Lycurgus carried into effect a number of other visionary projects: he abolished the use of money, with the hope of preventing undue accumulation of wealth; prohibited foreigners from entering the country, and the natives from going abroad, in order to preserve simplicity of manners among the people; directed that all men, without distinction of rank or age, should eat daily together at public tables, which were furnished with the plainest food; and finally, ordained that all the children who were born, and seemed likely to be strong, should be reared by public nurses, under a rigid system of privation and personal activity, while the weak infants should be thrown out to the fields to perish. The citizens, when they had attained the age of manhood, were engaged in martial exercises, all labor being left to the slaves, or _helots_, as they were termed; and in short, the whole nation was but a camp of soldiers, and war was reckoned the only legitimate profession. These laws were in some measure suited to the rude condition of the Spartans, but, as being opposed to some of the best and strongest principles in human nature, they could not possibly endure, and there is reason to believe that some of them were not strictly enforced. It is not unusual to see historians use the term _Spartan virtue_ with a certain degree of admiration of its quality; but the Spartans had, in reality, no moral dignity, certainly no benevolence, in their virtue, either public or private. They were a small confederacy of well-trained soldiers; and merely as such, deserve no mark of our respect or esteem. The manner in which they used their helots was at once barbarous and cruel. The murder of a serf by a free citizen was not punishable by law; nay, it was even allowable for the young Spartans to lie in wait, as a kind of sport, for any good-looking or saucy-looking slave, and stab him to the heart on the highway. It is certain that at one time, when the helots had stood their masters in good stead in battle, they were desired, by way of reward, to choose out 2000 of their best men, that they might receive their freedom, and be enrolled as Spartans, and that these 2000 men were all silently murdered soon after. At another time, when danger was apprehended from the growing numbers and petty wealth of the boors, the senate enacted the farce of declaring war against them, and coolly murdered many thousands, in order to thin their numbers and break their spirit. Had there been any redeeming trait in the Spartan character to compensate for such barbarity, one would have wondered less at the respect which is sometimes paid them; but their military fame only adds another instance to the many already on record, that the most ignorant and savage tribes make the most dogged soldiers.