This passage is remarkable. It may be asked in the first place, whether the parish laws are not equally open to petty tradesmen and small farmers, as to the poor. If so, they cannot account for the difference observable between them. I shall therefore, as far as this very striking contrast goes, put the poor laws out of the question; and say that the difference in their behaviour can arise from nothing but the difference in their situations, from the greater hardships imposed on the labouring part of the community, from their different prospects in life, and the little estimation in which they are held. Mr. Malthus accounts for the carelessness and laziness of the poor from their casting a sheep’s-eye at the work-house. No: they are to be accounted for from that poverty and depression which makes the work-house a temptation to them. We cannot say of those who are seduced by the prospect of a work-house—‘Alas from what height fallen!’ Mr. Malthus proposes to remove this dazzling object out of their way; to make them indulge in larger views of things by setting before them the prospect of their wives and children starving, in case of any accident to themselves, and to stimulate their industry by lowering their wages. The poor live from hand to mouth, because, in general, they have no hopes of living in any other way. They seldom think of the future, because they are afraid to think of it. Their present wants employ their whole attention. This is their misfortune. Others have better luck. They have no time to think of wind-falls. Mr. Malthus may take his glass of wine after dinner, and his afternoon’s nap, when, having got the Essay on Population out of his head, queen Mab ‘comes to him with a tythe-pig’s tail, tickling the parson as he lies asleep:—then dreams he of another benefice.’ The poor cannot indulge in such pleasing speculations. If what they earn beyond their immediate necessities goes to the alehouse, it is because the severe labour they undergo requires some relaxation, because they are willing to forget the _work-house_, their old age, and the prospect of their wives and children starving, and to drown care in a mug of ale, in noise, and mirth, and laughter, and old ditties, and coarse jokes, and hot disputes; and in that sense of short-lived comfort, independence and good-fellowship, which is necessary to relieve the hurt mind and jaded body. But all these, when our author’s system is once established, ‘shall no more impart, ‘An hour’s importance to the poor man’s heart.’