the same principle, may be accounted for on several different grounds. [Sidenote: 1. Villenage.] 1. Among some of the nations in question villenage still exists. Now where slavery, in any of its forms, prevails, the right of the slave or villein to support is a necessary and a safe consequence. It is necessary, because a person who is not a free agent cannot provide for himself. It is safe, because one of the principal evils of pauperism, improvidence, can scarcely exist among slaves, and the power of the master enables him to prevent idleness and fraud. The poor laws of Russia, therefore, if they can be called poor laws, are merely parts of her system of slavery. [Sidenote: 2. Recency of the system.]