The laborer; a remedy for his wrongs; or, A disquisition on the usages of society

Front matter

Pass H-DSo: Book ^3_

A DISQUISITION Ol^ia^hE USAGES OF SOCIETY.

BY WILLIAM DEALTRY,

Chapter 1. Reforms Are Necessary

aJcT UM an Society is Full of Misery — There is a Complete Remedy — The vXjX Hours of Toil can be Shortened — Opinions of Good Men I

CHAPTER n.

ANCIENT AND MODERN SLAVERY.

fLAVERY in Greece and Rome — In Northern Africa — In America — Slavery is Necessary to Improve the Condition of Men — Slavery not' Neecessary when Nations are Improved 25

CHAPTER HI.

HISTORY OF THE LABORING CLASSES.

fOCIETY after the Conquest— Traffic in Slaves— Influence of Christianity — Increase of Towns and Manufactures — Corporate Immunities — Absurd Legislation — Occupations and Wages of the People 49

CHAPTER IV.

GOVERNMENTS AND FEUDALISM.

fATRIARCHAL Government — The Origin of Monarchies — Their ^,. Corruptions and Changes — William the Norman — His advent into

England — Feudalism — Its Origin and Necessity to Improve Men 73 l^

Contents, CHAPTER V.

PARLIAMENTS AND COMMONS.

ARLIAMENTS a Result of Conquest — The disputes of Kings and

^ Nobles a cause of Parliaments — Origin of the House of Commons-

An Assembly of Men to save Themselves from being Plundered 97

CHAPTER VI.

CITIES AND TOWNS.

FEUDALISM the Cause of the Growth of Cities— A Place for Esl-i caping Slaves — Cities are necessary to Improve Mankind — Hanseatic Towns — North American Review on Cities — Suffering in Cities 121

CHAPTER Vn.

COMMERCE AND TRADE,

iTt OMMERCE, its origin — Mankind needed Commerce to Improve Ajh their Condition— Its Evils and Remedy — Franklin's Opinions of

Commerce^Rev. Sidney Smith's Opinions on Commerce , 145

CHAPTER Vm.

GOLD, SILVER, AND PAPER MONEY.

' ONEY had its Origin in the Love of Ornament — A Means of keeping the People Poor— What Money costs Society — The Causes of Metal Money — The History of Paper Money 169

CHAPTER IX.

A CENTURY OF INVENTIONS.

"ANT a Motive for Invention — Universal Riches will Prevent In- J; vention — Arkwright's Invention and Poverty — Watts' Improvement on the Steam Engine — Morse's Telegraph 193

Contents. xi

CHAPTER X.

MERCHANTS AND LAWYERS.

l|]V^ ERCHANTS are the Founders of Cities — A Cause of the Overthrow j^J^ of Slavery — Merchants are too Numerous — The Causes why Lawyers Exist — They are too numerous — An injury to .Society 217

CHAPTER XI.

PHYSICIANS AND MINISTERS.

fOHN WESLEY'S Remedies for Sickness — Opinions of the Democratic Review — Jefferson — Priessnitz — Bulwer — Havelock— Volney— The Early Christians — St. Chrysostom — Tertullian — The Moravians. 241

CHAPTER XH.

FARMERS AND MECHANICS.

fHE Farmer's Burdens are too Heavy — It is his duty to make them Lighter — How to Educate his Children — To Fertilize the Soil — How the Mechanic may Shorten his Labor — How to Obtain a Home 265

CHAPTER Xm.

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

V^ HE American Government has not Ameliorated the Condition of the i^ Working People — It Should be Changed — It Benefits the Rich, not

the Poor — Opinions of Brissot de Warville — Marquis de Chastellux...289

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Vjr TS Causes, Cruelties, and Benefits — A Contest between Nobles and (J^ People — The Number of its Victims — The Edict of Nantes — The

Profligacy of the Kings of France — Death of Louis the Fourteenth....3i3 xii Contents.

CHAPTER XV.

STATESMEN AND POLITICAL ECONOMISTS.

f^

KETCHES of Washington — Livingston — Morris — Hamilton — Sedgwick — Ames — Wollcott — Burr — Adams — Jefferson — "Opinions of the Economists — Potter — More — Smith — Malthus — Say — Paiey 337

CHAPTER XVI.

SOCIAL AND MORAL INNOVATORS.

/|\' PINIONS of Volney — Franklin — Fenelon — Carey— Fourier — Har» Jsf) riet Martineau — Joseph Kay — Dr. Price — Jacques Turgot — Fortes-

que — William Godwin — John Wesley 361

CHAPTER XVn.

REASONS FOR REFORMS.

jKr. PALEY on Society — A Presidential Candidate's Home — Cost of J^ Intemperance — The Fool's Pence — Theory of Governments — What

we Pay for Being Governed — John Adams on the Constitutions.... 38 5

CHAPTER XVIII.

Conclusion

r/A7 WASHINGTON letter — The Pacific Railroad a Means of acquirl\ ing Territory without War — How the King of Prussia obtained Revenue from a Canal — General Dearborn's Testimony on Merchants..409

NOTE.

AGE twenty-four, line nineteen, and page two-hundred and ninety, line y two, the writer quotes from memory. The proper books can not at this time be obtained.

CHAPTER I.

REFORMS ARE NECESSARY.

Human Society is Full of Misery—There is a Complete Remedy— The Hours of Toil can be Shortened— Opinions of Good Men.

** The history of the past is to enlighten men.'*— Swift.

HE minds of the good and benevolent are continually pained by the sight of human sorrow, caused by want. This comes from man's ignorance ; from one man oppressing another, and blinding his reason. The Creator of the Universe has done his part well ; nothing is lacking to complete man's happiness. If a poor man spends his time sculpturing a stone, and Calls it Apollo or Diana, h.e will vv^ant bread. If the man parts with his statue, some one else suffers want. The peasant of Ireland, for the use of the soil, which ought to be his own, is compelled to give three-fourths of his food to another. If the landlord gives this food to painters and sculptors, their concentrated labor is at the expense of the peasant's comforts. How abject and mean are the inhabitants of Bavaria. Its ruler is guilty of the madness of impoverishing his subjects. He has built two large and costly temples, of the finest style of architecture. These temples are filled with paintings and statuary. The Bavarians are poor; if the labor on these temples, statues, and paintings had been put on the homes of the Bavarians, they would be happv. ''The introduction of the fine arts into America may be regarded as a national calamity."*

Men work on luxuries, and want necessaries. Men work on stone carvings for a mansion front, and go to a home destitute of comfort, or even ornament. f Nature designed that men should work more for themselves and less for others. The poverty of many of the Americans arises from keeping many doing nothing. Their Legislators, in trying to put down evil, do a great deal of wrong \ while doing it they consume large quantites of labor.

If the laborers lived in the palaces they build and adorn, it would be more rational. History is silent how those who built the Pyramids Hved ; their labor made them wretched: much of modern labor does the same. We need earnesthearted men to turn labor into other channels. It is the duty of the good to do something for those who suffer. These cases call for a reform.

The "Methodist Book Concern" has a book called ''Aunt EiSe." Her husband was killed while making a fi.ne cornice ; the scaffold fell. Her nice home passed away. At No. 6 Court street she put out this sign : "Washing done

"^Brissot De Warville's Travels in North America, in 1787.

•j- The writer knows a good, temperate, marble cutter, who sleeps in an alley. Others work on tombstones worth forty thousand dollars, they have no homes. These men do themselves and society an injustice. It is a wrong.

here :" none came to give her work, and she was reduced to her last crust. After trying to beg she returned to her home — to die ! Her thoughts were that she would fill a pauper's grave. She was thirty-six hours without food. Some benevolent ladies, at last, found her out, when ready to faint with hunger.

Near Louisville two women lived in a hollow tree ; their bed was corn shucks, which they sold in the market ; they did washing. They were found by a hunter, who saw their tracks in the snow. The Cincinnati Commercial tells us of Stewart, the New York merchant, living in a mansion worth $2,000,000, and of news boys sleeping in boxes and barrels. It also tells us of a steam plow, that plowed in England four hundred acres of land. Another paragraph, by way of contrast, tells us of a dozen persons found frozen in the streets of London ; besides those who were frozen in their dens.

Monarchy and Republicanism are the same. They both divide into two classes ; one to create labor, the other to destroy ; into rich idlers and poor workers, one part possessing all, the other nothing. A life of toil and labor is binding on us all ; from it there is no escape. If a man escapes toil, it is at the expense of some one else. When a man will not work, he does an injustice to those who will work. It is the duty of those who work to throw off this burden.

There have in every age and clime of the world, appeared men who could see clearly into the social ills of life. The ancient philosophers, as soon as symbolical writing had passed away, and letters were used, then taught that agriculture and pastoral pursuits, were for the happiness of men. Among the greatest who have tried to banish poverty, is Jesus. He would not allow his followers to possess riches. His command was sell all that thou hast, and give

The Laborer; i, ,„ ,h= poor. Excessive riches are made by speculation. Man will buy a piece of ground, suitable for a home, for ^oo'and sell it'forVo. Does not th.s seller do an m,u. Le to the buyer, If the seller ma es -7 -h^-^ he lives without laboring. He is guilty oi command, "Thou shalt not covet or desire other mens 7oZ" Jesus saw that riches gave birth to idleness, and Sat hey mpoverished the industrious and increased their oU . Even'paul said "If any man will not work neither sh he eat." He was a true reformer, and a rule for u In For three centuries the early Christians despised riches and lived together doing good.

St. Basil, who died A.D. 378, percemng that many Christians were in trouble from the wars, advised hem ^ unite in colleges. He taught them that the Scriptural o Trines led to the reformation of life, and -n ha som - thin, to practice. St. Basil had seen religious societies in ETypt He built a house large enough tor his friends, foTha're his retirement. The place had near it a^iver that rolled over a rock, and it was full of fisn, the woods contan d deer and wild goats. They were constantly employed at such labors, as gave them occupation wihout aZetl Those arts were preferred which combined cheapness and simphcity, not requiring costly --- ^' ^ Jisterina to vanity. Their pursuits were building, weaving, and shoe making. Others attended the flocks and soil Their house was'a school for orphans, whom they clothed and fed. Pious people have not always hved this natural life _a life of labor and self denial.

The followers of John Huss became Moravians Tunkers and Mennonists. Count Zinzendorf helped the Moravians to lands, which they worked with i^ngenu.ty indusy and economy. The Tankers and Mennonists were

A Remedy for his Wrongs. c

sects of Christians, who settled in Pennsylvania last century, having sprung from the Hussites; their principles were not to go to law, fight, or take interest for the loan of their money. They subsisted by attending lands, flour, oil, and paper mills, and other useful pursuits.

John Wesley paid a visit to Hernhutt, and Count Zinzendorf set him to work in his garden.* He did not like this, though he inculcated a Hfe of plainness to his followers, and forbid ornaments in dress, houses, or equipages. His mind saw that luxury deprived some of the comforts of hfe. It may not appear very clear to some, as it does to Christians, how luxury is productive of evil ; take this example: three girls in England each worked sixteen weeks on a scarf, for Queen Victoria ; it was flowers worked on thin cloth with a needle. These girls ought to have been making flannels and stockings for themselves. There is no difficulty in proving, that those who do this work are poor. The pay of these girls was taken from others, by taxation. Nature designed that queens and ladies should make their own scarfs.

Archbishop Fenelon, in his Telemachus, plainly shews the causes of human misery, and the virtues of useful industry. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, where he describes the happy islanders, gives us plain, good advice, and how useful labors make men happy. The satires of these men on human society are very keen.

Lord Bolingbroke, in the time of Queen Anne, said, if every man would work one year, it would maintain him twenty years. Franklin tells us " If every one would labor four hours a day, at something useful, poverty and want would be unknown." Robert Owen spun the first bale of

* Chambers' Miscellany— The Moravians.

Sea Island cotton that was sent to England, into thread of very fine, even^ and smooth texture. His earnings at nineteen were three thousand dollars a year. At twenty seven he purchased a factory worth $400,000. He saw a boy of sixteen years in chains, to be sent to a penal colony for his faults. This scene led Owen to reflect that, if other circumstances had been thrown around this boy, he would have been a better member of society. It led him to devote his wealth to improve his fellow-men. His workmen rented his cottages at the lowest price. He got for them the necessaries of life at first cost ; and distributed them for the same. He introduced infant schools among the working people.

Robert Dale Owen says, in his writings: "My father had access to documents that others had not. His extensive experience as a manufacturer convinced him that England's labor-saving machinery, was equal to 400,000,000 of working men. Nineteen-twentieths of this power has been created in the last century. In the making of cotton goods, 3,000,000 of persons do the labor of 36,000,000. The labor-saving machinery of Great Britain, is the same as if every workman had forty slaves working for him, from morn to night without food or clothing. One-fortieth part of the present wealth of England, formerly aiforded her population subsistence and comfort. A great number of these laborers, have not at this moment sufficient to subsist on in comfort. Great Britain has learned to produce wealth, and she does produce it most abundantly ; but she has not learned to distribute it, to help her present distress. Now it is self-evident that if every person produced for himself every article of wealth that he required, no possible injustice could happen in its distribution; for each producer would retain and consume his own produce. It is also evident that if such a state of things could exist, labor-saving machinery must necessarily increase man's comforts, or diminish the hours of labor; for instance, if a man's powers of production increased forty-fold, and he was still content with the same quantity of wealth that satisfied his wants before the increase, he would only have to labor eighteen minutes a day instead of twelve hours, or he ought to have forty times as much wealth. '^

Lord Brougham has, in his writings on the nature of labor-saving machinery, declared : " That after the most careful investigation of the subject in England, with its present advantages in labor-saving machinery, but twenty minutes daily toil, by each individual would be required to furnish all with abundance. "

Richard Cobden, in his political writings, says: "The effects of labor-saving machinery must ultimately reduce the hours of labor, as it already has mitigated its severity. The work of day will be crowded into a smaller space, so soon as our good people can learn that gold is not the highest good, and that man is something better than a beast of burden. We shall throw off the shackles which now make our callings our masters, and which reduce our hfe to one long unmitigated bondage to work. There is abundant evidence of approaching emancipation to the tillers of the soil, the artisan and operative."

If human labor is so productive, why are the feelings of good men pained, "with every day's report, of wrongs and outrages." These have appeared. "William Feidler, who killed himself in St. Louis, on account of poverty, and lack of employment, was the son of a wealthy merchant in Leipsic, Saxony."* "Last December, a mother and two

■^Cincinnati Com. of Jan. 9th, 1868.

g The Laborer;

children perished with severe cold."* The same night in Brooklyn, John Durant died with cold and hunger On the first of Jan. 1866, a man died with hunger m Chicago, where there is food enough to support a provmce, and men often get smothered in wheat. Many will say intemperance causes much of this; it is not the cause of all the misery, which may be inferred from these two cases. A girl, of the name of Cooley, came to Covington from the country to work; and failed to get it. She was soon without money to get a night's lodging. After wandering abou in a state of mind bordering on to distraction, the poor girl went on the Main Street ferry boat, and asked if the water was deep enough to drown. Upon being answered that it was, and before any one was aware, she jumped over board. The swift current swept her down the stream, bhe was saved and cared for.f Mary Wheeler was found sleeping out of doors. She was a woman of about fifty years, poorly clothed, but respectable in appearance, with a countenance indicative of honesty, and pinched with want. She said she had no home, no place to sleep, nothing to eat. She was alone in the world and friendless. A paralytic stroke had deprived her of the use of her right arm. The husband of this woman, twenty-five years ago, was one ot the wealthiest in Chicago. He was a sober and industrious builder, and the father of an interesting family, and the owner of ten acres of land, on the north side of Kenzie

Street. , • j •

The husband was drowned, the widow married again. In a few years she was deserted and robbed of her possessions. Her family died, except a daughter, who married unfortunately, and cannot give her mother a home. 1 he

^Clncmnati Times, Dec. ,865. t Cincmnati.Times of July, 1866.

poor, friendless, homeless and heart-broken woman is left to depend on public charity. — Times. '^

At the present time [winter of 1868] 50,000 mechanics are out of employment in the city of New York. If these persons go to work at toy-making, street-cleaning, and sewer-building their wants are reheved at some others' expense. Franklin says : " If the wom^en will go behind the counter, and the men go to the workshop and the plow, the hardness of the times will cease."

Sir Morton Peto, in his Resources of America, says: " The annual value of the products of the farmers and mechanics are $2,000,000,000. And when the great Pacific Railroad is completed, the amount of gold added to the country will be yearly $150,000,000." If this amount is divided into the products of labor the product will be thirteen. These gold seekers destroy a thirteenth of the hats, shoes, clothes, and houses that are created. The man who earns a $1,000 in a year contributes $75 to the support of the gold seekers. The meaning of this language is this, the labor that is spent seeking for gold, would, in ten years' give every ten persons a home worth $500. We should think it a great hardship if a conqueror was to come and carry away annually one-thirteenth of our labor. The gold finders do this. We can not see the injury they do us.

If the laborer would relieve himself of care and anxiety, he must believe and act in a different manner from what he does. Human society may be likened to a column, the base is the farmers and mechanics, who have resting on them lawyers, doctors^ soldiers, custom-house officers, merchants, bankers, landlords, and those who govern us. These get two-thirds of the laborer's toil. Many of these can be dispensed with. These classes have arisen through the corruptions of ages, and were necessary to eat up the subsistence of the people — to make them poor. This poverty quickens the inventions of men. It is necessary. It was poverty that made Watt improve the steam-engine and Arkwright invent spinning machinery. Mankind, some time or other, will have a sufficiency of machinery and these unproductive classes will be swept away.

Says Bishop Clark : ^' In how many homes does poverty, care-consuming, pinching poverty — make its permanent abode ! Daily toil scarcely suffices to provide for daily wants. The humblest and coarsest fare is all that is craved, and t*hat, alas ! is often craved in vain. How often does the very image of poverty, thinly clad, shivering in the winter's cold, with hasty step and averted eye, ghde past us upon all our streets! Go to the desolate, cheerless home of want; mark its nakedness of all that is essential to hom.e comfort ; think how hard these parents toil, and how little they earn ; how much these children need, and how little they have. And as you stand there, amid that scene of poverty and want, as you feel the pressure of their necessities, and your heart yearns towards them, ask thyself who hath made us to differ."

How painful is this description of sorrow. Many of these were once in affluence; childhood to them was full of toys, sunshine and flowers ; they entered the learned professions and became briefless lawyers, doctors without patients, and ministers with thread-bare coats. Many of these did not think with Douglas Jerrold, that "The dignity of human life consisted in knowing how to handle a spade, and if we cultivate mother earth it will never cheat us, and we need not tell thumping hes, as they do on 'Change."

A young man in Indiana, said : He had cultivated sixty acres of corn, with machinery, and that he had 2,700 bushels of corn. One bushel of corn fattens twelve pounds

A Remedy for his Wrongs. ii

of pork. This farmer raised also 500 bushels of wheat. This quantity lasts eighty years, allowing soldiers'rations. One bushel of wheat makes fifty pounds of flour. A pound of flour is a soldier's daily ration, with three-fourths of a pound of pork. The farmer had six barrels of molasses. This is the calculation:

60 acresX4.S bu.==2j700 bu. of corn.

500 bu. of wheatXSO lbs.^=:25,ooo lbs. of flour.

32,400 lbs,-^273 lbs. =119 years, time to consume the pork.

25,000 lbs. of flour-i-365 days:=:6o years, time to consume the floUT.

ii9-f-6o-=-2=89 years, the average time to consume this food.

This is a paper demonstration and not very easily proved. This one is : A city laborer earns $500 in a year, working ten hours a day; he spends out of this sum $100 for tobacco, drinks and trifles ; and $100 for house rent. By cutting off the trifles, in five years, this laborer will have saved sufficient for a country home, with a large garden. This laborer can now live with six hours labor in a day. Much of the laborer's earnings go to the market for vegetables, bacon, butter, eggs, and fruit. A country home cuts off all this expense. This fife will reduce the hours of toil to four. In the days of Franklin there was a large commons, for the use of all ; where cattle and hogs could graze. De Warville tells us in 1787 : "The people on the banks of the Ohio did not labor more than two hours in a day." The people were not divided into hair-dressers, boot-blacks, cigar-makers, and milliners. There were no merchants to take away the food, and bring bacJc silks and satins, silver and gold. The clothing of this period was home-spun and durable^ not shoddy, which is old, filthy, woollen rags, ground into dust, one-third of which is mixed with long wool. This cloth is soon worn out.

• There is nothing that makes the laborer so sick at heart, ■ as being repulsed when begging work; and living in fear of

being turned away for one who can w^ork faster. There is misery among the higher classes. Many a father has

• spent his money^ to put his son among the learned, or trading classes and failed. It often happens that he who was raised in affluence, descends to the lowest walks of human life ; to be the drudge of others ; to spend a life in wretchedness, penury, and want. There is a remedy.

Men are misled by writers on Political Science. This is an extract from M. Say, a Frenchman, whose book was used in American colleges for many years : " What is necessary subsistence, depends, therefore, partly on the habits of the nation, to which the laborer belongs. In proportion to the value he consumes his wages may be small, and the product of his labor cheap. If his condition be improved, and his wages raised, either his product becomes dearer to the consumer, or the share of his fellow-producers is diminished. The disadvantages of their position are an effectual barrier against any great extension of the consumption of the laboring classes. Humanity^ indeed^ would rejoice to see them and their families dressed in warm clothing suitable to the climate and season ; with houses roomy ^ warm^ airy^ in healthy situations^ and fed with wholesome and plentiful diet^ with an occasional delicacy . But there are few countries where wants, apparently so moderate, are not considered beyond the limits of strict necessity, and therefore not to be gratified by the customary wages of the working classes."

The books of Wayland and Say have been the text books of the American Colleges for nearly half a century, and they have never given the laborer a champion. These books have not prevented want which is constantly growing in our large cities. Political Economists do not favor the humble classes -, Mills and Carey are exceptions. From their teachings, and the practices of governments, come many of the inequalities of Hfe. Their teachings are of the same nature as Dame Lobkins' advice to Paul Clifford, a stealer in one of Bulwer's novels ; w^hich reads thus :

'' Mind thy kittychism, child, and reverence old age. Never steal, ^specially w^hen any body be in the w^ay. Never go snacks vi^ith them as be older than you, — 'cause why ? The older a cove be, the more he cares for hisself, and less for his partner. Read your Bible, and talk like a pious 'un. People goes more by your w^ords, than your actions. If you wants what is not your own, try and do without it ; and, if you can^t do without it, take it by insinivation, not bluster. ^Cause they as only swindles, does more and risks less than those who rob outright . Now go and play \ but here, take some money in your pocket, and don't play for nothing ; it's loss of time ; but mind, always play with them as be less than yourself, and then, if they says you go for to cheat, you go for to beat 'em."

In the city of New York, there is one person worth $60,000,000. A laborer would have to toil 120,000 years to get this amount, at the rate of $500 a year. A person to count this at the rate of $20,000 a day will be six years doing it. The annual income of this person is $6,000,000. A sum equal to the average yearly earnings of 10,000 mechanics. This yearly income will purchase 5,000,000 of acres of wild lands. This will make a province eighty miles square ; and capable of supporting 1,500,000 persons, whose offspring can support twenty families in splendor for ages to come. For this man of wealth, seas must be crossed, dangers endured ; the whole world must be ransacked, for costly food and clothing. Dozens of cringing idle servants wait to do his bidding, and spend more time to prepare and ornament his food, than it does the farmer to create it. Often this man of money has no appetite, his food, which ought to nourish useful laborers, is often wasted. From his mansion comes the sounds of revelry and mirth, which mingles with the plaintive cry of the newsboy, whose voice may be heard sixteen hours in a day, his appetite is sharp, and he has often no food ; then his gnawing stomach — tells him to steal ! This needs reform.

In the city of New York lOO persons possess $200,000, 000 ; this would give to every five persons in that city a home worth $1,000. Three-fourths of its people have no homes. Such a state of things makes these scenes. This is told by Solon Robinson, how a widow and four children lived on a dime a day. She got two cents' worth of coke, three cents' worth of salt pork, four cents' worth of white beans, and one cent's worth of corn-meal. This was boiled two hours ; the soup was divided into three parts for the day. The next day's food was four cents' worth of oatmeal, one cents' worth of potatoes, and same amount of pork. The next day's food was five cents' worth of beef, with meal and potatoes. This woman could only make two pair of drawers in a day, at five cents a pair. She could not beg. This is taken from '^Economy of Food."