In my father’s case, the tendency in his children to make themselves acquainted with animal existence, under all its various forms, was made the groundwork of many a grave discourse, in which he tried to lift our hearts “from nature up to nature’s God.” He was a man who believed devoutly that nothing had been made in vain; that the smallest insect, as well as the vilest reptile, had its use in the great creation; and that all, as the works of God, were not only excellent in themselves, but entitled to kindness and consideration from man. His careful investigation of facts, tending to establish this his favourite theory, often pressed into his service so many members of the family, that a general interest was excited in obtaining an amount of useful knowledge, which he devoted to the cause of science. I remember, especially, his habitual leaning in favour of rooks, of which we had a swarming colony around the house. My father maintained that these birds were of great service to the farmers in clearing their land, not only of worms, but of a more destructive kind of grub very detrimental in the corn-fields. The amount of these which a rook would carry home to its young ones in a single day was the point to be ascertained, and a man was stationed to begin his watch with the first light of morning. He directed his attention to one particular nest, counted the number of flights made by the two parent birds, and on the following day one of them was shot on its way home, for the purpose of ascertaining the number of grubs conveyed to the nest at one flight. The result was enormous, exceeding my father’s expectations. I have forgotten the exact amount, but I know that from that time his zeal was redoubled in publishing and making known amongst his friends and neighbours the debt of gratitude which they owed to their friends of the rook species.
A DEATH-WATCH WORTH DREADING.
When King George III. and all his people were expecting an invasion in 1803, there was some anxiety as to the number of citizens who could be collected to repel the enemy. There had been a census two years before; and if it could be trusted (which was perhaps not the case) the number of people of both sexes and all ages in England and Wales was 9,000,000. In these 9,000,000 were included our soldiers and sailors who were dispersed about the world: and thus the King and Mr. Pitt were naturally anxious about the paucity of men. They were unwilling to withdraw the husbandmen from the field; for we then depended for our very existence on the food we ourselves grew. The King’s passion was for agriculture; yet, if he had had his choice of a crop, he would have begged for the mythical old harvest that we have all read of at school—armed men springing from the furrows. He considered that the greatest of national blessings would be the birth of the greatest number of boys. He was not out of humour with the girls either; for he looked upon them as the mothers of more boys. His leading political idea was the encouragement of the greatest possible increase of citizens. He noticed every large family he saw in his walks, patted the children on the head, made a present to the mother, and called the father a good citizen. The royal example spread among the authorities throughout the kingdom. Country justices patted children on the head, and ordered bread for them out of the poor-rate to such an extent that the poor-rate soon amounted, in this population of 9,000,000, to the enormous sum of 4,000,000l. Wheat was then at 115s. 11d. a quarter. The trading classes were going to ruin, or had already fallen upon the rates. No matter! Substitutes for the militia were so hard to be found that the parents of large families must be upheld and favoured; and if tradesmen could not support their own large families, the rate would give them bread.
When the war was over, and the soldiers and sailors came home, and food was dear, and the labour-market was over-stocked, and every town and village swarmed with pauper children (legitimate and illegitimate), and the rate swallowed up more and more of the capital of the country, the fact became plain that the people had outgrown the means of subsistence. An alarm even more demoralising than King George’s desire for a host of subjects now arose. Children were looked upon unlovingly, because too many of their parents were not married, or had married to obtain the benefits offered by the poor-law to unscrupulous people. Then arose a multitude of prudential schemes for economising money, and clubbing money, and insuring lives; and at last—insuring deaths.
It was even so. A person of middle age might describe the contrast he had himself witnessed between the days when a row of children presented themselves to the King, pulling their fore-locks or bobbing their curtseys, sure of being praised for their mere existence, and therefore objects of parental pride and hope, and the time when (not so many years after) it was an unconcealed relief to poor parents that their children should die. That was the opening season of tract-distributing and cottage-visitation under the early “evangelical” movement; and this modified the cottage language of the generation on which it was first tried; so that the account given of the death of children was, that “it was a happy thing—for the Lord would provide better for them.” Nothing was more common than this method of consolation, or of accounting for not needing consolation.
It began to be too well understood that, up to a certain age, children are an expense, after which they gradually turn into a source of profit. Facts of this sort, which must be considered in framing a legal charity, became only too well understood in the homes of the poor. By dying, the infant relieved the weekly fund of the family, and was itself “better provided for with the Lord.” I will not dwell on this phase of society. It was necessary to advert to it because we are suffering under the consequences to this hour, and have some remains of the perversion to deal with still; but I will hasten on to a time when trade in food had become free, and all the arts and business of life had so increased, and so much gold had been