When doleful men and women cry out
concerning abstract evils, it is always best to meet them with hard
facts, and I therefore propose to show that we ought really to be very
grateful for the undoubted advance of the nation toward righteousness.
Hideous blots there are--ugly cankers amid our civilisation--but we
grow better year by year, and the general movement is towards honesty,
helpfulness, goodness, purity. Whenever any croaker begins speaking
about the golden age that is gone, I advise my readers to try a system
of cross-examination. Ask the sorrowful man to fix the precise period
of the golden age, and pin him to direct and definite statements. Was
it when labourers in East Anglia lived like hogs around the houses of
their lords? Was it when the starving and utterly wretched thousands
marched on London under Tyler and John Ball? Was it when the
press-gangs kidnapped good citizens in broad daylight? Was it when a
score of burning ricks might be seen in a night by one observer? Was
it when imbecile rulers had set all the world against us--when the
French threatened Ireland, and the maddened, hunger-bitten sailors
were in wild rebellion, and the Funds were not considered as safe for
investors? The croaker is always securely indefinite, and a strict,
vigorous series of questions reduces him to rage and impotence.
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