History of the Middle and Working Classes: With a Popular Expositon of the Economical and Political Principles which Have Influenced the Past and Present Condition of the Industrious Orders

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E. Wilson, 1833 - Great Britain - 604 pages
 

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Page 111 - Labour was the first price, the original purchasemoney that was paid for all things." When all things lay in common, alike the gift of nature to all men, who would have the best right to say, This it mine ? The man who first set his mark upon
Page 83 - a number of children, a matter of right and an honour, instead of a ground for opprobrium and contempt. This will make a large family a blessing and not a curse ; and this will draw a proper line of distinction between those who are able to provide for themselves by their labour, and those who, after having
Page 349 - such persons, married or unmarried, having no means to maintain them, and using no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by; and for the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind, and such other among them being poor and not able to work." The duties of parish officers clearly appear, then, to have been restricted to the three following specific objects: 1.
Page 64 - of enlisting men for the army. He considers the improvidence of the poor a principal cause of their wretchedness. « We are," says this shrewd observer, " the most lazy diligent nation in the world: there is nothing more frequent, than for an Englishman to work till he has got his pocket full of money,
Page 100 - stated, that the object of the association is strictly limited to " the imparting useful information to all classes of the community, particularly to such as are unable to avail themselves of experienced teachers, or may prefer learning by themselves." The plan proposed for the attainment of this end is, the periodical publication, under the sanction of a
Page 92 - them of a master-wheelwright, the latter trade having been followed in England before the 5th of Elizabeth. But a wheelwright, though he had never served an apprenticeship to a coachmaker, might either make himself, or employ journeymen to make coaches, the trade of a coachmaker not being within the statute because not exercised
Page 477 - one would have any production which he could call his own, and which he would be entitled to exchange for the production of another man. We should thus be deprived of one of the chief advantages of civilized life. When a man is from necessity his own tailor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook, huntsman,
Page 569 - DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND MORALS OF THE MANUFACTURING POPULATION. "The population," says Dr. Kay, " employed in the cotton factories, rises at five o'clock in the morning, works in the mills from six till eight o'clock, and returns home for half an hour or forty minutes to breakfast. This meal generally consists of
Page 41 - one year commonly wherein 300 or 400 of them were not devoured and eaten up by the gallows in one place and other." In spite of these sanguinary punishments the country continued in a dreadful state of disorder. Every
Page 171 - or silver shoe-buckle, may be a cause of increased industry in the manufacturer and agriculturist, by the desire he excites in them to possess these articles. " A watch," Dr. Paley observes, " may be a very unnecessary appendage to the dress of a peasant; yet, if the peasant will till the ground to obtain a watch, the true design of

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