-.,*^ r/,^i^'»-\# -: 
 
 •S 
 
 <f. 
 
 
 
 .^°-- '. »j 
 
 
 
 
 0^ .^-^ V. 
 
 0^ . 
 
 
 ,v- 
 
 
 
 
 ip<V 
 
 
 V- ^ 
 
 
 
 
 # "*. 
 
 
 
 
 .^^ ^ ". 
 
 
 - ^" ^ 
 
 %^^. 
 
 
 
 
 '-% 
 
 0/. '^ \> 
 
 
 „ ^ * , <>-, 
 
 
 .^, ^:^^^A^ 
 
 
 
 ^^0^ 
 
 .^^ 
 
 .. ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 0^ /4;H^V 
 
 :^ 
 
 >^"..o.;V^-\# 
 
 x^^ ^ '^ ^M: ,4^ 
 
 ..^ ,«v,x,# .:,s&\\..^ VM^X..^ .: 
 
 
 ^ tr^'^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 0^ 
 
 .<^°^ 
 
 V 
 
 ^*^ 
 
 O. '/ 
 
 ,^^ ^ 1, 
 
 o. --^ 
 
 Q.. ''.. 
 
 Ho. 
 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 
 ^ . 
 ^ % 
 
 '^t>^'t 
 
 '^.<^' 
 
 o. ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^ ^> 
 
 
 ;^v^ s^ o N 
 
 
 9^. ^'v 
 
 ^'f ^ 
 
 
 .^^ 
 
 

 
 
 s .r^' 
 
 ^^' -^^ '^ 
 
 
 V. -^ 
 
 .<^''^ - 
 
 %^o^ 
 
 .* .<tN^ 
 
 ^ ^^ '. 
 
 * O.V % %% 
 
 n< Q. 
 
 
 
 \^^ ^ 
 
 %<^ 
 
 ^? -^ ■> '©lis « A? -^ 
 
 0^ 
 
 t * fi V 
 
 x^ *' 
 
 
 
 
 'Vo^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 .^^ °^ 
 
 
 > „ ^ • , ^ 
 
 z 
 
 
 >" '^^ 
 
 • ^ A^ *^ 
 
 
 ^ %^J^C^.^' <jv "^ 
 
 f % \^ 
 
 V 
 
 .^^^^ -. 
 
 
 .V 
 
 .'. <.^' 
 
 ,*:l °~<- 
 
 %. 
 
 
 -- ^v 
 
 :^-,s>' 
 
 >^ ^is^'t %^ ^iMs:i "\^ 
 
 
 . q:^ 
 
 \> 
 
 oV ■^^ " *8^^g^ * OV V' ,"* 
 
 '^ ''/T/s^' A*^' <- "/7*s^ A^^ ^ ''/TVT^^ A*^ ^ ''■ 
 
 •:i':% <f^v;,'\\ <?^♦^;'^% c?^,*;^';".% 
 
 ,.4 
 
 
 <^ ^«> 
 
 
 
 C^ 9. 
 
 %,# /^iA^ ^^^..^^ 
 
 s> 
 
 '^^^ 
 
 9x ''/T/s^' A^"^ 
 
 
 '% V*fep//% v^P//"^^ '.^//% -%« 
 
 
 'S^^ ^"^;^:^"^% <^^v;^ ^^;::S^ 
 
 9. ''-^^ vr 
 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STATE 
 
 OF 
 
 FRANCE, PRUSSIA, SWITZERLAND, ITALY, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER PARTS OF EUROPE, 
 IDuring tl)c ^ircscnt dLcnlnx^. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL LAING, ESQ., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "a JOURNAL OF A RESIDENCE IN NORWAY," AND OF "A TOUR IN SWEDEN." 
 FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CAREY AND HART 
 
 1846. 
 
^9'i';' 
 ^«^ 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 K. & P. G. COLLINS, 
 PRINTERS. 
 
JM 
 
 CONTENTS. ^^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Travel-writing. — Holland. — The sublime in Scenery. — The Picturesque in Hol- 
 land. — Garden Houses. — Decay of Holland. — Causes of Decay. — Commercial 
 Decline. — Manufacturing Stability. — Useful Arts. — Fine Arts. — Useful and Fine 
 Arts compared. — Useful and Fine Arts. — The Poor in Holland. — The poor in 
 Manufacturing Towns. — Poor Colonies. — Kingly Power in Holland. — Belgium. 
 Federalism. — Union of the two Countries. — The Federal Principle. — Its work- 
 ing in Switzerland, .....---35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 France. — Face of the Country. — Of England. — Old Subdivision of Land in Eng- 
 land. — Great Social Experiment in France. — Abolition of Primogeniture. — 
 Opinions of Arthur Young — Mr. Birbeck — Edinburgh Reviewers — Dr. Chal- 
 mers, reviewed. — Effects of the Division of Land in France examined. — 
 French Character — Morals — Honesty — Decimal Division of Weights and Mea- 
 sures, why not popular, - - - - - - - -61 
 
 CHAPTER. III. 
 
 Social Economy — Why not treated as a distinct Science. — Aristocracy replaced 
 
 by Functionarism in France — In Germany Interference of Government witli 
 
 Free Agency. — Amount of Functionarism in a French Department — ludre et 
 Loire — Amount in a Scotch County — Shire of Ayr. — Effects of Functionaristn 
 on Industry — On National Character — On Morals — OnCiviland Political Liberty. 
 — Change in the State of Property in Prussia. — Two Antagonist Principles in the 
 Social Economy of Prussia, - - - - - - -'84 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Prussia. — Not constituting one Nation. — Prussian Policy in this Century. — Attempt 
 to form National Character. — Why not successful.:^— Military organization of 
 Prussia. — Liability to Military Service of all Prussians. — Service in the Line. — 
 In the Army of Reserve. — First Division. — Second. — Effects of the System on 
 the Political Balance of Europe. — Its Advantages. — Its Disadvantages compared 
 to a Standing Army. — Its great Pressure on Time and Industry. — Its inferiority 
 as a Military Force. — Amount of Military Force of Prussia. — Defect in the 
 Continental Armies. — Non-commissioned Officers. — Men. — Too delicately bred 
 in the Prussian Army. — Longevity of Officers. — The probable Issue of a War 
 between Prussia and France. — Policy of England if such a war arise, - lOS 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The German Customs' Union or Commercial League. — Its Origin — Objects — Politi- 
 cal Bearings — And probable Eflects, ----.. 133 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Notes on the Prussian Educational System. — Its Effects on the Moral Condition 
 of the People, -.--..--- 170 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Notes on the Educational System of Prussia continued. — On its Effects on the 
 Religious Condition of the People. — On the Prussian Church, - - - 180 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Notes on the Prussian Educational System continued. — Its Eflects on the Social 
 and Moral Condition and Character of the People, .... 212 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Disjointed State of Prussia as one National Body. — Different Laws and Administra- 
 tions. — Functionarism. — Aristocracy and Functionarism compared, - - 228 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Berlin. — Management of the Poor in Berlin. — Details concerning the Manage- 
 ment of the Poor, - - - - - - , - 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Leipsic. — Book-trade — Its Effects on the Literature — On the Character — On the 
 Social Economy of the Germans. — The German Theatre — its Influence. — The 
 Educational Influences in Society. — The Scotch and the Germans compared, 253 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Notes on the Corn Law Question — Abroad and at Home, . _ . 266 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Notes on the Rhine. — Switzerland. — Swiss Character. — Church of Geneva. — 
 Swiss Scenery, -----.-.. 229 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 Notes on Switzerland. — Montreus. — Checks on Over-Population. — Swiss Dairy. — 
 Agriculture. — Social Condition, ------- 315 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 Lyons. — On its Manufacturing System. — Notes on Avignon. — French Barracks. — 
 Cookery — Its Effects on National Wealth, - . . - . 334 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Notes on Genoa. — Poor of Genoa — Causes of the Decline of Genoa, - - 344 
 
 CHAPTER SXll. 
 
 Notes on Naples — Scenery. — Vesuvius. — Pompeii. — Neapolitan People — Causes 
 of their low Condition, - - - - - - - -351 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Travelling in Italy. — ^Vetturini. — Capua. — Terracina. — Pontine Marshes. — Ma- 
 remma. — The Approach to Rome. — Coliseum, - - . . 364 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Notes on St. Peter's. — On Rome. — Population. — Position. — Causes of the Rise of 
 Rome. — Origin of Rights of Property. — Civilization of Ancient Rome, - 377 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Pope's Benediction. — Vatican Library. — Tomb of Clement XIII. — Horses of 
 Monte Cavallo. — Ancient and Modern Sculpture, - - . - 3S8 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Church of Rome. — Catholicism and Protestantism, ... - 394 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 The Olive Tree — Its Effects in Social Economy. — Maize. — Potatoes. — Florence. 
 — Division of Land in Tuscany. — State of the People. — State of the Continental 
 and English People compared, ------- 415 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Florence to Bologna. — Notes on Venice, _ - . . . 422 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The Brenta. — Italian Towns. — Way of Living of the Lower Classes. — Difference 
 between tlie Italian and English Populations. — Causes of the Difference. — 
 Reproductive and Unreproductive Expenditure, - - - - 431 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Milan. — Como. — Austrian Government. — Notes on Lago Maggiore. — Isola Bella. 
 — The Alps. — On the Social State of France, Prussia, Itafy. - - - 443 
 
P E E F A C E 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 The present generation stands in a very remarkable historical 
 epoch — at the close of an old state of things in the political and 
 social economy of Europe, and at the rise and formation of a new. 
 Old laws and institutions, the old distribution of property, privi- 
 lege, and power, no longer rest upon the old basis in any part of 
 Europe, are no longer supported by the universal conformity and 
 implicit faith and acceptance of society. Where they still survive 
 the storm of the French Revolution, they hold but a lingering 
 existence, for the roots in the human mind which supported them 
 are shaken. An aristocracy founded upon property, birth, educa- 
 tion, respect of the people, and honour, exists in all its ancient 
 integrity in England only. On the continent, even where the 
 principle of aristocracy is not abolished by an alteration in the 
 feudal law of succession, it is abolished by the precedence given 
 to government employment, civil and military, over all other dis- 
 tinctions, and by the general diffusion among people in no way 
 belonging to the class of nobility, of personal wealth, social influ- 
 ence, high education, refinement of manners, and all that formerly 
 separated aristocracy from the other elements of the social body. 
 None can claim pre-eminence from possessing what is common to 
 all above the lowest ranks of the community. This natural and 
 unavoidable advance of society it is foolish to lament over, and 
 impossible to retard. It is a result which is working itself out in 
 Europe, even under the governments the most anxious to retain 
 a highly privileged nobility around the throne as its surest support. 
 In Austria, in Russia, in Denmark, in Sweden, in all the countries 
 2 
 
10 PREFACE. 
 
 beyond the direct shock of the French revolutionary spirit, we 
 see, without revolution, an avowed change in the governments, 
 or principles of their social economy, a change and revolution in 
 the state and spirit of society, a diminution of the social influence 
 of the aristocratic element in it, as great as in France itself, or in 
 Prussia. This transition-state of society over all the continent is 
 not yet ripe for the historian ; but the traveler may give some 
 knowledge of its various phases in different countries ; and the 
 public mind, seldom wrong in its instinct for providing for its in- 
 tellectual, any more than for its physical wants, instinctively feels 
 that the events of the French Revolution, and all the results that 
 issued from it, are now but in the act of completing themselves 
 by their effects on society ; that chronicle, not history, is all that 
 man, not gifted with prescience, can as yet venture to write con- 
 cerning that great moral convulsion ; and it grasps at travels, 
 tours, statistical reports, and observations on the social state of 
 foreign lauds, leaving the historian to sing his song to future gene- 
 rations, about events of which the consequences are still in the 
 womb of time. To this craving of the public mind for information 
 regarding the present social and political state of the people of the 
 continent, not to any merit of his own, the author ascribes the 
 rapid sale of the first editions of this work and of his two preceding 
 publications, " A Journal of a Residence in Norway" and a <'Tour 
 in Sweden." They are the first and second parts of the same 
 attempt to give the English public just views of the political and 
 social economy of the other European people. In justice to the 
 public, which has placed confidence in his statements and conclu- 
 sions concerning the social, moral, and political condition of the 
 countries of which he has written, the author considers himself 
 bound to vindicate his good faith, justice, and accuracy in each of 
 the three volumes in which he has prosecuted his general plan, 
 however high the quarters from which they have been attacked. 
 He republishes, therefore, in this preface, his reply to a pamphlet 
 of the representative of the King of Sweden at tlie British court, 
 in which the fidelity of his statements and the justice of his con- 
 clusions are impugned. Kings and ambassadors are but ordinary 
 men, and sometimes less than ordinary men, on the arena of litera- 
 ture. The reading public of this country cannot be hoodwinked 
 by authority or official pretension ; and the humblest writer has but 
 to state his data, and conclusions fairly and fully, to demolish all 
 
PREFACE. 11 
 
 attempts to impose upon or mislead its judgment. The author 
 seizes this opportunity of doing so, because this Reply to his Ex- 
 cellency Count Biornstierna's pamphlet develops his statements 
 and conclusions on the subjects discussed in his volumes on Swe- 
 den and Norway with considerable detail; and because it appeared 
 only in a periodical publication (the Monthly Chronicle) of very 
 small circulation, and now out of print. 
 
 In 1836 Mr. Laing published " A Journal of a Residence in 
 Norway," and, in 1838, "A Tour in Sweden." These works 
 were much read. The views they gave of the physical and moral 
 state, and comparative v/ell-being, of two nations living in the 
 Scandinavian peninsula, under totally distinct social systems, were 
 considered very curious and interesting. They directed the atten- 
 tion of political philosophers to singular results developed in Nor- 
 way upon the multiplication, well-being, and morality of its isolated 
 population, by the great diffusion of property and of legislative 
 power, and by the perfect political equality of all classes in the 
 social body ; and to equally singular results in Sweden, arising 
 frpm a social structure altogether the reverse of the Norwegian. 
 Trifling as these works were as literary productions, they awak- 
 ened the public mind in Europe to the unprincipled attempts of 
 the Swedish cabinet to subvert the liberal constitution of Norway, 
 although virtually guaranteed to the Norwegian nation by England 
 and the other allied powers, and formally accepted and sworn to 
 by the Swedish monarch himself; and they had the effect of 
 raising around the Norwegian constitution the impregnable bar- 
 rier of the European public opinion, which the Swedish monarch 
 and his cabinet are forced to respect. When the last of these two 
 works appeared, a semi-official notice was given in the govern- 
 ment newspaper of Stockholm, that a refutation of the statements 
 and reasonings contained in them would be published— that is, 
 observed the other newspapers, provided they can be refuted. 
 Two years, and much diplomatic wisdom, have been expended 
 in doing into English those Swedish ideas on government and 
 national morality which constitute this official long-promised refu- 
 tation. It has at last dropped unnoticed into the world, in the 
 shape of a two-shilling pamphlet of sixty-five pages, " On the 
 Moral State and Political Union of Sweden and Norway, in 
 answer to Mr. S. Laing's Statements." Two shillings are not 
 much money, yet a pamphlet may be very dear at two shillings. 
 
12 PREFACE, 
 
 But this is a work of the state, an official defence of a nation and 
 its government, of a king, cabinet, and diet, in sixty-five pages, 
 price two shillings. Let us pay that respect to the outward official 
 position of this two shillings' worth of printed paper, which we 
 would deny to its intrinsic merit and value — this is the principle 
 on which the monarchy itself is based in Sweden. 
 
 The statements of Mr. Laing which chiefly interest the public, 
 and which, from the importance of the deductions made from 
 them, the public may reasonably expect to see specially refuted 
 in this pamphlet, are these : — First, his statement that the Nor- 
 wegian constitution works admirably well — that the people of 
 Norway, with their legislation entirely in their own hands, with- 
 out a nobility or privileged class in their legislature, and with the 
 power of the king limited constitutionally to a mere suspensive 
 veto in the enactment of laws, and without any exclusive right 
 to the sole initiative, are prosperous and thriving in a remarkable 
 degree — that they have, by the economical measures of their 
 legislature, paid off their national debt, have reduced their taxes, 
 have, notwithstanding, provided for military, naval, and civil 
 establishments suitable to their just position in the political world ; 
 are removing gradually and judiciously, not precipitately, restric- 
 tions on the freedom of industry and trade inherited from their 
 Danish masters; are allowing no superfluous functionaries, mili- 
 tary, naval, or civil, Swedish or Norwegian, to batten upon the 
 means of the industrious classes, and are evincing the most un- 
 questionable and enlightened loyalty to the monarch to whom 
 they have sworn allegiance, although steadily, firmly, but re- 
 spectfully, exposing and defeating his want of loyalty to the 
 constitution he had sworn to accept and maintain. Now is this 
 statement true or false ? 
 
 This Swedish statesman tells the world that the Norwegian 
 constitution is bad, because Aristotle and Cicero, Bacon and 
 Machiavelli, Montesquieu and Madison, Jeremy Benlham and 
 Sismondi, Tocqueville and Guizot, and himself, are all master- 
 minds, who have declared that "a national representation, formed 
 in one democratical chamber, will fall into frequent mistakes ; 
 will, by its single position against royalty, get into conflict with 
 it, which must either lead to absolutism, or, what is still worse, to 
 anarchy;" and, moreover, this Swedish master-mind tells the 
 world, that the division of the Norwegian representative assembly 
 
PREFACE. 13 
 
 into two chambers is insufficient to take it out of this anathema 
 of great authorities against a single democratic chamber. 
 
 Mr. Laing's reply to all this array of authorities is a simple 
 reference to the facts — contradict them who can — that this Nor- 
 wegian constitution has been in operation now for a quarter of a 
 century, going on smoothly, unless when the royal finger is laid 
 hold of by the Swedish counselors of his majesty, and unad- 
 visedly thrust into the machinery, when it gets an ugly squeeze 
 and is precipitately withdrawn. This practical working of the 
 legislative machine in the Norwegian constitution is held by Mr. 
 Laing to be worth all the master-mind nostrums and theories of 
 speculative philosophers, from Aristotle, Bacon, and Jeremy Ben- 
 tham, down to this pamphleteer. In this constitution there is an 
 effective check upon absolutism, from the legislative body in it 
 having a self-existence independent altogether of the will of the 
 executive power. It is elected and constituted, siio jure, once in 
 three years, without writ or warrant being necessary from the 
 king. It has a check upon anarchy, from the simple principle 
 that no alteration in the constitution can be adopted by the same 
 legislative assembly in which it is proposed. Every alteration 
 must be proposed in one storthing, and taken into consideration, 
 and adopted or rejected, by the next storthing : that is, by a new 
 legislative assembly, after a lapse of three years, during which 
 the proposed alteration has been before the nation at large, and 
 is fully discussed and understood by all. The efficiency of these 
 checks, against absolutism at least, has been pretty well tried in 
 the present reign. Bat, says this Swedish political philosopher, 
 the second or upper chamber of this legislative body, elected out 
 of the mass of representatives, is an abomination in the Norwegian 
 constitution. He tells us that, in the last storthing, the lagthing, or 
 upper chamber, actually consisted of" peasants, non-commissioned 
 officers, parish clerks, provincial vaccinators, and the rest lawyers, 
 and attorneys," instead of counts and barons, with a pennyworth 
 of red ribbon at their button-holes, or of dukes, lords, and bishops. 
 *'And is this," exclaims the Swedish statesman, in aristocratic ire, 
 •'•the chamber Mr Laing presumes to compare with the British 
 house of peers?" Mr. Laing would just presume to whisper in 
 his ear, that as an upper or deliberative chamber in the legisla- 
 ture, as a body of legislators of the same class and with the same 
 interests as the legislatccs, and therefore capable of judging of the 
 
14 PREFACE. 
 
 suitableness of the laws sent up to them from the lower chamber 
 for their consideration, this same upper chamber may well be 
 compared with the British house of peers, or the Swedish house 
 of nobles, and be admitted, too, to be, in the principle of its con- 
 struction, superior to either for legislative purposes, and better 
 constituted for wise legislation. But, says this master-mind of 
 sixty-five pages of foolscap, this upper chamber in the Norwegian 
 storthing has no effective veto upon the measures of the lower 
 chamber, or main body of the national representatives — has no 
 obstructive power in the constitution. Mr. Laing would again 
 whisper in his ear, that this is exactly its merit. It has a suffi- 
 cient suspensive power to prevent hasty enactments, a sufficient 
 deliberative power to examine the bearings and effects of every 
 measure, to amend, to reject, until its own views are again con- 
 sidered in the lower chamber, but has no obstructive power. It 
 cannot, like the British house of peers, or SwedisTi house of nobles, 
 be made the tool of any aristocratic faction to obstruct all useful 
 public measures that clash with the interests of a privileged few. 
 It has, in the legislative machinery, a sufficient suspensive, de- 
 liberative, amending power, but no obstructive power; and the 
 British house of peers ought to have no more. True it is, that 
 this upper chamber of the Norwegian storthing is composed of 
 very ordinary vulgar fellows — just such people, indeed, as those 
 for whom they are acting. Compare them, forsooth, to the cham- 
 ber of nobles in a Swedish diet — a chamber composed, in one 
 diet, since the acquisition of the Norwegian crown by the Swedish 
 monarch, of sixty-seven ensigns and lieutenants, forty-nine cap- 
 tains, one hundred and five colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and 
 majors, thirty-eight chamberlains, twelve presidents or vice-pre- 
 sidents of departments, tv/elve prefects, and twenty in various 
 other court offices— -in all, four hundred and seventy-live govern- 
 ment functionaries, out of a chamber of four hundred and ninety- 
 two members ! Yet, Mr. Laing would quietlj^ask — in a whisper 
 — in which of these two legislative chambers will we find men 
 who betrayed the king to v/hom they had sworn allegiance — 
 who sold the crown of their native race of sovereigns — which, 
 if the sovereign who wore it was incapable or unworthy to reign, 
 should, on every principle, radical or conservative, have ultimately 
 devolved on his infant heir— to a foreigner— and who delivered 
 
PREFACE. 15 
 
 up to the enemy for money the finest provinces of the realm, the 
 strongest fortresses and positions in Europe ? 
 
 But this Norwegian constitution is too democratic in one page 
 of this statesman hke pamphlet, and too little so in the next. He 
 complains that the representative is not elected directly by the 
 people in Norway, but by their election-delegates. It is certainly 
 an evil of this intermediate wheel between the constituency and 
 the representative, that the public takes less interest in the elections 
 than where they appoint their representatives by direct election. 
 This disadvantage of the system of election-men was pointed out 
 by Mr. Laing. He also pointed out its important advantages. 
 It defeats all attempts at bribery, all undue influence over the 
 electors, and is, in reality, the only system, except the vote by 
 ballot, which secures the purity of election. Time alone — that 
 greatest of all political philosophers — can discover whether this 
 system be or be not good. In the peculiar situation of Norway, 
 with a corrupt Swedish aristocracy eager to use all the royal power 
 and patronage for the end of obtaining an influence in the legis- 
 lative body of Norway, and an exclusive management of her 
 atFairs, the system of electing representatives through election- 
 men works admirably. Influence, intimidation, or bribery, cannot 
 get through a double row of electors ; and that of the immediate 
 electors, the election-men, not known, until (hey are assembled to 
 act for their constituents in the election of a suitable representative. 
 No wonder such a system is too much and too little of a demo- 
 cracy to suit the Swedish nobility gaping for posts, and places, and 
 public money, from the executive branch of the joint governments. 
 Mr. Laing replies to all the observations upon the theoretical 
 defects of the Norwegian constitution, with the simple facts — 
 that the people living under it are undeniably in a state of high 
 and progressive prosperity ; their trade, shipping, exports, imports, 
 industry, well-being, and property, rapidly increasing ; while the 
 commerce, shipping, and physical and moral condition of Sweden 
 are notoriously not advancing. That their taxes are reduced — 
 their debt paid olf— their money good in alt countries — their credit 
 excellent ; and, above all, with the fact that the Norwegian people 
 are content with their constitution as it is, while Sweden and Don- 
 mark are both clamorous for a constitution similar to it. How 
 comes it, he asks, that a committee of the Swedish diet, now 
 assembled, recommends a reform of the Swedish constitution, and 
 
16 PREFACE. 
 
 that one single representative assembly be elected without distinc- 
 tion of privileged classes, and that the second or upper chamber 
 be elected out of and by this representative assembly ? This is 
 exactly the principle of the Norwegian constitution ; and this is 
 the substance of the report of the committee of the present diet, 
 appointed to consider the reforms necessary in the constitution of 
 Sweden. Denmark, also, is at this moment in a state of great 
 excitement — the nation almost peremptorily demanding a consti- 
 tution from their new sovereign — a constitution similar to that of 
 their late fellow-subjects. And why? Because, while they are 
 pressed to the earth with taxes, and public expenditure, and a 
 wasteful irresponsible government, they see their former fellow- 
 subjects happy and flourishing. A constitution which those who 
 live under it are contented with, and those who live around it 
 ■envy, and are intent upon obtaining one similar for themselves, 
 may well do without the approbation of the aristocracy of Sweden. 
 But as the prosperity of Norway under its present constitution is 
 not to be denied — is notorious to all Europe— is loudly proclaimed 
 in every sea-port which has relations of trade with that kingdom 
 — our Swedish pamphleteer slyly changes his ground, and insinu- 
 ates, that this undeniable prosperity is not owing at all to the 
 liberal constitution of Norway, to the general difl'usion of property 
 among her people, to the wisdom, intelligence, and Joseph Hume- 
 like economy of her native legislators in expending the public 
 money, but to Sweden ! And why? Because Sweden keeps up 
 a puppet-show of a court, a diplomacy, an army of many officers, 
 a navy, and apes the establishments of a great power without the 
 means to support them. Norway, he says, is spared all this ex- 
 pense of establishments for defence or display as a nation, and 
 therefore is flourishing at the expense of Sweden. The Norwe- 
 gian storthing is certainly wise enough to see, that the people of 
 Norway have property to defend, a constitution worth fighting 
 for, and a sovereign to whom, as the head of that constitution, 
 they are as zealously attached as his foolish attempts to subvert 
 it will permit them to be ; and, peasants though they be, have 
 political tact enough to estimate much more justly than the Swed- 
 ish cabinet, their real position among the European states ; to 
 see that their safety, independence, and importance, depend not 
 upon the half dozen regiments and frigates which they could 
 maintain, and still less upon an army of noble officers without 
 
PREFACE. 17 
 
 men, strutting about the streets in idleness, demoralizing the town 
 populations, and devouring the means of the people, but upon 
 the commercial relations of their conntrj^ which bind it, and its 
 safety, independence, and present constitution, with the interests of 
 European commerce, so that a shock now given to Norway would 
 be felt on every exchange in Europe, from Naples to Archangel. 
 They act with far more political wisdom, in expending as little as 
 possible of the means of the people in taxes, to support an idle 
 show of military and naval power, and in putting their country 
 in the best state of defence which their real means permit them 
 to do, viz., that in which the people have rights and property to 
 fight for — arms in their hands to fight with— and a sufficient but 
 not oppressive military organization to defend their own rocks 
 against direct invasion ; but resting the defence of their national 
 independence, as all secondary powers must do, not upon their 
 own military power, but upon the intimate junction of their in- 
 terests, industry, independence, and government, with those of 
 greater powers. 
 
 Which country is in the best state of defence ? Norway, with 
 little or nothing of an army, navy, diplomacy, and no privileged 
 class of nobility, but with its industry, commerce and welfare 
 binding it up with those of every trading nation in Europe ? or 
 Sweden, isolated politically and commercially compared to Nor- 
 way ; and with the hereditary ties of a nation to its sovereign 
 broken by a venal court faction, its crown upon the head of a 
 foreigner ignorant of the language of ciyil affairs of the country 
 he governs, its idle dissolute nobility living as useless military, 
 civil, or courtly functionaries upon the means of the people, and 
 looked upon by the people, since their sale of Finland, and of their 
 native race of princes, as quite capable of betraying every interest 
 but their own ; and the people themselves, driven by misgovern- 
 ment and oppressive military arrangements into poverty and its 
 natural consequence, over-multiplication ; into drunkenness, and 
 its natural consequence, immorality ? Which country is the best 
 governed — that in which the people are governed by their own 
 laws, and employ their own time and labour on their own pro- 
 perty, to their own advantage? or that in which the people are 
 without any real voice in the legislature, are oppressed with 
 taxes, to support military and civil establishments altogether ri- 
 diculous in the present political state of European powers, their 
 
18 " PREFACE. 
 
 time and labour wasted in military drills and shows for the grati- 
 fication of a body of moustachioed nobility as officers, numerous 
 enough to command all the armies of a first-rate power, and to 
 exhaust the finances of such a third-rate power as Sweden, even 
 without men to command ? 
 
 This writer seems to depend upon the gullibility of the English 
 nation, its proverbial ignorance of all foreign countries, and its 
 good-natured readiness to believe whatever is told it by those who 
 are in a situation to know the truth. It enters not into the con- 
 ception or character of our public to doubt that a broad assertion 
 can be false. This writer broadly asserts, that the Swedish people 
 enjoy a free representative constitution ; yet at this very moment, 
 the committee of the diet itself recommends the abolition of the 
 present constitution, if such a thing as the diet can be called a 
 constitution, and instead of it, that a fair representation of the 
 people of all classes, and not merely of nobility, clergy, burgesses, 
 and a small portion of peasantry, be given to the nation. He 
 asserts that the press in Sweden is free : if so, why was Captain 
 Lindenberg condemned to death ? Why is Mr. Crusenstolpe suf- 
 fering imprisonment in a fortress? Why is the newspaper the 
 most generally diffused bearing on its title the Twenty-fifth Aften- 
 blad, that is to say, it has been suppressed twenty-four times by 
 an arbitrary censorship? Gullible the English public undoubtedly 
 is; and, in the eyes of diplomatists of a third-rate order, it may 
 be a virtue to deceive the public ; to give an importance to small 
 things and little minds in kingly station ; to confound the right 
 and the moral in political affairs for the purpose of supporting a 
 poor faction of nobility in a systematic oppression of the people. 
 But the public seldom errs in its judgment, when it has the means 
 of judging : the means of judging are before the British public : 
 viz., the analysis of the Swedish diet, the historical facts of the 
 conduct of the Swedish nobility in their surrender of Finland ; 
 in their court intrigues, by which Charless XIII. seized the throne 
 of his brother's children ; and. in their transfer of the crown from 
 a native race of kings to a foreigner of second-rate military repu- 
 tation in this age, ignorant of the language, people, and institu- 
 tions, and without any other real recommendation to the throne 
 of the Vasa dynasty than that he would be a more convenient 
 tool in the hands of the faction that disposed of it, than its legiti- 
 mate heir. 
 
PREFACE. 19 
 
 These are the means of forming a judgment, which, in this 
 country at least, are before the public. "The Foreign Quarterly 
 Review" has lately, in an able article, recapitulated the historical 
 facts. "The Annual Register," and the numerous other collec- 
 tions and narratives of the public affairs and documents of this 
 eventful century, give the British public, at least, the means of 
 forming a judgment upon the statements and opinions of Mr 
 Laing's work, which this writer controverts with his bare un- 
 supported assertion. The consistency or inconsistency of Mr. 
 Laing's political opinions is as unimportant to the public as Mr. 
 Laing is himself. This poor tool of a faction of Swedish nobility 
 cannot understand, it seems, how a man can advocate liberal 
 opinions, and, at the same time, legitimate opinions. He does not 
 comprehend — and how should the noble who sees only his party, 
 and his small party-objects or advantages, in every public ques- 
 tion, and not the moral and political right or wrong, the social 
 good or evil, how should he comprehend — that the liberal is far 
 more conservative than the aristocrat ? The liberal seeks only the 
 preservation of each power in the state — the executive, the legis- 
 lative, the administrative— by confining each to its legitimate 
 province. He would strip the executive power of legislative 
 authority, because the usurpation endangers the safety, and de- 
 stroys the utility of the executive itself: he would purify the legis- 
 lative authority from the admixture of executive with legislative 
 influence exercised by the oligarchy of a nobilhy : he would 
 establish the throne upon its proper rights, and make it, as the 
 executive power in the state, independent of factions of nobility, 
 and of military power : ho would respect the legitimate succession 
 to the legitimate rights of sovereign power ; and if, unhappily, any 
 individual in the line of succession should break the original con- 
 tract with the people, he would resist, depose, bring to trial, and 
 even to the scaffold, the individual monarch guilty of such mis- 
 government; and would establish such a constitution as would 
 render the personal character of the future sovereigns of little 
 importance in the government of the country, for any evil to the 
 comnumity ; but he would not alienate and sell the crown of his 
 native land, and his native race of sovereigns; nor suffer a faction 
 of nobility to dispose of it to a foreigner alien in religion, alien in 
 language, alien in habits, for tlieir own interests and advantages. 
 The liberal is the real conservative of the monarchical principle; 
 
20 PREFACE. 
 
 in Europe : the aristocrat is only the conservative of the influence, 
 privilege, and power of a faction around the throne, as dangerous 
 to the monarch as it is useless to the people. The history of 
 Sweden, since the usurpation of the late deposed king's uncle, 
 Charles XIII., is a memorable instance, in modern history, of the 
 working of a government called into existence by an aristocracy, 
 and conducted by an aristocracy for its own advantages and in- 
 terests as a privileged class : it shows the legitimate sovereigns 
 of Europe what they and their families have to expect from their 
 conservative nobility, where the voice of the people is not heard, 
 and their right to a share in the legislature is usurped by the fac- 
 tions of the privileged orders. Had the voice of the Swedish 
 people been heard, the race of its ancient sovereigns, under con- 
 stitutional restrictions on the abuse of monarchical power, would 
 at this day have been on the Swedish throne. The Swedish 
 nation would as soon have thought of electing Tom Thumb the 
 Great for their sovereign, as a French general, whose name not 
 one in a thousand liad ever heard of in Sweden, and whose 
 wliole life and career, however distinguished, whether great or 
 little, had been totally unconnected with Swedish interests or 
 honour, and were connected only with a few needy intriguing 
 Swedish nobles in Paris who had no stake at home. Sweden, in 
 this age, is as badly defended by her nobility in the fields of 
 literature, as of war. 
 
 The other statement of Mr. Laing, which it would be interest- 
 ing to the public, and important to political science, to see fairly 
 met and refuted, or else fairly admitted, is that Sweden, with a 
 population almost entirely agricultural, not manufacturing or 
 commercial, with a powerful church establishment undisturbed 
 by dissent or sectarianism, and with national education, as far as 
 regards reading, writing, and the first principles of religion, very 
 widely diffused, is notv/ithstanding in a more demoralized state 
 than any country in Europe — more demoralized even than any 
 equal portion of the British manufacturing population — stands, 
 in short, at the very bottom of the scale of European morality. 
 The copclusion which Mr. Laing draws from this is, that bad 
 government, bad laws, bad social arrangements, unjust or une- 
 qual political rights and civil condition enjoyed by privileged 
 classes at the expense and to the oppression of the great body of 
 the people,'the want of free agency as moral beings, by the iu- 
 
PREFACE. 21 
 
 terference of a military government with the time, labour, in- 
 dustry, and doings of the people, reducing them to the slate of a 
 soldiery in country quarters, are such demoralizing influences in 
 civil society, that even a powerful church establishment, and an 
 effective system of national education, cannot counteract their 
 tendency. Mr. Laing's conclusions must depend upon tlie truth 
 of his statements. His statements are clearly and distinctly made. 
 They do not rest upon his personal observations, or experiences 
 as a traveler. He justly, it is conceived, observes, that the merely 
 personal observation of the traveler, however good his opportuni- 
 ties, or long his experience of what he remarks in his own con- 
 fined circle, as a stranger, is of no value whatsoever, either for 
 establishing or refuting such a statement as he ventures to make 
 respecting Sweden. Mr. Laing states that he makes it upon 
 documentary evidence, upon the official returns of the Swedish 
 minister of justice, of the crimes committed within a given year, 
 1836, compared with the official criminal lists of other countries 
 for the same year. Here, one would surely say, there can be no 
 room for a conflict of opinions, or a reference to authorities. 
 Here are facts to be admitted or denied, and facts only. Here is 
 a list of specified crimes — murders, poisonings, unnatural crimes, 
 robberies, thefts, or whatever they may be — committed in one 
 country, to be compared with a list of the very same crimes com- 
 mitted, during the very same period of time, in another country. 
 Are these lists true or false? Here is no room, surely, to rebut 
 officially specified crimes, with the opinions of the Marquis of 
 Bute, Lord Strangford, Lord Fitzgerald, Lord Bloomfield, Lord 
 Castlereagh, Lord Howard de Walden, Honourable J. D. Bligh, 
 Sir Thomas Cartwright, Honourable J. Bloomfield, &c. Opinion 
 against opinion, it may be reasonably doubted, whether observers 
 in their rank, and necessarily confined in their intercourse, to one 
 class of society, are in a position, however long they may have 
 resided in the country, so favourable for forming just opinions 
 on its moral condition, as an obscure ordinary traveler like Mr. 
 Laing. But here are facts specified, facts officially established. 
 Of what value against these facts arc the opinions of any number 
 of diplomatic lords, or traveling gentlemen ? Is it pretended that 
 their opinions should be received rather than facts ? This may be 
 a privilege, perhaps, of Swedish nobility, and diplomatists; but, 
 in this country, opinions pass for no more than they arc worth; 
 
22 PREFACE. 
 
 that is, for nothing at all, in opposition to facts established on 
 authentic official documents. 
 
 But this writer quotes opinions of more weight. He states it 
 to be the opinion of Mr. M'Cnlloch, and also of the editor of 
 " The Polytechnic Journal," that the mere amount of commit- 
 tals or punishments for criminal offences in different countries, 
 gives no just view of their relative moral state, because offences 
 against police regulations, involving in them no moral delinquency, 
 maybe classed as criminal offences and punished as such, in some 
 countries, and altogether passed over, or at least not included, in 
 the criminal calendar of other countries. Without stopping to 
 consider the demoralizing effects of such an indiscriminating sys- 
 tem of law and raisgovernment, that mere police transgressions, 
 such, for instance, as a peasant appearing too late at a posting 
 station with his horses to drive an impatient noble to the next 
 stage for an inadequate recompense, are treated and punished as 
 moral offences ; and without stopping to consider the demoraliz- 
 ing influence of such a system of police and criminal regulation 
 together, that one person in every 112| of the whole population, 
 infants, females, sick and aged inclusive, could be accused, and 
 one in 134 convicted and punished — for there is a moral degra- 
 dation in being accused, convicted, and punished, even for mere 
 police transgressions— it is, Mr. Laing observes, '< not upon the 
 amount of committals and punishments, to which the opinion of 
 those enlightened statistical writers specially refers, that he founds 
 his statement." He comes to close quarters. He does not merely 
 state that in 1836, out of every 134 persons, women, infants, aged, 
 sick, all included, one person had been convicted : lie specifies the 
 crimes themselves, the number of murders, of robberies, of of- 
 fences against nature, of poisonings, of fire-raisings, of thefts. He 
 gives the number of those specified crimes in the official lists, 
 which no juggle about classification of offences, or about police 
 regulations, can in any way diminish, or exaggerate, as acts in- 
 volving the highest moral guilt; and he asks if any other com- 
 munity in Europe, of the same population, has produced so many 
 criminal offences of the same moral guilt within the same period? 
 He does not merely state the gross number of crimes in all Swe- 
 den, but he takes one or two distinct provinces, as Gothland, 
 Geflelan, Stockholm, and gives the number of people implicated, 
 and the number of murders, robberies, and other crimes commit- 
 
PREFACE. 23 
 
 ted, in the year 1S.3G, and asks if such a criminal list in the same 
 year can be produced from the most disturbed province of Ire- 
 land, or the most depraved portion of the manufacturing popula- 
 tion of England ? This Swedish moralist appeals to the Scotch 
 nation, whether, if they " were placed in a jury box in an action 
 against Mr. Laing for libeling the Swedish nation, they would 
 not pronounce the verdict of 'giiilli/.'" Before pronouncing 
 their verdict, they would be requested by Mr. Lamg to read the 
 following list of crimes committed in 1S38, within the kingdom 
 of Sweden, carrying in their minds that the population of this 
 kingdom is little, if at all, greater than that of Scotland ; that its 
 metropolis contains about half the population of Edinburgh, viz., 
 75,000 people ; and that it has no Glasgow, no manufacturing 
 population, no influx of strangers. Mr. Laing takes the official 
 returns of the Swedish minister of justice for 1S38, being a return 
 later in date by two years than that upon which he founded his 
 statement of the low moral condition of the Swedish nation in his 
 *' Tour in Sweden." 
 
 In 1838, then, 26,357 men and 3626 women have been prose- 
 cuted for criminal offence; being 1 person in every 161 of the 
 whole population. Of this number, 22,005 men and 3013 women 
 have been condemned ; 3191 men and 398 women acquitted ; and 
 the rest, at the date of the report, 18th December, 1839, were still 
 under trial. Among the crimes tried in the country courts, were 
 twenty-eight cases of murder, for which thirty-one men and eight 
 women were condemned; further, twelve cases of child-murder, 
 and twelve women condemned for this crime ; further, seven cases 
 of poisoning, and three men and live women condemned for this 
 crime. Besides these capital crimes tried in the country courts, 
 there were tried in the town courts, one murder, committed by one 
 man ; one case of incendiarism and murder, by a woman ; and 
 one case of murder, robbery, and incendiarism united. We have 
 here, of capital crimes involving human life, in this population of 
 less than 3,000,000, fifty cases, and sixty-two persons condemned 
 for murder. Is this our proportion in Scotland of this crime? Is 
 there any classification of offences, any juggle between police 
 transgressions and criminal olTence, by which this amount of 
 crime of the most heavy description may be explained away ? 
 But, further, we have six cases of violent robbery, and ten men 
 and one woman condemned for this crime ; also, sixteen cases of 
 
24 PREFACE. 
 
 perjury, and twenty persons condemned ; farther, four cases of 
 incendiarism, and two men and two women condemned. The 
 inquisition, too — the church establishment — has had its victims 
 through the arm of the civil courts : twenty-one persons con- 
 demned for contempt of the pubUc church service. We have not 
 yet done. We have 126 cases of theft repeated three or more 
 times, and 104 men and 19 women condemned under this indict- 
 ment ; also, 274 cases of theft twice repeated, and 340 men and 
 41 women condemned ; 947 cases of theft for the first time, and 
 833 men and 205 women condemned ; and, besides all this, 478 
 cases of petty thefts, and 397 men and 118 women condemned. 
 But we have not exhausted this record of Swedish morality. We 
 are only in the country courts. In the town courts, besides the 
 three cases of murder and incendiarism before mentioned, there 
 have been tried 112 cases of forgery, and 105 men and 18 women 
 condemned ; 892 cases of theft, and 907 persons condemned ; 479 
 cases of petty theft, and 596 persons condemned. In the year 
 1838, the number of persons condemned to death for capital of- 
 fences has been sixty-eight-, of whom nineteen have been exe- 
 cuted, and forty-nine pardoned, or sentence commuted. Is this 
 the proportion of capital offences, and of executions, in one year 
 in Scotland ? Is Mr. Laing confounding mere police transgressions 
 with moral offences in this statement ? In 1838, the divorces — 
 no inexpressive test of the morality of a people — were 147 ; viz., 
 ninety-five at the instance of husbands, and fifty-two of wives. 
 One hundred and seventy-two cases of suicide came under the 
 cognizance of the local authorities in all Sweden, in 1838. Now 
 are these of the description of crimes which any classification, or 
 non-classification, can take out of the catalogue of moral delin- 
 quency, and range under the head of police transgression only — of 
 infractions of conventional regulation involving no moral delinquen- 
 cy ? Is there at this day any civilized community in Europe with 
 such a frightful list of crime for the year 1838, in every 3,000,000 of 
 its population ? Is Mr. Laing guilty, or not guilty, of a libel on the 
 Swedish nation, when he places it at the bottom of the moral list in 
 Europe ? If the Scotchman acquainted with the moral condition 
 of Scotland, were to answer the appeal of this Swedish writer to 
 find Mr. Laing guilty of a libel on the moral character of the 
 Swedish nation, Saunders would probably take a snuff, and 
 
PREFACE. 25 
 
 quietly observe, that there are nations, as well as individuals, 
 whom it would be very difficult to libel. 
 
 This moralist seems to be particularly shocked at Mr. Laing's 
 statement, that the Swedish population, at least the town popula- 
 tions of Sweden, is remarkably unchaste. Mr. Laing states that 
 the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births in Stockholm is 
 as 1 to 2^^, while in London and Middlesex it is 1 to 3S legitimate 
 births; and in Paris 1 to 5, and in the other French towns 1 to 
 75. Mr. Laing admits that he has here made a mistake — a very 
 important mistake — in his statement ; but it happens to be a mis- 
 take in understating instead of overstating the amQunt of illegiti- 
 macy in Stockholm in one year. In the year 1838, there were 
 born in Stockholm 2714 children, and of those 1577 were legi- 
 timate, and 1137 were illegitimate, making a balance of only 440 
 chaste mothers out of 2714: so that instead of 1 illegitimate birth 
 for every 2^-^ legitimate, it is actually 1 illegitimate for every H 
 legitimate. In the town populations of Sweden, Stockholm not 
 included, there were ,born 4083 legitimate and 926 illegitimate 
 children in 1838, so that there the proportion is about 1 illegi- 
 timate to 4 legitimate births. Now these are, in general, petty 
 country towns, without manufactures or commerce, towns of 
 three or four thousand inhabitants. Is it the state of morals in 
 our small towns, that 1 illegitimate child is born for every 4 legi- 
 timate ? Aberdeen approaches nearer in population to Stockholm 
 than Edinburgh. In Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, 
 in any town in Christendom, is the proportion of bastards to legi- 
 timate children as 1 to li .'' It is in vain to quote the opinion of 
 the editor of "The Polytechnic Journal," that the returns of ille- 
 gitimate births in the towns of England and Wales are or may 
 be, erroneous— that London and Middlesex swarm with prosti- 
 tutes, so that, in reality, the male sex may be quite as unchaste 
 there as in Stockholm. The plain common sense of every man 
 tells him, that such an enormous proportion of illegitimate births 
 proves that the want of chastity in the female sex is not confined, 
 as in London, to an outcast class of females, but is spread very 
 widely over the female community of other classes, among whom, 
 with us, a breach of chastity is of very rare occurrence. All the 
 Swedish moralists and polytechnic journalists in the world will 
 not make out that a nation is in a high moral condition with one 
 3 
 
2& PREFACE, 
 
 unchaste for every fcrar chaste mothers in the small towns, and 
 two unchaste for every three chaste mothers in its metropolis. 
 
 This writer passes over in pradeut silence the enormous pro- 
 portion of the population of this metropolis which has gone io 
 the course of a year through the public hospital, via., 1 in every 
 6O/0 of unmarried adults, for the treatment of an infamous dis- 
 ease ; and also the attempt of this moral government a few years 
 ago, to establish brothels, either as a financial or as a sanatary 
 speculation. Mr. Laing is conscious that he has fully established 
 by the official returns for 1838, which he now quotes, as well as 
 by those for J 836, which he quoted in his " Tour in Sweden," 
 that Sweden stands at present at the bottom of the moral scale of 
 Europe, that chastity is not a Swedish virtue, and that he is not 
 guilty of a libel on the Swedish nation in publishing their own 
 official returns of the crimes committed among them in 1836, and 
 now in 183S, and drawing obvious unavoidable inferences fr»m 
 them of the very low moral condition of Sweden. 
 
 What may be the causes of this frightfully demoralized state of 
 a country in which the church establishment and the educational 
 system are vigorous and effective ? This silly pamphleteer would 
 insinuate that Mr. Laing attributes the demoralized state of the 
 Swedish nation to religion and education : M?. Laing attributes 
 it now, and in his " Tour in Sweden," distinctly to misgovern- 
 ment, and to the privileged classes in the social structure of Swe- 
 den keeping down all free agency as moral beings among the 
 people, reducing them to the state of a soldiery with regulations, 
 interference, and conventional laws and observances, instead of 
 moral duties to guide them, and liable, like a soldiery, to fall into 
 excesses and transgressions of all civil duties, when occasion- 
 ally escaping from the kind of military surveillance of the public 
 functionary. 
 
 The Swedish people are not vicious naturally. No people are 
 so. But they are not treated by their government as free agents. 
 Their time, labour, industry, property, are interfered with, and 
 taken from them by government and its functionaries, by privi- 
 leged classes, by a greedy and poor nubility living upon the taxes. 
 They have consequently the vices of men who are not free agents 
 — not bred under moral restraint, but under discipline, police 
 regulation, or conventioual restraint. In spite of religious and 
 educational establishments, they are demoralized by misgovern- 
 
PREFACE. 27 
 
 menl, bad laws, and a faulty structure of society ; and Mr. Laing 
 draws, from the striking moral condition of this people, the im- 
 portant conclusion, that the cause of reform is the cause of mo- 
 rality ; that the pious and good men among us who would make 
 every sacrifice for the diffusion of education and religious instruc- 
 tion among the people, yet oppose every innovation or reform in 
 the civil institutions and government of the country, are involved 
 in contradiction and inconsistency. The very remarkable dimi- 
 nution of crime in Ireland, which accompanied the more libe- 
 ral administration of government under the Whig ministry, the 
 equal bearing of law at present towards the Catholic and Pro- 
 testant population, strengthens this conclusion, proves that national 
 morality is more intimately connected with good, even-handed, 
 liberal government, and the equal rights of all in the social sys- 
 tem than with the religious and educational establishments of a 
 country. The latter, as moral influences, are inefficient without 
 the former. 
 
 This writer attributes the immorality of Sweden, which after 
 a long juggle with opinions and authorities against facts, he is 
 forced to admit, to the drunkenness of the people, and their 
 drunkenness again to the too powerful spirit of democi'acy in the 
 Swedish constitution, by which the peasantry " enjoy the right to 
 distil their own brandy as freely as to make their own soup." 
 In the Swedish diet — this too liberal, too democratic assembly — 
 there are three chambers, besides that of the peasantry — the 
 chamber of nobles, of clergy, and of the burgesses of corporate 
 towns, each of which can stop any prejudicial or any beneficial 
 act proposed in any other chamber, and hinder it passing into a 
 law. How comes it that this excessive and demoralizing right of 
 every man to distil brandy at his pleasure, passed into a law 
 through these three conservative chambers, any one of which 
 could have stopped it? Is it that the nobility, clergy, and privi- 
 leged shop-keepers get their rents, their church dues, their shop 
 accounts, better paid ; and, therefore, they allow this universal 
 distillation among the people, have no objection to a demoralizing 
 influence provided it fills their purses? If the Swedish clergy and 
 nobility sincerely believe that the general depravity, the low moral 
 condition of the Swedish nation proceeds from drunkenness fos- 
 tered by this general unchecked distillation of spirits, why do 
 they not restrain, or at least propose a law to restrain, this right 
 
28 PREFACE. 
 
 of distillation ? They themselves furnish the proof that their diet 
 is merely a meeting of delegates of certain privileged bodies, 
 for the purpose of legislating for their own advantage, without 
 regard to the morality, well-being, or prosperity of the country. 
 But to consider drunkenness as the cause of the low rhoral state 
 of the Swedish nation is like the reasoning of the murderer Coiir- 
 voisier, who held that his petty theft of his master's silver spoons 
 was the cause of his midnight murder of his master; and that 
 the deeper crime v/as only a consequence of his theft, necessary 
 to conceal it. 
 
 Drunkenness is the cause of crime bat too often in the indi- 
 vidual ; but it is the effect of a low and degraded moral state of 
 the national mind and habits, that individuals drink to excess. It 
 is not, as this writer supposes, a necessary consequence of the 
 people enjoying "the right to distil their brandy as freely as to 
 make their soup," that the people should be addicted to excessive 
 drinking, and become demorahzed. The people of Switzerland 
 enjoy the right to distil as freely as the people of Sweden, and 
 have much better stuff to distil and make spirits of; but they are 
 not addicted to excessive drunkenness; they are not demoralized 
 by this democratic liberty to distil what they please, and as much 
 as they please. But, then, they are free agents in all things, as 
 well as in distillation ; they are men under moral restraint in all 
 their doings, not under functionary regulation. The difference of 
 race, or the difference of climate, must not be alleged as sufficient 
 to account for the Sunss peasant being, with a perfectly free distil- 
 lation of his wines, his cherries, his barley, a sober moral man, and 
 the Swede the reverse. The Swiss peasant in Haslethal con- 
 siders himself to this day a descendant from a Swedish stock ; 
 and the language, mode of building their dwellings, personal ap- 
 pearance, and habits of living in that district, furnish many strik- 
 ing proofs that the tradition is not without some foundation — that 
 the races may have been originally the same. The climate of Swe- 
 den is to be found in the upper end of every alpine valley ; but, 
 in Switzerland, the free distillation does not demoralize the peo- 
 ple ! And why ? Because the people have rights, have freedom ; 
 are not enslaved by privileged bodies of clergy, nobility, and 
 merchants, and by a government acting entirely for the interest of 
 these privileged bodies, and with no ties to the mass of the nation 
 but those which military and civil functionaries can create; with 
 
PREFACE. 29 
 
 no support in the feelings of the people, in their hereditary attach- 
 ments, or prejudices, or principles, and therefore a mere tool in 
 the hands of the privileged classes who set up the puppet, and 
 pull the strings by which it moves, nods, and gives signs of in- 
 telligence and approbation to whatever they whisper in its ear. 
 
 This writer is obliged to distort, misrepresent, and falsify the 
 opinions he endeavours to refute, in order to answer them. He 
 ascribes to Mr. Laing the opinion that, '' to procure sugar and 
 coffee cheaper for Russia, Norway and Sweden should bs incor- 
 porated with Russia." He says, « This enlightened and patriotic 
 Scotchman wants to establish Russia opposite to the very coasts 
 of Scotland, and would make Russia a first-rate naval power, on 
 purpose to procure cheaper coffee and sugar for her serfs." Now, 
 what is the fact ? Mr. Laing says, it is no unreasonable object 
 of ambition in Russia to get possession, if she can, of an ocean 
 coast, through which her immense population may be supplied 
 with those productions of the tropical climes — cottons, tobaccoes, 
 sugar, coffee, &c, — which, in this age, are the main objects and 
 stimulants of human industry and civilization — that this ocean- 
 coast is the coast of the Scandinavian peninsula, which, if it fell 
 into the hands of Russia, would at once raise her to a first-rate 
 naval power, and would change the face of the civilized world — 
 and that the defence of such a maritime position, of so important 
 a stretch of ocean-coast, ought not to be left, as it would be by the 
 amalgamation of Norway with Sweden, in the hands of a Swedish 
 nobility, who had shown, in our times, that they were capable of 
 selling to Russia the province of,Fiuland, with its Gibraltar, Swea- 
 borg, which were t4ie main bulwarks of Europe, on this side, 
 against Russia, and of selling the crov/n of their native race of 
 princes to a foreigner. Mr. Laing's opinion, which this writer 
 does not venture to quote fairly, is, that the nobility who sold, or 
 permitted to be sold by a faction among themselves, the province 
 of Finland, the islands of Aland,, the fortress of Sweaborg, and 
 the troops under their command ; and who sold, or permitted to 
 be sold, the crown of their native dynasty, without any constitu- 
 tional amelioration, or any political or civil improvement in the 
 condition of the people from the change, but solely for party ad- 
 vantage, may be capital courtiers, excellent irdn manufacturers, 
 may bear high-sounding titles, great historical names, and ribbons 
 at their bulton-l:oles of all the colours of the rainbow, but arc not 
 
30 PREFACE. 
 
 to be trusted with the defence of an European bulwark — that 
 Norway and her coasts are safer in the hands of her independent 
 noble peasantry, than of a nobility who have shown, in this age, 
 that they are capable of betraying for money all that nobility hold 
 sacred in other countries— the mihtary trusts reposed in them, the 
 sovereign to whom they had sworn allegiance and pledged their 
 honour, the crown of their native dynasty from whom their own 
 titles and distinctions were derived by their ancestors. 
 
 SAMUEL LAING, 
 Edinburgh^ August^ 1843. 
 
m E r A c E 
 
 FIRST EDITION 
 
 The changes produced by the French Revolution in the social 
 economy of the European people are so extensive and important, 
 reaching downwards to the very foundation of the former feudal 
 structure of society, that History, it may be truly said, only begins 
 for posterity with this century. The monarchical, aristocratical, 
 and ecclesiastical elements of the former social economy of Eu- 
 rope, even property, law, power, have all been altered in relations, 
 proportions, and intensity of influence; and the living of the gene- 
 ration Avhich witnessed the commencement of the French Revo- 
 lution have, in fifty years, been removed five hundred from the 
 order of things previously established. The events and personages 
 connected with this great convulsion will, no doubt, find their 
 historian ; but the alterations produced by it in the social structure 
 and arrangementsof almost every country are scarcely noticed by 
 our travellers and political writers occupied with the more brilliant 
 scenes or novelties of the age, and the future historian or philoso- 
 pher may even want materials, notwithstanding all the literature 
 of our days, for forming a just estimate of the amount, nature, 
 and tendencies of the changes cfl'ected, or in progress, during this 
 half-century, in the social economy of Europe. The Author of 
 the following Notes has attempted in two preceding works— one 
 on Norway,* and one on Swedent — to collect materials on the 
 
 * Journal of a Residence in Norway, by Samuel Laiiig. Longmans, London, 
 
 I A Tour in Sweden, by Samuel Laing. Longmans, 1839. 
 
32 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 social economy of those two countries, which, although distant 
 from the centre of action, have not been beyond the reach of its 
 disturbing force. This work is intended to be a continuation of 
 the same attempt to collect materials for the future historian or 
 philosopher who shall endeavour to describe and estimate the new 
 social elements in Europe which are springing up from, and cov- 
 ering the ashes of, the French Revolution. 
 
 The author's encouragement to this work is great. His two 
 former volumes have had a success of a kind which literary pro- 
 duction of this humble class rarely attains. The one on Norway 
 turned the public attention, both in England and on the Continent, 
 to that interesting country and its liberal institutions, and assisted 
 in raising around the Norwegian constitution an impregnable 
 barrier of public opinion which the Swedish monarch and his 
 cabinet are forced to respect. The Norwegian constitution guar- 
 anteed to Norway by the Allied Powers, accepted of and sworn 
 to by the Swedish monarch, and made known in all its circum- 
 stances to the European public, cannot now be silently crushed 
 by an unprincipled faction in Sweden as a mere provincial diet 
 existing, as they pretended, only by the suflerance of the sovereign. 
 The volume on Sweden has contributed to open the eyes of the 
 Swedish nation to the demoralizing influences, in its social econo- 
 my, of privileged governing classes, who, within memory of the 
 living generation, assassinated one king, betrayed another, sold for 
 money their military trusts in Finland to the enemy, and sold the 
 crown of their native race of sovereigns to a foreigner. Great 
 and loud was the indignation of those classes against the audacious 
 traveller who had presumed to apply the test of right principle to 
 these historical events in which they had been the agents, to hold 
 up their misdeeds to the reprobation of the moral, the loyal, and 
 the patriotic of every country, and to draw aside the tinsel robe 
 of a third-rate military reputation, behind which they shelter 
 themselves, and to expose the ignorance, disposition to arbitrary 
 rule, and unfounded assumption of merit it conceals. The official 
 published records of the yearly amount of crime in Sweden — that 
 documentary, proof of the demoralizing influence on the Swedish 
 people of the demoralized governing classes — could not be got 
 rid of. In vain those classes attempted in controversial pamphlets 
 to delude the public, to divert attention from the true scource 
 of the evil, to palliate the undeniable excess of crime in Sweden, 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 33 
 
 by alleging excess of drunkenness and excess of bad legislation, 
 by which simple police transgressions, punished and recorded 
 as crimes, swell the criminal record. They only proved what 
 they attempted to deny — the misgovernment of privileged classes, 
 who, confounding moral guilt with transgressions against their 
 own conventional regulations in one demoralizing code and ad- 
 ministration of law, brutalize the habits, and deaden the moral 
 sentiments of the people under them. Swedish diplomacy itself 
 — his Excellency Count Biornstierna, minister of his Swedish jNIa- 
 jesty at the court of St. James's — condescended to satisfy the 
 English public, that the allegations and views of the traveller 
 were, to the fullest extent, correct and incontrovertible ; for his 
 excellency published a pamphlet,* professing to be a refutation 
 of " Mr. Laing's calumnies" and " libels against the Swedish 
 nation," in which, with great success, his excellency confirms all 
 he attempts to refute, and refutes all he attempts to confirm. The 
 Swedish public, with the landmarks of their own published official 
 records of crime from Year to year before their eyes, were not to 
 be misled by their noble party writers. The late diet appointed 
 a committee to report upon the social economy of the country, 
 and the amendments necessary in the constitution. Their reporter 
 recommends the abolition of the exclusive privileges and political 
 powers of those classes which have in this age so signally betrayed 
 the material interests, and corrupted the moml interests of their 
 country — an answer in full, and from the Swedish people them- 
 selves, to their noble diplomatic pamphleteer, who, to uphold the 
 tottering power of his order, attempted, in the face of undeniable 
 facts and official documehts, to persuade the world that Sweden 
 is a country eminently moral, particularly well governed by its 
 nobility and their hero-king, and quite contented with its present 
 government. To have contributed in the most insignificant de- 
 gree towards such beneficial movements of the public mind is a 
 great literary success for such trivial literary productions. 
 
 In this continuation of the same design of collecting materials 
 which may enable the future historian to form a just estimate of 
 the present political and social economy of some portions of the 
 European people, the Author in these Notes pursues the same plan 
 
 * Mr. Laing's Answer to Count Biomstiema's pamphlet appeared in tlui 
 Monthly Chronicle for November, 1840, published by Longmans, London. 
 
34 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 as in the preceding volumes. Taking historical events, statistical 
 facts, and his own observation in various tours, as a basis, he pro- 
 ceeds from that basis straight forward to his conclusions in political 
 or social economy, regardless of the theories, authorities, or opin- 
 ions that may be jostled out of the road, or of the establishments, 
 classes, or personages whose assumed merits, or false lustre, may 
 be rubbed off in the collision and shock with truth and just 
 principle. 
 
 SAMUEL LAING, 
 EpjNBiTBQH, January, 1842, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER, 
 
 &c. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TRAVEL-WRITING.— HOLLAND.— THE SUBLIME IN SCENERY.— THE PIC- 
 TURESQUE IN HOLLAND.— GARDEN HOUSES.— DECAY OF HOLLAND.— 
 CAUSES OF DECAY.— COMMERCIAL DECLINE.— MANUFACTURING STA- 
 BILITY.— USEFUL ARTS.— FINE ARTS.— USEFUL AND FINE ARTS COM- 
 PARED.— USEFUL AND FINE ARTS.— THE POOR IN HOLLAND.— THE 
 POOR IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS.— POOR COLONIES.— KINGLY POWER 
 IN HOLLAND.— BELGIUM.— FEDERALISM.— UNION OF THE TWO COUN- 
 TRIES. — THE FEDERAL PRINCIPLE. — ITS WORKING IN SWITZER- 
 LAND. 
 
 In the social state of the Continent, as it has settled itself since 
 the great political and moral epoch of the French Revolution, 
 there is a vast Held to explore, which has scarcely been looked at 
 by our Continental travellers. No period since the introduction of 
 Christianity will be considered by posterity of equal importance 
 with this half of the nineteenth century — of equal influence in 
 forming the future social and moral condition of the European 
 people. All the great social influences, moral and physical, which 
 have sprung up from the ashes of the French Revolution, and all 
 the influences accumulating in prior times; — the diffusion of know- 
 ledge by the press ; of sentiments of religious and civil freedom 
 by the Reformation; of wealth, well-being, and political import- 
 ance in the middle class, or those between the nobility and peas- 
 antry of the feudal ages, by trade, manufactures, and industry ; 
 the influence over all ranks, of acquired tastes, and wants un- 
 known to their forefathers; the influence of public opinion over 
 the highest political affairs; and the influence of all the vast disco- 
 veries of the preceding four hundred years, in navigation, science 
 
36 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and the useful arts ; — are, in reality, only coming into full play and 
 operation now, in this half century, upon the social state of Europe. 
 The French Revolution was but the first act in the great social 
 drama. Travellers complain that travel-writing is overdone — 
 that the Continent is exhausted of all its interest. Is it not possi- 
 ble that they themselves are blind to the great interests and influ- 
 ences which would attract the public mind ; that they are con- 
 tinuing to feed the man with the panada and water-gruel of the 
 child ? In these our locomotive days, the hurried public has no 
 leisure to sit listening to the traveller of the old school, piping the 
 little song of his personal adventures in countries as familiar to 
 their imaginations as the county of York. He pours his tale into 
 a sleeping ear, if he has nothing to pour but his personal feelings 
 and adventures, or his voracious doings on the tea and toast of 
 the village inn : he is like a blind beggar trying to amuse the chil- 
 dren of the deaf and dumb asylum with a tune on his fiddle. 
 
 I am' an excellent travel-reader myself. I eat, drink, and sleep, 
 for my part, with my traveller. I mourn with him, by land, over 
 all the calamities of jolting roads, saucy landlords, scanty dinners, 
 and dirty table-cloths ; and am enchanted, at sea, with the gale, 
 the calm, the distant sail, the piece of sea- weed floating past, the 
 solitary sea-bird skimming round, and all the other memorabilia 
 of a voyage across the Queensferry or the Atlantic. But this 
 school of readers is almost extinct. The reading public of the 
 present day labours under a literary dyspepsia, and has no appe- 
 tite for the former ordinary fare. Diaries, journals, narratives, 
 descriptions, feelings, and wisdom of the first quality, from every 
 corner of the world, have so satiated the omnivorous reader, that 
 results only, the concentrated essences of the traveller's observa- 
 tions, are in demand, — not the detail of petty incidents by which 
 they have been obtained ; the sums total and products, not the 
 items and units of his account current. This fastidiousness of 
 the public taste places the traveller, especially in well-known 
 lands, in an awkward dilemma. The little trivialities of travel, 
 duly recorded as they occur, were very agreeable writing and 
 reading 5 although they certainly mix very discordantly with sta- 
 tistical details or speculations on political and social economy, 
 which not only the philosopher, or the historian, but the ordinary 
 reader of the present day, expects from the Continental traveller. 
 These are not the results or observations of a single incident, or a 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 37 
 
 single forenoon, or a single tour, and cannot, with any truth, be 
 interwoven in his accounts of any one day or place. He is 
 obliged to concentrate his observations for the sake of truth, and 
 to meet the public taste ; yet he runs the risk, in doing so, of pro- 
 ducing a work which will lull to sleep, not amuse the reader. 
 The risk must be run. A great field of inquiry and observation 
 on the Continent is open. The traveller may not be the most suit- 
 able literary labourer to explore it; but if his views should be 
 narrow and incorrect, his conclusions ill-founded or egrogiously 
 wrong, still they may be useful by inducing men of higher capa- 
 city to take the same path, to examine the same subjects, and dis- 
 cover what is right and well-founded. In political philosophy 
 the road to truth lies through error. 
 
 Holland, the land of cheese and butter, is to my eye no unpic- 
 turesque, uninteresting country. Flat it is ; but it is so geome- 
 trically only, and in no other sense. Spires, church towers, bright 
 farm houses — their windows glancing in the sun ; long rows of 
 willow trees— their bluish foliage ruffling up white in the breeze ; 
 grassy embankments of a tender, vivid green, partly hiding the 
 meadows behind, and crowded with glittering, gaudily painted 
 gigs, and stool wagons, loaded with rosy-cheeked, laughing coun- 
 try girls, decked out in ribbons o£ many more colours than the 
 rainbow all a-streaming in the wind ;— these areihe objects which 
 strike the eye of the traveller from seaward, and form a gay front 
 view of Holland, as he sails or steams along its coast and up its 
 rivers. On shore the long continuity of horizontal lines of coun- 
 try in the back ground, each line rising behind the other to a dis- 
 tant, level, unbroken horizon, gives the impression of vastness 
 and of novelty. It is curious how diflereiUly we are impressed 
 by expansion in the horizontal and expansion in the perpendicnlar 
 plane. Take a section of this country spread out horizontally 
 before the eye, four miles or five in length, and one or two in 
 breadth, and it is but a flat, unimpressive plain. But elevate this 
 small unimpressive parallelogram of land to an angle of sixty 
 degrees with the horizon, and it becomes the most sublime of natu- 
 ral objects ; it surpasses Mont Blanc— it is the side of Chimborazo. 
 Set it on edge, and it would overwhelm the beholder with its 
 snblimity. It would be the Hymalaya mountains cut down from 
 their dizziest peak to the level of the ocean — a precipice so sub- 
 lime, that the mind would shrink in terror from its very rccollec- 
 
38 NOTES OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 lion. Now why does this section of land, which would be but a 
 small portion of the extent of fiat plain under the eye at once 
 from any little elevation, such as a dyke or a church tower, in this 
 country, pass from the unimpressive through the beautiful, the 
 grand, and to the utmost sublime, by mathematical steps, one may 
 say, and according to its angle of elevation ? The only solution 
 of this fact in the sublimity of natural objects is, that terror is not, 
 as has been assumed by Burke and our greatest philosophers, the 
 cause of the impression of sublimity in the human mind. Terror 
 must be the effect of the sublime ; not its cause, source, or prin- 
 ciple. In this supposed instance of the sublime in nature, power 
 is evidently the cause of that impression — the intuitive mental 
 perception that great unknown power has been exerted to pro- 
 duce this sublime object. It is the feeling, or impression, of this 
 vast power, which produces that feeling of terror allied with and 
 considered the cause, although in reality only the effect, of the sub- 
 lime. This impression of power received from any great and rare 
 deviation from the usual, makes the perpendicular more sublime 
 than the horizontal, the Gothic cathedral than the Grecian temple, 
 the movintain than the plain, the cataract than the lake, the storm 
 than the calm. Unusual vastness, such as the great extent of flat 
 country seen from any of the ^church towers in Holland, is also 
 an expression of power, and is not without its grandeur ; but it 
 never reaches the sublime, because the mind, accustomed to the 
 sight of extension developed horizontally, perceives not the prin- 
 ciple of power in it at once. This sentiment of power may pos- 
 sibly have something to do even with our impression of the beau- 
 tiful in natural objects. The waved line — Hogarth's line of beauty 
 — is agreeable, and the angular, broken, or jagged line, the con- 
 trary; because the one expresses a continuity of power in its for- 
 mation — the other a disturbance, or break, in the action of the 
 forming power. The latter would reach the sublime, if the dis- 
 turbance, or break, were on a great scale, indicating vastness of 
 power. 
 
 Holland can boast of nothing sublime ; but for picturesque fore- 
 grounds — for close, compact, snug home scenery, with everything 
 in harmony, and stamped with one strong pecuhar character, Hol- 
 land is a cabinet picture, in which nature and art join to produce 
 one impression, one homogeneous effect. The Dutch cottage, 
 with its glistening brick walls, white painted wood work and rails. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 39 
 
 and its massive roof of thatch, with the stork clappering to her 
 young on her old-established nest on the top of the gable, is 
 admirably in place and keeping, just where it is — at the turn of 
 the canal, shut in by a screen of willow trees, or tall reeds, from 
 seeing, or being seen, beyond the sunny bight of the still calm 
 water, in which its every tint and part is brightly repeated. Then 
 the peculiar character of every article of the household furniture, 
 which the Dutch-built house-mother is scouring on the green before 
 the door so industriously ; the Dutch character impressed on every- 
 thing Dutch, and intuitively recognized, like the Jewish or Gipsy 
 countenance, wherever it is met with; the people, their dwellings, 
 and all in or about them — their very movements in accordance 
 with this style or character, and all bearing its impress strongly — 
 make this Holland, to my eye, no dull, unimpressive land. There is 
 soul in all you see ; the strongly marked character about every- 
 thing Dutch pleases intellectually, as much as beauty of form itself 
 What else is the charm so universally felt, requiring so little to be 
 acquired, of the paintings of the Dutch school? The objects or 
 scenes painted are neither graceful, nor beautiful, nor sublime ; 
 but they are Dutch. They have a strongly marked mind and 
 character impressed on them, and expressed by them ; and every 
 accompaniment in the picture has the same, and harmonizes witii 
 all around it. 
 
 The Hollander has a decided taste for the romantic: great 
 amateurs are the Mynheers of the rural. Every Dutchman above 
 the necessity of working to-day for the bread of to-morrow has his 
 garden-house (Buyteplaats) in the suburbs of his town (for the 
 Dutch population lives very much in towns surrounded by wet 
 ditches), and repairs to it on Saturday evening with his family, to 
 ruralize until Monday over his pipe of tobacco. Dirk Hatterick, 
 we are told, did so. It is the main extravagance of the Dutch 
 middle-class man, and it is often an expensive one. This garden- 
 house is a wooden box gayly painted, of eight or ten feet square ; 
 its name, " My Delight," or " Rural Felicity," or " Sweet Soli- 
 tude," stuck up in gilt tin letters on the front; and situated usually 
 at the end of a narrow slip of ground inclosed on three sides with 
 well-trimmed hedges and slimy ditches, and overhanging the canal, 
 which forms the boundary of the garden plot on its fourth side. 
 The slip of land is laid out in flower beds, all the flowers in one 
 bed being generally of one kind and colour; and the brilliancy of 
 
40 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 these large masses of flowers — the white and green paint work 
 and the gilding about the garden houses— and a row of those 
 glittering fairy summer lodges, shining in the sun upon the side of 
 the wide canal, and swimming in humid brilliancy in the midst of 
 plots and parterres of splendid flowers, and with the accompani- 
 ments of gayly dressed ladies at the windows — swiftly passing 
 pleasure boats with bright burnished sides below, and a whole 
 city population afloat, or on foot, enjoying themselves in their 
 holyday clothes — form, in truth, a summer evening scene which 
 one dwells upon with much delight. I pity the taste which can 
 stop to inquire if all this human enjoyment be in good taste or 
 bad taste, vulgar or refined. I stuff" my pipe-, hire a boatman to 
 row me in his schuytje up the canal to a tea garden, and pass the 
 evening as Dutchly and happily as my fellow-men. 
 
 Holland is the land of the chivalry of the middle classes. Here 
 they may say, in honest pride, to the hereditary lords and nobles 
 of the earth in the other countries of Europe, See what we gro- 
 cers, fish-curers, and ship-owners have done in days of yore, in 
 this little country! But, alas! this glory is faded. In the deserted 
 streets of Delft, and Leyden, and Haarlem, the grass is growing 
 through the seams of the brick pavements ; the ragged petticoat 
 flutters in the wind out of the drawing-room casements of a palace ; 
 the echo of wooden shoes clattering through empty saloons, tells 
 of past magnificence — of actual indigence. This has been a land 
 of warlike deed, of high and independent feeling ; the home of 
 patriots, of heroes, of scholars, of philosophers, of men of science, 
 of artists, of the persecuted for religious or political opinions from 
 every country, and of the generous spirits who patronized and 
 protected them. Why is the Holland of our times no longer that 
 old Holland of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ? Why 
 are her streets silent, her canals green with undisturbed slime? 
 
 The greatness of Holland was founded upon commercial pros- 
 perity and capital, not upon productive industry.* Her capital 
 
 * The heniug fishery of Holland has usually been represented as a branch 
 of productive industry from which her wealth was drawn. Amsterdam is 
 founded, we are told, on herring bones. Sir William Temple, and all political 
 economists since his day, have indulged in gross exaggerations of the impor- 
 tance and value of this branch of productive industry ; and our government 
 has scarcely yet thrown off the mania of legislating, by bounties, boards, and 
 regulations, for an unnatural extension of the British herring fishery — unna- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 41 
 
 and industry were not employed in producing what ministers to 
 human wants and gratifications ; but in transmitting what other 
 countries produced, or manufactured, from one country to another. 
 She was their broker. When their capitals, applied at first more 
 beneficially to productive industry, had grown large enough to 
 enter also into the business of circulation, as well as into that of 
 
 tural because it is production beyond consumption, and is forced by bounties 
 beyond the demand for the article. The following is the present slate of the 
 Dutch herring fishery, viz. : In 1841 — 
 
 Flardingen has fitted out 
 
 79 busses. 
 
 Delfshaven 
 
 „ 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Zwartwaal 
 
 - 
 
 4 
 
 — 
 
 Mittelhaus 
 
 - 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Schevening 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 Pirnis 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 Schiedam 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 Maassluys 
 
 /• 
 
 16 
 
 — 
 
 Enkhuyzen 
 
 - 
 
 4 
 
 — 
 
 Rip 
 
 - 
 
 6 
 
 — 
 
 Amsterdam 
 
 - 
 
 7 
 
 — 
 
 
 Total 
 
 123 
 
 
 Now suppose each buss to stow 400 barrels — and they are not vessels which 
 can stow more, being small, and lumbered with their nets and provisions — 
 and suppose each to make two trips, and to be a full ship each trip ; this outfit 
 will produce, after all, only 98,400 barrels of herrings, or about double of the 
 quantity usually cured in the county of Caithness. We have no reason to 
 suppose that the real effective market for herrings was ever more extensive 
 than it is now. By dint of bounties, no doubt, the Dutch may have sent out 
 more busses, and cured more fish formerly; but if this increased production 
 was forced beyond the demand and consumption, and the loss made good by 
 the bounty to the producer, which is precisely the working of our bounty- 
 system, in all things as well as in herrings, the country was no gainer by this 
 surplus of production beyond a consumption at a reproductive price. Suppose, 
 in the highest state of prosperity of the Dutch herring fishery, that they had 
 the number of busses at sea which flourish before our eyes in the pamphlets 
 innumerable on the Dutch herring fishery — say that they had 600 or 800, say 
 1200 sail in any one year, and all full ships; this gives us but 960,000 barrels 
 of herrings, worth about as many pounds sterling. This is probably one-third 
 more of this kind of food than all the markets, including the llussian and West' 
 Indian, ever consumed in one year; but throw it all to the credit of the I')utch 
 herring fishery as clear gain, still it is no great item of national weallh and 
 of production. It is at best a small thing magnified by bounty-fishers into 
 a source of great national wealth. 
 4 
 
42 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 production— into commerce, properly so called — the prosperity of 
 Holland, founded upon commerce alone, unsupported by a basis 
 of productive industry within herself, and among the mass of her 
 own population, fell to the ground. This is the history of Holland. 
 It speaks an important lesson to nations. 
 
 The world has witnessed the decline of commercial greatness 
 in Venice, in Genoa, in Florence, in the Hans Towns in Holland 
 — of m.ilitary greatness in Rome, France, Sweden, Prussia; but 
 has yet to learn whether productive greatness, that which is 
 founded upon the manufacturing industry of a people in all the 
 useful arts, be equally fleeting. It seems to rest upon principles 
 in political philosophy of a more stable nature. It is more bound 
 to soil and locality by natural circumstances. The useful metals, 
 coals, fire-power, water-power, harbours, easy transport by sea 
 and land, a climate favourable to out-door labour in winter and 
 summer, are advantages peculiar to certain districts of the earth, 
 and are not to be forced by the power of capital into new locali- 
 ties. Markets may be established anywhere, but not manufac- 
 tures. Human character, also, in the large, is farmed by human 
 employment, and is only removable with it. The busy, active, 
 industrious spirit of a population trained to quick work, and en- 
 ergetic exertion of every power, in the competition of a manufac- 
 turing country, is an unchangeable moral element in its national 
 prosperity, fouVided upon productive industry. Look at an Eng- 
 lishman at his work, and at one of these Dutchmen, or at any other 
 European man. It is no exaggeration to say, that one million of 
 our working men do more work in a twelvemonth, act more, 
 think more, get through more, produce more, live more as active 
 beings in this world, than any three millions in Europe, in the 
 same space of time ; and in this sense I hold it to be no vulgar 
 exaggeration that the Englishman is equal to three or to four of 
 the men of any other country. Transplant these men to England ; 
 and under the same impulse to exertion, and expeditious working 
 habits, which quickens the English working class, they also would 
 exceed their countrymen at home in productiveness. It is not in 
 the human animal, but in the circumstances in which he is placed, 
 that this most important element of national prosperity, this gene- 
 ral habit of quick, energetic, persevering activity, resides ; and 
 these circumstances, formed by nature, are not to be forced into 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 43 
 
 any country, independently of natural agency, by mere dint of 
 capital. 
 
 How little the mass of the people of the Seven United Pro- 
 vinces, the boors or peasants, or even the burgesses of the middle 
 and lower classes, had been acted upon by the wealth and pros- 
 perity of the commercial class in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, may be seen in their dwellings, furniture, clothing, and 
 enjoyments and habits of civilized life. These are all of the 
 make, material, and age prior to the rise of the opulence and 
 power of Holland — of the age of Queen Elizabeth — and have 
 remained, unchanged and unimproved, until that power and opu- 
 lence have fallen again to the level from which they rose. A 
 commercial class, aii aristocracy of capitalists, numerous perhaps 
 as a moneyed body, but nothing as a national mass, were alone 
 acted upon by this commercial prosperity ; and when trade gra- 
 dually removed to other countries, the Dutch capitalist, without 
 changing his domicil, easily transferred his capital to where the 
 use of it was wanted and profitable. Holland remains a coiuitry 
 full of capitalists and paupers; her wealth giving little employ- 
 ment, comparatively, to her own population in productive in- 
 dustry, and adding little to their prosperity, well-being, and habits 
 of activity in producing and enjoying the objects of civilized life. 
 
 The dilference of national mind, or character, in countries of 
 which the wealth rests upon commerce, from that where it rests 
 upon productive industry, is curiously brought out in the ditfer- 
 eiice of their application to, and estimation of, the fine arts. In 
 Italy, and in Holland, the social condition of great commercial 
 wealth, with cotnparatively little employment given by it to the 
 mass of the people, called into existence painters, sculptors, archi- 
 tects; furnished artists, and encouragement for thcm — that is, 
 demand and taste for their works. It was the main outlet for the 
 activity of the public mind, and for the excess of capital beyond 
 what could be profitably engaged in commerce. But a national 
 mind formed, like that of the English people, in the school of 
 productive industry, seeks the shadow at least of utility, even in 
 its most extravagant gratifications. Horses, hounds, carriages, a 
 seat in parliament, yachts, gardens, pet-farms, are tlie objects in 
 which great wealth in England indulges, nuich more freciucntly 
 than in grand palaces, fine jewels, valuable pairuings, delightful 
 music. Of other tastes connected with the fine arts. The turn of 
 
44 ' NOTES OF A TRAVELLEB, 
 
 the public mind is decidedly towards the useful arts ; for which 
 all, high and low, have a taste differing not so much in kind as in 
 the means and scale of its gratification. Capital can be so much 
 more extensively employed in reproduction in the useful arts, 
 where a whole population has a taste for and consumes their 
 objects, that the excess to be invested in objects of the fine arts is 
 surprisingly small in England, considering the vast amount and 
 difl'asion of her v/ealth. What is not useful, at least in appear- 
 ance, is but lightly esteemed as an expenditure of money, A 
 duke and his shoemaker, or tailor, or tenant, have precisely the 
 same tastes, lay out their excess of capital in objects of the same 
 nature, in gratifications of the same kind : differing only in cost, 
 not in principle. Look, in England, into the tradesman's parlour, 
 kitchen, garden, stable, way of living, amusements, and modes 
 of gratification — all are in the same taste as the riobleman's: the 
 same principle of utility runs through all. The cultivated, or 
 acquired tastes for the fine arts, for music, painting, sculptnrey 
 architecture, are little, if at all, more developed among the higher 
 or wealthier classes, than among the middle or lower classes. 
 England at this day, with ten thousand times the V/^ealth, furnishes 
 no such demand for and supply of objects of the fine arts as 
 Florence, Genoa, or Holland did, in the days of their prosperity. 
 Is this peculiar development of the national mind of the English 
 people, this low appreciation and social influence of the fine arts 
 compared to the useful among them, matter of just regret, as 
 many amateurs consider it ^ or is it matter of just and enlightened 
 exaltation, that our social condition has advanced so far beyond 
 that of any civilized people v/ho have preceded us, that the 
 tastes and gratifications which the few only of great wealth and 
 great station in a community can cultivate, and enjoy, are as 
 nothing in the mass of intellectual and bodily employment which 
 the many give, by the demands upon intellect and industry, for 
 their gratifications? 
 
 What, after all, is the real value, in the social condition of man, 
 of the fine arts? Are they not too highly estimated— raised by 
 prejudices, inherited from aperiod of intellectual culture far be- 
 hind our ov/n, into a false importance ? Do they contribute to 
 the well-being, civilization, and intellectuality of mankind, as 
 much as the cultivation of the useful arts? Do they call into 
 activity higher mental powers, or more of the moral qualities of 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 45 
 
 human nature, than the useful arts? Is the painter, the sculptor, 
 the musician, the tlieatrical performer, generally a more cultivated, 
 more intellectual, more moral member of society, a man approach- 
 ing nearer to the highest end and perfection of human nature, than 
 the engineer, the mechanician, the manufacturer? Is Rome, the 
 seat of the fine arts, upon a higher, or so high a grade, in all that 
 distinguishes a civihzed community, as Glasgow, INIancliester, or 
 Birmingham — the seats of the useful arts? Are Scotland and 
 the United States of America — without a good picture,^a good 
 statue, or a good palace within tlieir bounds, and without more 
 taste, feeling or knowledge in the fine arts, among the mass of the 
 people, than among so many New Zealanders — very far below 
 Italy, or Bavaria, with their fine arts, tastes, and artists, as moral 
 and intellectual communities of civilized men? Is a picture, a 
 statue, or a building, so high an effort of the human powers, 
 intellectual and bodily, as a ship, a foundry, a cotton mill, whh 
 all their complicated machineries and combinations ? We give, 
 in reality, an undue importance to the fine arts — reckon them 
 important, because they minister to the gratification, and are 
 among the legitimate and proper enjoyments of kings and im- 
 portant personages; but, like the military profession, or the servile 
 employments about a royal court, their importance is derivative 
 only — is founded on prejudice or fashion, not on sound philoso- 
 phic grounds. If the exercise of mental and physical power over 
 inert matter for the advantage of man — if moral and physical 
 improvement in our social condition be the standards by which 
 he importance of human action and production should, in reason, 
 be measured, (and to what other standard can they be applied ?) 
 the fine arts may descend from the pedestals on which the court 
 literature of the age of Louis XIV had placed them in France, 
 and in the little imitative German courts, and range themselves 
 in the rear of the modern applications of science and genius to 
 the useful arts. Rafaelle, Michael Angelo, Canova — immortal 
 artists! sublime producers! what are ye in the sober estimation 
 of reason ! The Arkwrighfs, the Watts, the Davys, the thousands 
 of scientific inventors and producers in the usehil arts, in our ago, 
 must rank before you, as wielders of great intellectual powers lor 
 great social good. The exponent of the civilization and intel- 
 lectual and social progress of man, is not a statue, but a steam 
 engine. The lisping amateur, hopping about the saloons of the 
 
46 NOTES OF A TRAVELLEB. 
 
 great, ma}'' prattle of taste, and refined feeling in music, scolptnre;^ 
 painting, as humanizing influences in society, as effective means 
 and distinguishing proofs of the diffusion of civilization among 
 mankind ; but the plain, undeniable, knock-me-down truth is, 
 that the Glasgow manufacturer., whose printed cotton handker- 
 chiefs the traveller Landers found adorning the woolly heads of 
 negresses far in the interior of Africa, who had never seen a white 
 human facCy has done more for civilization, has extended humari- 
 izing influences more widely, than all the painters, sculptors, 
 architects, and musicians of our age put together. Monstrous 
 Vandalism, but true. 
 
 The Dutch are mostly caged in half-empty large towns, or vil- 
 lages. To live a town life in the country, or a country life in the 
 town, is the most insipid and unsatisfactory of all ways of passing 
 life. Except in pictures, and in the novelty and character of their 
 home-scenery, which is often a Dutch picture in real, Holland 
 and its inhabitants are, in fact, not attractive. The climate is 
 damp, raw, and cold for eight months ; hot and unwholesome, 
 for four. The Dutch people, eminently charitable and benevolent 
 as a public, their country full of beneficent institutions admirably 
 conducted and munificently supported, are as individuals some- 
 what rough, hard, and, although it be uncharitable to say so, 
 uncharitable and unfeeling. We have, too, at home, our excel- 
 lent benevolent men, who will subscribe their sovereign, or their 
 twenty, to an hospital, house of refuge, or missionary or charita- 
 ble society for the relief or instruction of the poor ; but, on prin- 
 ciple, withold their penny from the shivering female on their 
 door-steps, imploring alms for the pale, sickly infant in her arms. 
 They are right on principle and consideration, quite right; but 
 one is not particularly in love with such quite-right people. The 
 instinct of benevolence in the heart is worth a whole theory of 
 such political economy in the head. Here, in Holland, the priva- 
 tions and misery of the poor are necessarily very severe, the 
 labouring class having very little agricultural work to turn to, as 
 the land is mostly under old grass for dairy husbandry; and eveu 
 the enclosures, being wet ditches, not hedges or walls, require few 
 annual repairs; no manufacturing employment of any conse- 
 quence, and, in fact, no work, except the transport of goods from 
 the seaports to the interior. Fuel, too, that greatest item, next la 
 food, in a poor man's comfort, is scarce and dear, being priaci- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 47 
 
 pally of peat-mud scooped out of the bogs in the interior of the 
 country, and baked in the sun like bricks. The centre of the 
 province of Holland is excavated like a great lagoon, by the ex- 
 traction of peat for ages. A small earthen dish of live embers 
 enclosed in a perforated wooden box,is carried about by the women 
 of the poor, and even of the middle class ; and when they sit 
 down to work, is put under their petticoats, and is the principal 
 firing in the winter life of the poor female. The effect of the 
 scarcity of fuel, or of the economy of it, in the Dutch household, 
 is visible in the usual costume of the working and middle classes. 
 The proverbial multiplicity of the Dutchman's integuments of his 
 nether man, and the tier above tier of petticoat which makes his 
 bulky frow a first-rate under sail, are effects of the dearness of 
 fuel in a raw, cold, damp clime. 
 
 In our manufacturing t%\vns, the poor, however badly off, have 
 more advantages in fuel, lodging, and occasional work produced 
 by manufacturing establishments, than in towns of greater wealth, 
 arising from commerce, or from the fixed incomes of capitalists, 
 landholders, and public functionaries. Edinburgh, for instance, 
 is not a seat of manufactures. We see a wealthy or well-off up- 
 per class in it; a thriving, well-to-do middle class, living by their 
 expenditure; and the class below, living by the family work and 
 handicrafts required by the other two, not very ill-off either ; but 
 dive to the bottom of society, even in Edinburgh, where fuel and 
 fish are cheap and land work and building work not scarce, but, 
 on the contrary, taking off much common labour at all seasons, 
 and you find the surplus of the labouring class, beyond what the 
 other two classes regularly employ, in extreme distress from the 
 want of manufactures on a great scale circulating employment 
 around them. Now Holland is just one such great city spread 
 over a small country ; and not a manufacturing city, but such a 
 city of capitalists, and of middle-class people living by their ex- 
 penditure, affording no labour to the lowest class— nothing but 
 city work, as tradesmen, family servants, and porters, seamen, or 
 bargemen. The two upper classes, and those they employ of the 
 lower class, may be well enough off; but such emj)loyment is 
 stationary, has no principle of an increase in it keeping pace, in 
 some degree, with the growth of population ; and the surplus, 
 who cannot find work in such a social body, is more wretched 
 than in anv other land. 
 
48 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 After the peace of 1816, Holland was among the first countries 
 in Europe that was obliged to grapple with a pauperism which 
 threatened to subvert all social arrangements. She established 
 poor colonies on some of the barren, sandy tracts of back coun- 
 try, above and behind the rich alluvial delta of the Rhine and 
 Scheldt. In 1821, when Holland and Belgium, united in one 
 monarchy, were recovering from the unsettled idle state in which 
 countries exposed to the agitations and vicissitudes of war are 
 kept — and which is the greatest evil of war — the total population 
 of the two was 5,715,347; and of these 753,218 persons, or 1 
 person nearly in ev^ery 7i of the population, was supported by 
 public charity. The proportion of this pauperism which belonged 
 to Holland and Belgium, severally, is not mentioned ; but from 
 the very different social state of the two populations— that of 
 Holland altogether commercial and agricultural, that of Belgium 
 manufacturing as well as agricultural, and scarcely at all com- 
 mercial — it would have been interesting to have seen distinctly 
 the effects on pauperism of the two distinct elements, commercial 
 activity and manufacturing industry. The total pauperism ap- 
 pears to have exceeded, in 1821, the highest proportion of the 
 population of England that was ever supported, wholly or in 
 part, by poor rate. It is generally understood that 1 in 8 of the 
 population was the greatest proportion in England, when poor- 
 rates v/ere under no regulation, that ever received parochial re- 
 lief The rich alluvial delta which the Scheldt, the Rhine, with 
 its branches the Maese, the Waal, the Yssel, and many smaller 
 waters, form around the great inlets, of the sea^ the Biesbos, the 
 Zuyder Zee, and the Dollert, are bounded on the land side by a 
 frame of barren sandy ground of very little elevation above the 
 rich land — the richest soil, perhaps, to be found north of the Alps 
 — which it adjoins, but of very different fertility. A stunted 
 heath growing from a thin covering of peat earth which hides 
 only in patches the rough sand and gravel, is the principal natural 
 vegetation. In some spots the pine exists rather than flourishes, 
 and shallow pools are found in the hollows which have any soil 
 in the bottom sufficiently tenacious to retain the rain-water. Un- 
 promising as this land may appear for agricultural purposes, there 
 is good reason for supposing that some of the best tracts of Flan- 
 ders, and which now are the most fertile in the north of Europe, 
 have originally been of the same quality. About Breda, and in 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 49 
 
 many other districts, spots of the original land untouched as yet 
 by cultivation, remain visible as an encouragement to industry. 
 But it is not an individual, nor a generation that can reclaim a 
 barren waste with advantage. Yet it may be done by the labour 
 of many successive generations applied, without intermission, to 
 the same spot. Such improvement carries no profit with it. 
 Capital is thrown away, and labour is not repaid for many gene- 
 rations, unless a scanty subsistence from the soil be a rcpaynient 
 for the labour of cultivating it. Yet if the land be the labourer's 
 own, he will put up with that recompense. Each succeeding 
 generation is better off, by the gradual improvement of the soil 
 from continued cultivation. The foot of man itself leaves fertility 
 behind it ; and the poorest inhabited spot is always superior to 
 the waste around it, and always in proportion to the length of 
 time it has been used. The basis of this improvement of the 
 uncultivated land of a country is undoubtedly population settled 
 as proprietors, and working on small garden-like portions, from 
 generation to generation. Large operations with outlay of capital, 
 and hired labour, and the system of large farming, rarely succeed 
 in reclaiming land, and still more rarely afford a real profit, even 
 when attempted on single fields adjoining a cultivated large farm. 
 The first operation in reclaiming land from a state of nature is 
 certainly to plant it with men. 
 
 The Dutch began, in 1818, to plant poor colonies in the barren 
 tract behind the Zuyder Zee. A society of subscribers to a fund 
 for the diminution of pauperism, aided by assistance from govern- 
 ment, purchased an estate near Steenwyk, a small town in that 
 tract of country, and commenced a poor colony, called Frederics- 
 oort, with fifty-two families sent from different parishes which 
 had subscribed to the fund. The whole cost 56,000 florins, or 
 about 4650/. sterling, and its extent was about 1200 acres, of 
 which about 200 had been cultivated, or at least laid into the 
 shape of fields. The poor quality of the land may be imagined 
 from its price. Each family, consisting on an average of six per- 
 sons of all ages, and settled on an allotment of seven acres, was 
 found to cost in outfit, including the expense of their house, furni- 
 ture, food, and seed for one year, clothing, flax, and wool for their 
 spinning, land for their cultivating, and two cows, about 1700 
 florins, or 141/. 10*. sterling ; and in 16 years the colonist was 
 expected to repay this advance by the surplus production of his 
 
50 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 labour, besides maintaining his faraily. A strict system of co-op- 
 erative and coercive labour, under discipline, as in a penal work- 
 house, was established. The colonist worked by the piece, under 
 inspection of overseers, was paid by a ticket, according to fixed 
 rates for the different kinds of work, and the ticket was good for 
 rations of food, or stores, at the shop or magazine of the society, 
 deUvered at fixed and moderate prices. The allotment of land 
 was to become ultimately the colonist's own property, when he 
 had cleared the 1700 florins of advance; and, by good conduct 
 and industry, he could obtain various indulgences and encourage- 
 ments during the 16 years which were required to clear that sum 
 according to the calculations of the society. The founder of this 
 establishment was a Dutch oflicer. General Van der Bosh, who 
 had seen in the East Indies, among the Chinese settlers in Java, 
 the great agricultural results from the co-operative labour of small 
 proprietors of land. With the people he had to deal — the pau- 
 pers of town populations, with vice and idleness, as well as want 
 and misery, in their social composition— he had to establish the 
 arrangements and discipline, both as to rewards and punishments, 
 of a penal colony. Constant employment under overseers was 
 the fundamental law. The free proprietorship of the land at the 
 end of 16 years was the ultimate reward ; and medals for good 
 conduct, and indulgences in the liberty of going about, were 
 minor intermediate rewards. The punishments were confine- 
 ment and hard labour in a small town called Omme Schantz. 
 The parishes which subscribed to the funds of the society 5100 
 guilders, or 425/., had the privilege of sending three families or 
 housekeepings, two of them consisting of six grown persons each, 
 and the third of six orphans, or foundlings, not under six years of 
 age, and a married couple with them, to manage for the children. 
 For the maintenance of each child, 160 guilders, or 5/., was to be 
 paid yearly. It appears that, in 1826, the poor colony at Wortel, 
 near Antwerp, established on the same plan, contained 125 farms, 
 and the managers of it had contracted to take 1000 paupers for 
 13 years, at 35 guilders, or 585. 4d. sterling, per head yearly. In 
 all, 20,000 persons were reckoned in 1826 in these poor colonies 
 of Frederics-oort and Wortel. 
 
 The separation of Holland and Belgium was of course unfa- 
 vourable to the progress of this great experiment on pauperism. 
 I found on visiting the pauper colony of Wortel, in 1841, that 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 51 
 
 not one colonist had prospered so far as to repay the advance, 
 according to the prospectus given out at its establishment in 1 S22 : 
 and that of 125 farms in cultivation in 1823, and 1000 paupers 
 contracted for, only 21 families are now remaining. It may be 
 thought that this Belgian division of the great experiment on 
 pauperism is scarcely to be taken as a fair example of its feasi- 
 bility, because it has not received from the present Belgian govern- 
 ment the same fostering aid and encouragement as it did, and that 
 of Frederics-oort still does, from the former Dutch government, 
 the scheme having been specially favoured and cherished by the 
 late or ex-king of Holland. 
 
 But his schemes were not always the most judicious. This 
 establishment at Wortel had the advantage of four years' expe- 
 rience of the system as carried on at Frederics-oort, which was 
 established in ISIS; it had the advantage of being established 
 by Captain Van der Bosh, the son of the original proposer ; it 
 had the advantage, if any, of all the government aid from 1822 
 till the separation of Belgium and Holland ; and it has since had 
 the real and, for the political economist, much greater advantage 
 of having been left by government to its own resources, to the 
 efficacy of its own principles. It has proved a failure : the colo- 
 nists who remain are, however, very far above pauperism. Their 
 crops, houses, clothing, indicate very considerable prosperity ; but 
 a good house which cost forty pounds sterling, seven acres of land, 
 very barren to be sure, being mere sandy heath, but still capable of 
 improvement, and requiring no draining or clearing of rocks, roots, 
 trees, or obstructions, arc data upon which a pauper may well 
 become rich for his station, if work also be found him for four 
 days in the week, and paid for in rations of food, or in stores, and 
 the other two days allowed him for working upon his own rent- 
 free land. The question is, whether the work found for him by 
 the public pays its cost, the wages paid for it either in rations of 
 food, or in stores. The work consists in planting or cutting down 
 trees; in fencing and preparing land for cultivation ; in cultivat- 
 ing the land which, in part at least, is to furnish the paupers them- 
 selves with rations for their own subsistence ; and also, as in-door 
 employment, in spinning, weaving, and manufacturing all that is 
 used, or issued in the colony. Poor-rate and workhouse labour, 
 applied in this way, is undoubtedly a better general system than 
 if they arc applied to the supply of the ordinary markets of a 
 
52 NOTES OF A THAVELLER. 
 
 country, with the same articles which give employment to the 
 classes who are but just one step above pauperism. If every work- 
 house or poor-house in the kingdom maintained itself by the value 
 and sale of the work of its inmates, in shoemaking, weaving, rope- 
 making, and such ordinary crafts as are carried on in work-houses, 
 the system would just drive so much unaided, independent in- 
 dustry, into the poor-house : for the single unaided tradesman, 
 with house-rent, fuel, light, cost of raw materials of his product, 
 and risk of its sale, all against him, could not stand against the 
 competition of such assisted pauper- work. It is a wise principle, 
 therefore, and in so far this pauper colony has been well con- 
 sidered, to apply pauper or penal labour only to the production 
 of what the pauper or convict establishment consumes within 
 itself. In the same barren tract of sandy heath in which the 
 pauper colony of Wortel is established, there is a penal colony of 
 about 600 convicts. They are worked under overseers, like all 
 convict gangs,''but in farm work, and producing their own neces- 
 saries, and they thus raise some portion, at least, of their own 
 food and clothing. It does not appear that escape is frequent ; 
 and classification by separate working gangs, in this out-door 
 work of which all are capable, may be obtained without seclu- 
 sion. 
 
 The crops of rye, clover, flax, potatoes, buckwheat, raised on 
 this barren land, both in the penal and in the pauper colony at 
 Wortel, are very fine, and when one sees the miserable, sandy, 
 sterile, heath-land, out of which these fertile spots have been 
 created, foot by foot, as it were, by the most minute labour, and 
 the most careful manuring, the ultimate failure with us of almost 
 every attempt to bring such barren wastes into fertility by grand 
 applications of labour and capital to a large area at once, is easily 
 accounted for. The repetition of work on the same spot, the 
 exposure of it by repeated turnings to the influence of the atmo- 
 sphere, the admixture of manure almost by hand, with every 
 particle of the raw, barren soil, are operations which even capital 
 cannot command, and which hired work upon the large scale 
 cannot profitably accomplish. It is the time only, and that time 
 not valued, of the small proprietor, which can fertilize, bit by bit, 
 such land. It is, in one view, certainly not a profitable application 
 of time and labour. They are not repaid in money or other 
 \,''alue within any moderate period. In another view, it is profit- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 53 
 
 able; the man who would be a pauper, feeds himself by his time 
 and labour, and adds a little, however little, to the perpetual pro- 
 ductiveness of his little farm. 
 
 This land of flowers and of frogs is marvellously ill-adapted for 
 the bed of royalty. Kingly government, a court, and nobility, are 
 not in harmony with the character, habits, tastes, manners, ways 
 of thinking and living, and established social economy of this 
 commercial, counting-house population, who for ages have been 
 strangers to conventional rank and influence, either hereditary, 
 military, or literary, or to any other social distinction than what a 
 man acquires for himself on 'change. Such property and in- 
 fluence are too variable in society to be a secure basis for kingly 
 power. They owe nothing to it. Competition, disunion, and 
 change, enter also more into them than into the element of landed 
 property, whi.ch seems to be the only stable basis for monarchical 
 government. Men who have acquired their own personal pro- 
 perty and social weight, submit unwillingly to irresponsible royal 
 management ; and a public bred, individually, to guide their own 
 affairs, will not sit passive, and see them guided by a king and 
 cabinet. They scrutinize too rigidly, perhaps, the royal doings, 
 and have too little respect for royal dignity. The ex-king of 
 Holland landed at Schevening, in 1813, with his portmanteau, and 
 a bunch of orange ribbons at his breast. His majesty retired from 
 business in 1841, the richest individual in Europe, worth, it is said, 
 above twenty millions of pounds sterling. The recognition by 
 law of 14th of May, 1814, of all the old and forgotten state debts 
 or obligations of Holland, was the origin of this enormous wealth. 
 These old state paper debts were considered to be as worthless as 
 the assignats of the French Republic, and, until their acknowledg- 
 ment in 1814, were sold for a small value. By the stock-jobbing 
 with the syndicats for paying off these state obligations, from 
 1822 — 1830, and by the establishment of the Bank of Brussels, of 
 which his majesty was a principal stockholder, immense sums 
 were gained. Besides, the exclusive management of the revenues 
 of the East India colonies without any obligation to render ac- 
 counts of it, was, by a questionable interpretation of the 60tli 
 article of the Ground Law of the kingdom of the Netherlands, 
 held to belong to, and was exercised by the sovereign. In a 
 trading country like Ilollaifd, and an exhausted country, with a 
 population of only 2,700,000 people, and a debt of 1121) millions 
 
54 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of guilders bearing interest, and of 316 millions of old debt 
 gradually to be redeemed, in short, with a taxation which cannot 
 be pushed above 52i millions and a yearly expenditm-e of 72,- 
 183,500 guilders to provide for; the accumulation of wealth of 
 such enormous amount by the head of the state, as a private man, 
 is looked upon with no very dutiful eye. It cannot be concealed, 
 that the monarchical principle lias been seriously injured in Hol- 
 land, Sweden, and France, by the money-making, stock-jobbing 
 propensities of the sovereigns. A king, in these censorious times, 
 cannot turn an honest penny in trade, or stock-jobbing, like 
 another man, without losing that isolation from all private inte- 
 rests and feelings which is the essential in the royal position, and 
 the main support of the monarchical principle in the human mind. 
 In many branches of trade " one man's gain is another man's 
 loss," according to the apprehension of the public ; and where 
 this relation steps in between king and people — the king the 
 gainer, the people the loser — the prestige of loyalty to the mil- 
 lionaire-monarch is gone. He is but a Rothschild on the throne. 
 In Holland, where material interests have long been predominant, 
 and are well understood, the successful application of their ex- 
 king to his private material interests has not added to the real 
 power or stability of the throne. The incompatibility of the 
 state of society, public opinion, and property, with kingly power, 
 has shown itself in several recent transactions. The Dutch people 
 will not tolerate irresponsible ministers in the management of 
 public affairs. They carry their point in spite of the king. They 
 will not tolerate in their sovereign, what in Prussia, and in all the 
 German states in which monarchy is supported by a basis of 
 aristocracy and landed property, is considered a laudable privilege 
 of royalty — that, for royal convenience, morality, and the ordinary 
 religious obligations and forms of marriage, should be set aside, 
 and a left-handed, morganatic, or mock marriage should give a 
 sanction to what would not be sanctioned by public opinion, as 
 right and moral in persons of private station. The Dutch choose 
 that their kings shall be subject, like other men, to the ordinary 
 rules of morality, religion and prudence. They carry their point. 
 Public opinion, ever on the side of morality when fairly brought 
 out by the voice of a whole people, beats down with contempt, 
 in such a community, the courtly attempts to slur over vvhat is 
 morally wrong; and their king, anxious to marry a private per- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 55 
 
 son, resigns before its voice ; for public opinion is here a state 
 power. The natural tendency of a society so constituted as this, 
 and with such moral power, is to arrive at the plain conclusion, 
 and the determination, too, that their king ought to be but the 
 president, and executive head, of their commonwealth. 
 
 Tlie total separation of Holland and Belgium was a false step for 
 the welfare of both. They should have divorced each other, the 
 two little countries, from bed and board only. The one country 
 is necessary to the other, and neither has the means to support a 
 distinct housekeeping. Holland has capital, commerce, and mag- 
 nificent colonies, but has nothing of her own manufacturing to 
 send to her colonies, no productions of her own industry to ex- 
 change with their industry, no commerce in any products of her 
 own. Belgium has manufacturing industry, and the raw mate- 
 rials on which it works, coal-fields, iron-works, and many pro- 
 ductive capabilities ; but has no colonies, no outlets, no markets, 
 no ships, no commerce. With the Prussian manufacturing pro- 
 vinces on the land side, England on the sea-side, and no shipping 
 or sea ports, but two, Antwerp and Ostend, and no free river 
 trade even to the consumers on the continent behind her, Belgium 
 is like the rich man in the fable, shut up with his treasures in his 
 own secret closet, and starving to death in the midst of his gold, 
 because he cannot unlock the door. These two little states will 
 come together again before a hundred years go over their heads 
 — not as one monarchy, for both want the foundation in their 
 social structure for monarchical government to stand upon — but 
 as two independent states federally united under one general 
 goverimient, like the United States of America, or the Swiss 
 cantons. 
 
 The principle of federalism has not been sufiiciently examined 
 by political philosphers. Theoretically, it is better adapted to the 
 wants of man in society than the principle of great monarchical 
 dominions under a sole central government, wheresoever the phy- 
 sical, or moral interests of the governed are discordant, wliercso- 
 ever the rights and advantages of one mass of population, their 
 prosperity, industry, well-being, property, natural benefits of soil, 
 situation, and climate, their manners, language, religion, nation- 
 ality in spirit or prejudice, are set aside, and sacrificed to those of 
 another mass. In almost all extensive monar^'.hies this must be 
 the case, from the centralization inseparable from that species of 
 
56 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 general government. Federalism seems a more natural and just 
 principle of general government, theoretically considered, than this 
 forced centralization. No rights or advantages of any of the parts 
 are sacrificed in federalism, for nothing is centralized but what is 
 iiecessarjT^ for the external defence, safety, and welfare of all the 
 parts. The peculiar internal welfare of each part, according to its 
 own peculiar internal circumstances, physical and moral, according 
 to its own political idiosyncrasy, is in its own keeping, in its own 
 internal legislative and administrative powers. As civilization, 
 peace, and industry acquire an influence in the aff'airs of mankind, 
 which the individual ambition of a sovereign, or the ignorance 
 and evil passions of a government will not be allowed to shake, 
 the superiority of small independent states federally united, each 
 extending over such territory, or masses of society only, as can 
 be governed together, without the sacrifice of one part to another, 
 and each interested in the general civiUzation, peace and industry, 
 will probably be acknowledged by all civilized populations. Junc- 
 tions morally or physically discordant, as that of Belgium and 
 Holland, Austria and Lombardy, districts and populations on the 
 Vistula and Niemen, with districts and populations onUhe Rhine 
 and Moselle, are political arrangements which lack any principle 
 of permanency founded upon their benefits to the governed. Na- 
 ture forbids, by the unalterable diflerences of soil, climate, situation, 
 and natural advantages of country, or by the equally unalterable 
 moral diff'erences between people and people, that one government 
 can equally serve all— be equally suited to promote the utmost good 
 of all. Federalism involves a principle more akin to natural, free, 
 and beneficial legislation, and to the improvement of the social con- 
 dition of man, than governments in single extensive states, holding 
 legislative and executive powers over distant and distinct countries 
 and populations, whether such governments be constitutional or 
 despotic. It is much more likely to be the future progress of 
 society, that Europe in the course of time, civilization, and the 
 increasing influence of public opinion on all public affairs, will 
 resolve itself into one great federal union of many states, of extent 
 suitable to their moral and physical peculiarities, like the union of 
 the American states, than that those American states will, in the 
 course of time and civilization, fall back into separate, uncon- 
 nected, and hostile monarchies and aristocracies, which some mo- 
 dern travellers in America assure us is their inevitable doom. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 57 
 
 With all respect for their gifts of prophecy, the tendency of human 
 afiairs is not to retrograde towards the old, but to advance towards 
 the new, towards a higher physical, moral, and religious condi- 
 tion; towards forms of government in which the interests of the 
 people shall be directed by the people, and for the people. Moral 
 and intellectual power is leavening the whole mass, and not merely 
 the upper crust of European society. The political balance of 
 power among the European governments, if the idea could be 
 carried out to its utmost completeness and permanency, is in 
 reality a homage to the principle of federalism, an imperfect ap- 
 proximation to a federal union of the European powers — imper- 
 fect, because the interests of kingdoms territorially or dynastically 
 considered as family estates, not the distinct physical and moral 
 interests of the different masses of the European population, are 
 attempted to be federalized. Yet this imperfect principle of fed- 
 eralism is eminently successful in the political federation of the 
 Germanic states. This federation acts with dignity and power. 
 In Switzerland, and in America, the constitution of the central 
 federated power may be imperfect, may be too strong, or not 
 strong enough; or even the stale of society may not be ripe for 
 the federal constitution adopted, and may, as yet, want a class 
 removed by education and fortune from the temptation of turning 
 public affairs to their private pecuniary advantage ; but still the 
 principle of federalism, theoretically considered, appears more rea- 
 sonable and suitable to the well-being of society than the mon- 
 archical, and appears to be that towards which civilized and 
 educated society is naturally tending in its course. The German 
 custom-house union, or commercial league, is a remarkable indi- 
 cation of the irresistible tendency of social economy in modern 
 times towards the principle of federalism. Kings and governments 
 are often but the blind agents in these vast spontaneous movements 
 of society. In this great measure of federalizing the German popu- 
 lations for the regulation and advancement of their industrial and 
 commercial interests, is involved a principle which must neces- 
 sarily extend to the constitutional and political rights and interests 
 of these communities ; and one altogether incompatible with the 
 principle and system of the very governments and kings who at 
 present lead this movement of the social body in Germany. 
 
 The efficiency of the federal principle in the political condition 
 of states has been impressively brought out in modern history, in 
 5 
 
58 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the two little countries at the opposite extremities of the Rhine — 
 in Holland and in Switzerland. In both countries, national en- 
 ergy and moral strength" of character have been more vigorously 
 displayed, even in the most recent times, than in any of the small 
 neighbouring monarchies. It would be a ridiculous contrast to 
 compare the histories of the passive Danish, Hanoverian, Bava- 
 rian, or Wurtemburg populations with those of the Dutch or 
 Swiss nations. The obstinate struggle of the Dutch to retain 
 possession of Belgium was a lingering spark of their old federal 
 patriotism and strength of character, still glowing beneath a royal 
 government too recent in a country of such republican habits and 
 spirit as Holland, to kindle, for its own sake, a spark of loyalty. 
 If Holland had been restored, on the expulsion of the French in 
 1814, to her ancient federal constitution, with a stadtholder instead 
 of a king, and with Belgium as one of the states of the confede- 
 ration, the cause of the rupture — the interference with the local 
 advantages or prejudices of the one portion of the new-baked 
 kingdom, for the sake of the other— the centralization-attempt of 
 the late King of Holland for giving effect to the monarchical prin- 
 ciple of extending one consolidated power, one language, law, 
 and religion over all, would never have existed. Belgium, as one 
 of the united or federal states, would have retained her own in- 
 ternal laws, language, regulations, and social arrangements, as 
 independently as Holland, and yet have been as effective a mem- 
 ber of one state in the European family as the canton of Bern is 
 in the Swiss confederation, or as the province of Holland, or that 
 of Zealand, was in that of the Seven United Provinces, or as the 
 state of New York is in the American. If the balance of power 
 in Europe required, in 1815, one political state or power of some 
 weight, and of independent existence, on this side of the great 
 monarchies, France and Prussia, and in possession of the great 
 battle-field on which almost all European warfare has ultimately 
 been decided, that necessity or policy exists now in full strength. 
 The separation of the two countries is a breach of the settlement 
 of Europe, which can only be remedied by uniting them in that 
 way in which alone they will submit to be united, viz., as one 
 federal state in the European system, like the Swiss. As two in- 
 dependent monarchies, it is evident that neither has the means to 
 maintain herself in a neutral state, and on the first warlike move- 
 ment in Europe, France will, and for her own self-defence must 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 59 
 
 of necessity re-occupy Belgium, as being a country too weak to 
 cover France by a showof neutrality which the power of Belgium 
 alone cannot maintain. Without any great convulsion in Europe 
 by war, it is even possible that, by the extension of the new ele- 
 ment in European policy — the principle of the German commercial 
 league — Belgium will become, dc facto, united to France, united by 
 all its material interests, and Holland to Prussia, or to the German 
 commercial league, if that assume, as it is fast doing, a distinct 
 political existence as a federated power in Europe. Holland will 
 have the best of the bargain in this new shape of aflairs to which 
 the political state of Europe is tending. She will hold the keys 
 of the outlet and inlet of all the material interests of Germany, 
 and, possessing the colonies, ports, and shipping through which 
 these must work, will in reality be the head of the new European 
 power of 26 millions of people federated by the commercial league. 
 Prussia will be but a branch of this new power. Belgium, taking 
 the opposite side, viz., the French commercial alliance, will in 
 reality be the department of the Scheldt governed by a king in- 
 stead of a prefect. The jealousy of republican institutions which, 
 in 1815, prevented the restoration of the federal constitution of 
 Holland under a stadtholder, and forced monarchy upon countries 
 devoid of the principles, in their social economy and habits, on 
 which monarchical government rests, is beginning now to reap 
 the fruits it sowed. 
 
 The Swiss were more fortunate than the Dutch on the remodel- 
 ling of Ein-ope in 1815, and retained the principle of federalism 
 in the general government of their two-and-twenty distinct, and. 
 in language, religion, laws, and constitutions for internal govern- 
 ment, widely different states. They act well together as a fede- 
 rated European power. The general executive government of 
 these little Swiss states made a dignified and determined stand 
 against the demonstrations and menaces of France, on the ques- 
 tion of the expulsion of Prince Louis Buonaparte from Switzer- 
 land. It was for the principle of their integrity and honour, and 
 of the protection given by all to the citizen of any one of their 
 states, — and Monsieur Buonaparte had unluckily acquired citizen- 
 ship in the state of Bern — that the Swiss people were ready to a 
 man to encounter the chances of war with the French monarch, 
 and were actually under arms, and suffering the evils of war in 
 their commercial industry, interests, and communications. Would 
 
60 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 any of the neighbouring monarchical states, Wurtembiirg, Baden, 
 Hesse, have assumed so dignified and determined a position as 
 the Swiss cantons did on this occasion, upon a question of prin- 
 ciple, and of the protection due to a citizen ? Prince Louis Buo- 
 naparte was nothing in the movement ; was but the fly on the 
 chariot wheel fancying he was kicking up all the dust around 
 him. When the prince became sensible — and it was not too soon 
 — that he was personally not thought of in tlie question by the 
 Swiss people, and found himself in the mortifying position of 
 being the cause, without, in the slightest degree, being the object 
 of the impending rupture, he took himself off, and the question 
 was at once at an end. This trifling affair, however, may give 
 the political philosopher something to reflect on. This federal 
 bundle of apparently discordant materials, when a question arose 
 to be met with national spirit and united vigour, showed itself 
 thoroughly nationalized, and prepared to act : and the readiness 
 of federated Switzerland to hazard all in defence of a just prin- 
 ciple, and of monarchical France to break through all interna- 
 tional principle, shows that federalism is not always weak, nor 
 always wrong. 
 
CHAPTER ir. 
 
 FRANCE— FACE OF THE COUNTRY.— OF ENGLAND— OLD SUBDIVISION OF 
 LAND^ IN ENGLAND.— GREAT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT IN FRANCE— ABO- 
 LITION OF PRIMOGENITURE.— OPINIONS OF ARTHUR YOUNG— MR. BIR- 
 BECK— EDINBURGH REVIEWERS— DR. CHALMERS REVIEWED.— EF- 
 FECTS OF THE DIVISION OF LAND IN FRANCE EXAMINED.— FRENCH 
 CHARACTER— MORALS— HONESTY— DECIMAL DIVISION OF WEIGHTS 
 AND MEASURES, WHY NOT POPULAR. 
 
 The traveller should either know a great deal about the country 
 he is going to visit, or nothing at all ; and perhaps his readers 
 would find themselves better off with his ignorance than his 
 knowledge. . He is very apt to shut one eye, and look with the 
 other through a coloured glass which he has been at great pains to 
 stain with the opinions and prejudices of other people, and which 
 gives its own hue to everything he sees through it. In politics, 
 political economy, and the fine arts, most people can only see 
 through their neighbours' spectacles. In France it is particularly 
 difficult to exert the rare faculty of seeing through one's own eyes. 
 France is a moral volcano which has shaken to the ground ancient 
 social structures, laws, governments, and the very ideas, principles, 
 or prejudices which supported them. Who of this generation can 
 approach the crater of such mighty movements, and conscien- 
 tiously say that he is able to examine them calmly, philosophically, 
 without preconceived theories or speculations upon their causes- 
 or tendencies? Every reflecting traveller admits that the great 
 elements of change in the social condition of Europe which were 
 thrown out by the French revolution are only now beginning to 
 work powerfully ; that the most important and permanent of its 
 results have been moral, not political; that in reality the French 
 revolution is but in its commencement, as a great social movement. 
 So far all observers of the times we live in travel together: but 
 here they diverge. Each observes the agencies brought info ope- 
 ration upon the mass of the European people by the French 
 revolution, through the distorting medium of the opinions and 
 prejudices of his own country, class, or social position as an indi- 
 
62 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 vidual, and reasons and prophesies only upon the shapes and 
 colours which he sees through this false medium. Am I in a 
 condition to see with clearer eyes? I doubt it. I do not profess it. 
 
 The traveller in France finds much to observe, but little to de- 
 scribe. The landscape is a wearisome expanse of tillage land 
 unvaried by hill and dale, stream and lake, rock and woodland. 
 The towns and villages are squatting in the plains, like stranger 
 beggar-women tired of wandering in an unknown land. No 
 suburbs of connected rows of houses and gardens, and of lanes 
 dotted with buildings, trees, and brick walls, stretch, as in England, 
 like feelers into the country, fastening the towns to it by so many 
 lines, that the traveller is in doubt where country ends and town 
 begins. Here, the towns and villages are distinct, round, inhabited 
 patches upon the face of the land, just as they are represented 
 upon a map : and the flat, monotonous surface of the map is no 
 uncharacteristic sketch of the appearance of the country. La 
 belle France, in truth, is a Calmuc beauty ; her flat pancake of a 
 face destitute of feature, of projection or dimple, and not even 
 tattooed with lines and cross lines of hedges, walls, and ditches. 
 This wide, unhedged expanse of corn land on either hand, with 
 out divisions, or enclosures, or pasture fields, or old trees, single or 
 in groups, is supremely tiresome. The traveller at once admits 
 that France has a natural claim to the word which all other 
 countries have borrowed from her — ennui. 
 
 The green network of hedges spread over the face of England, 
 that peculiar charm of English land, must have been formed at 
 some very peculiar period in the history of the English people. It 
 must have been the work of a nation of small proprietors long 
 employed upon it. We view it as an embellishment only, and 
 frequently as an incumbrance, rather than a convenience in hus- 
 bandry ; but it is a memorial of an extinct social condition different 
 from the present, which has prevailed in some former and distant 
 age in England. This subdivision of the land into small portions 
 by permanent hedges and mounds of earth, is almost pecuhar to 
 England. In Scotland, in France, in Germany, in all European 
 countries in which the feudal system gave the original law and 
 tenure of land, no small properties fenced all round from each 
 other have existed of old, unless, it may be, in a few small locali- 
 ties. In Etigland, the history of society and property is written 
 upon the face of the country. This immense work, unexampled 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER, 63 
 
 in extent in any other country, must liave been executed in the 
 six hundred years between the final departure of the Romans 
 and the Norman conquest. The open, unenclosed surface of 
 those districts of France which belonged to the earUer kings of 
 our Norman line, shows that in the state of the possession of 
 landed property in those provinces in their time, no subdivisions 
 by numerous small permanent enclosures had ever been required 
 or formed. The small enclosures in England must have been 
 made in a different state of society, before the Norman conquest, 
 yet probably after the Romans left the country. No country 
 occupied by the Romans shows any such traces of subdivision 
 among a small proprietary. The Roman occupation of Britain 
 was altogether military ; and such a body of small proprietary 
 would have been adverse in a civil view, and their separate strong 
 enclosures upon the face of the country obstructive, in a military 
 view, to the Roman power. The Saxons and Danes — one people 
 in the principles of their laws, institutions, and languages, although 
 in different states of civilization — must have woven this immense 
 veil over the face of the land during the six centuries they pos- 
 sessed England under a social arrangement altogether different 
 from the present ; one in which their law of partition of property 
 among all the children, excluding the feudal principle of primo- 
 geniture, would produce this subdivision of the land into small 
 distinct fields. 
 
 France is now, by the abolition of the feudal tenure of land, 
 and of the law of primogeniture, recommencing a state of society 
 which was extinguished in England by the Norman conquest and 
 the laws of succession adopted from that period. France is in the 
 midst of a great social experiment. Its results upon civilization 
 can only be guessed at now, and will only be distinctly seen, 
 perhaps, after the lapse of ages. The opinions of all our political 
 economists are adverse to it. Listen to the groans of the most 
 acute observers of our days, on the appalling consequences of this 
 division of landed property. Says Arthur Young, in 1789, (con- 
 sequently before the sale of the national domains, crown and 
 church estates, and confiscated estates of the noblesse, and before 
 the law of partition of property among all the children became 
 obligatory on all classes of the community,) " Small properties, 
 much divided, prove the greatest source of misery that can possibly 
 be conceived, and has operated to such a degree and extent in 
 France, that a law ought certainly to be made to render all divi- 
 
64 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 sion below a certain number of arpens illegal." Arthur Young 
 wrote this just about fifty years ago, and a few months only before 
 a law was passed directly opposed to the principle he recommends 
 — the law aboUshing the rights of primogeniture, and making the 
 division of property among all the children obligatory; and which 
 law has been ever since, that is, for nearly half a century, in gene- 
 ral and uninterrupted operation. Listen, again, to Mr. Birbeck, 
 a traveller of no ordinary sagacity. " Poor," says he, of the 
 French people under this law, " from generation to generation, 
 and growing continually poorer as they increase in numbers — in 
 the country, by the incessant division and subdivision of property; 
 in the towns, by the division and subdivision of trades and profes- 
 sions — such a people, instead of proceeding from the necessaries 
 to the comforts of life, and then to the luxuries, as is the condition 
 of things in England, are rather retrograde than progressive. 
 There is no advancement in French society, no improvement, no 
 hope of it." Hear, too, the chirp of Mr. Peter Paul Cobbett in 
 his Ride through France. " Here, in Normandy, great lamentation 
 on account of this revolutionary law. They tell me it has dis- 
 persed thousands upon thousands of farnihes who had been upon 
 the same spot for centuries." Listen, too, to the thunders of the 
 Edinburgh Review. " In no country of Europe is there such a 
 vast body of proprietors (one half of the population of France is 
 stated in the preceding paragraph to be proprietors), and in no 
 civilized European country, with the exception of Ireland, is there 
 so large a proportion of the population (stated to be two-thirds) 
 engaged directly in the cultivation, or rather, we should say, in 
 the torture of the soil. And yet the system is but in its infancy. 
 Should it be supported for another half century, la grandt nation 
 will certainly be the greatest pauper warren in Europe, and will, 
 along with Ireland, have the honour of furnishing hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water for all other countries in the world." Alas, 
 for human wisdom ! Alas, for the predictions of Arthur Young, 
 Mr. Birbeck, and the Edinburgh Review ! But who can be a 
 prophet at home? Not that their prophecies were undervalued 
 at home ; but their home-made prophecies were of no value — 
 were framed upon narrow, local views and prejudices. When 
 new social arrangements, diametrically opposed in principle and 
 spirit to the feudal, grew up, and unfolded themselves, first in 
 America and afterwards in France, and gradually spread from 
 thence over great part of the present Prussia, the feudalized minds 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 65 
 
 of our Scotch political economists were lavish in their predictions 
 of the degradation, misery, and barbarism which must inevitably 
 ensue among that portion of the human race who were so un 
 fortunate as to adopt the dictates of nature and reason in their 
 legislation on property and social rank, instead of adhering to 
 conventional and barbarous laws and institutions derived from 
 the darkest period of the middle ages. 
 
 If natural affection, humanity, reason, religion — if all that dis- 
 tinguishes man from the brute creation— speak more clearly in 
 the human breast on the obhgation of one duty than of another, 
 it is on that of the parent providing equally according to his 
 means for all the beings he has brought into existence and added 
 to society ; leaving none of them to want and distress if he can 
 help it, or to chance for a precarious subsistence, or to be sup- 
 ported by his neighbours out of their alms, as paupers, or out of 
 their taxes, as useless functionaries, or by uncertain dependence 
 upon employment, and bread from others. Is not this a moral 
 and religious duty? Is it not the clearest duty of the parent, not 
 only to the offspring he has brought into existence, but to the 
 social body of which he and they are members ? Can any argu- 
 ment of expediency drawn from our artificial state of society 
 under the feudal system and feudal law of succession to property, 
 and of the advantage of that system, turn away the natural sen- 
 timents of men from this great moral duty to their own offspring? 
 from this great moral duty to the rest of society? Yet listen to 
 the morality and political economy taught lately in no obscure 
 corner, and to no uninfluential pupils, but from the Divinity chair 
 of the University of Edinburgh to the young men who were to 
 go forth, and are now, the religious and moral instructors of the 
 people in the established church of Scotland. " VVe know," says 
 Dr. Chalmers in his Political Economy in Connection ivit/i the 
 Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society ; being the sub- 
 stance of a Course of Lectures delivered to the Students of the 
 Theological Hall in Edinburgh, — "We know," says this dis- 
 tinguished philosopher, " that there is a mighty force of sentiment 
 and natural affection arrayed against the law of primogeniture. 
 But here is the way in which we would appease these feelings, 
 and make compensation for the violence done to them. We 
 would make no inroad on the integrity of estates, or, for the sake 
 of a second brother, take ofl"to the extent of a thousand a year 
 
66 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 from that domain of ten thousand a year which devolved by- 
 succession on the eldest son of the family. We should think it 
 vastly better, if, by means of a liberal provision in all the branches 
 of the public service, a place of a thousand a year lay open to the 
 younger son, whether in the law, or in the church, or in colleges, 
 or in any other well-appointed establishment kept up for the good 
 and interest of the nation." 
 
 Will the teachers, or the taught, of this new school of morality 
 and political economy in the Theological Hall of Edinburgh ex- 
 plain the moral principle on which they recommend the getting 
 rid of " a mighty force of sentiment and natural affection," and 
 '• the appeasing those feelings, and making compensation for the 
 violence done to them," by places of a thousand a year, or by 
 any other pecuniary compensation in the public service ? The 
 '• mighty force of sentiment and natural affection," the " feelings 
 to be appeased and compensated for the violence done them" 
 by places in the church, or the law, or in colleges, or some other 
 well-appointed establishment, are nothing less sacred, or of less 
 moral value than the paternal affection and the moral sentiment 
 of justice to others, urging on the feelings of the parent to pro- 
 vide equally for each of his children to the utmost of his means ; 
 and dictating to him, as a man, the moral duty to his fellow-men 
 of not imposing upon them the burden of maintaining his progeny, 
 either as paupers, or as superfluous public functionaries, if he has 
 property to maintain them himself. Will the teachers or the 
 taught of this new school of moral and political philosophy in the 
 University of Edinburgh explain the moral, religious, or philoso- 
 phical principle of this " appeasing and compensating" for the 
 sacrifice of natural affection, moral feeling, and sentiment of duty, 
 by places in the church, or the law, or in any other well-ap- 
 pointed establishments? Tliey are not in the position of ordi- 
 nary men speaking or writing speculatively on morals, and re- 
 sponsible only as idle uninfluential philosophers, or political 
 writers, for the errors of their speculations. The men who are 
 the professional teachers of the people in morals and religion are 
 bound to hold none but the clearest and purest doctrines — to 
 teach, and to be taught, nothing obscure or doubtful in political, 
 moral, or religious science. The feudal system, with its corner- 
 stone, the law of primogeniture, may be a very good or very 
 expedient system; but it is admitted by themselves to be an arti- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER, 67 
 
 ficial arrangement of society and property, not established and 
 uplreld in the human mind by nature or religion, but, on the con- 
 trary, one against which " there is a mighty force of sentiment 
 and natural affection arrayed." Will they explain the moral 
 principle of their doctrine, that the most virtuous feelings in our 
 nature— the mighty force of natural affection for our children, 
 and the mighty force of the sentiment of justice to our fellow- 
 men — should be sacrificed to support an artificial system or ar- 
 rangement of society, be that system or arrangement ever so 
 expedient or beneficial ? Will they explain the moral principle 
 upon which they recommend " the appeasing those natural feel- 
 ings of affection and moral duty, and the compensating for the 
 violence done to them," by anappointment of a tliousand a year, 
 or by any other pecuniary compensation ? Will they explain 
 the moral difference between the conduct of the owner of a 
 domain of ten thousand a year who leaves it all to his eldest son, 
 and leaves his youngest son to be provided for by his neighbours 
 out of their taxes, in some appointment of a thousand a year in 
 the church, or the law, or in any other public establishment — 
 which is the case propounded and recommended by them — and 
 the conduct of the wretched female who exposes her new-born 
 babe on her neighbour's door-step to be provided for out of his 
 means ? The moral guilt of the latter, driven by want and 
 misery to abandon the infant she is unable to maintain, appears 
 to all men, whose moral sense has not been cultivated at the 
 Theological Hall of the University of Edinburgh, infinitely less 
 than that of the man of ten thousand a year who abandons his 
 younger children to the support of the public, in order to leave all 
 his estate to the eldest son. Will they explain the moral grounds 
 of their teaching that the abandonment of his parental and social 
 duties to his offspring, and to his fellow-men, is a laudable act in 
 the case of the rich domain owner, and the same abandonment 
 an immoral and criminal act in the case of the wretched strum- 
 pet ? Xhey are the teachers of the people of Scotland, whose 
 principles of moral and political philosophy, as laid down in their 
 own text-book, are here arraigned, and they ought to satisfy 
 every do^ibt that is suggested to the public mind, either of the 
 moral purity or of the philosophical correctness of their specula- 
 tions. Will they explain the principle and justice of their politi- 
 cal economy on this subject, and also its working and ellccis in 
 
68 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 society ? If the owner of a domain of ten thousand a year is 
 morally, and for the general benefit of society, entitled to a pro- 
 vision of a thousand a year for his younger son from the rest of 
 the community — for they, the rest, pay with their taxes the ap- 
 pointments in the law, the church, and all other branches of 
 public service, which it is proposed and recommended to establish 
 for the benefit of the younger sons of those rich paupers, and as 
 a compensation to the latter for having stifled their natural affec- 
 tions as parents, and their sense of duty to their fellow-men — that 
 younger son must be equally entitled to a provision for his 
 younger son ; for he too has natural affection and a moral sense 
 to stifle and to be compensated for. How long, to what extent, 
 and with what effect on the well-being of society, is this clerical 
 system of political economy to work, by which the property of 
 all is to be devoted to the subsistence, in highly paid offices, of a 
 part of the community ? Will they also explain if all those 
 younger sons of domain owners, thus to be provided for ad in- 
 finitum at the public expense, in order to enable and encourage 
 wealthy parents to stifle the feelings of natural affection and so- 
 cial duty, and leave undiminished their domains of ten thousand 
 a year to their eldest sons, are all to be born with the necessary 
 qualifications for those liberal appointments in the church, or in 
 the law, or in the public service, which it is proposed to establish 
 for their subsistence ? Are they, for instance, to be born clergy- 
 men of the church of Scotland, with all the talents and acquire- 
 ments needful, or are they only to bring into the world with them 
 all the learning and divinity necessary, but are t-o acquire their 
 principles of moral philosophy and political economy at the 
 Theological Hall at the University of Edinburgh ? 
 
 It is the duty of every inquirer into political and social economy 
 to raise his voice against such attempts to educate a people into 
 the support of any social or political system founded on mere 
 expediency, not upon moral principle; and which is not the only 
 social arrangement among civilized men, nor proved by reasoning 
 or experience to be incontrovertibly the best for the general well- 
 being of a community. This is perverting education to the most 
 despicable end — the support of a political system. Other social 
 arrangements than the feudal do exist in civilized countries. Re- 
 ligion, morality, and social well-being flourish in those countries, 
 as well as in those feudally constituted. To enlist the passions 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 69 
 
 or prejudices of mankind by education into a partisanship for one 
 or tlie other constitution of society, to inculcate the sacrifice of 
 moral duty, of natural sentiment, of the highest affections and 
 feelings of human beings, for the support of one or the other 
 social arrangement on account of its real or supposed expediency, 
 is unsound doctrine. Are these but idle speculations, which, 
 sound or unsound, are confined within the walls of the closet or 
 the class-room, and have no influence upon the movement of the 
 real affairs of the world ? They make a wrong estimate of the 
 mfluence of speculative doctrine in society, who think so. The 
 bias given in the education of the public mind, to consider the 
 support of a caste, or class, or conventional arrangement in so- 
 ciety, as an object to which natural sentiment and moral duty 
 ought to be sacrificed, may be traced in the support given at this 
 day to the claim of a state-established church to a power inde- 
 pendent of the state. To set aside the first of the moral duties 
 of man as a member of society — the support of that power esta- 
 blished by the social body for its government — and to erect a 
 church-power independent of that government, with a caste, 
 class, or body of men not subject to its laws, is a natural sequence 
 from this unsound doctrine in political and moral philosophy 
 taught in the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 The condition of Ireland, divided and subdivided among a 
 small tenantry whose savings, be it remembered, by wretched 
 diet, lodging, and raiment, and the privation of every comfort of 
 civilized life, is a saving which goes, in the shape of high rent, 
 into the pockets of another class, the land-owners, not into their 
 own pockets as the gains of their frugality to be added to their 
 property, or means of expenditure, was, and still is, the grand 
 bugbear of our Scotch political economists, and still furnishes 
 the main argument against the distribution of landed property 
 through the social body by the natural and moral law of succes- 
 sion. They did not, and do not at present consider the somewhat 
 important difference of people being the owners or not the owners 
 of the land divided. The belly is too faithful a counsellor to the 
 head, to allow a man to sit down to live upon a piece of land of 
 his own, if it be not large enough to support him in the way he 
 hag'been accustomed to live. lie turns his property into another 
 shape — into money — and makes a living out of it as a tradesman. 
 Between the condition of such a land-owner and an Irish cottar- 
 
70 NOTES 0F A TRAVELLER. 
 
 tenant there is the important difference, that the former has a 
 capital which he may keep in land, or invest in leather or sugar: 
 he may be a peasant or a shoemaker, or a grocer, according to 
 his judgment; and if he lives merely upon potatoes and water, 
 what he spares is increasing his capital and means of gratification 
 in some other shape. The Irish cottar-tenant has no property to 
 begin with in the land or in anything else. He is, and his whole 
 class, in consequence of the working of the law of primogeniture 
 in society, pauper ab initio ; and all that is spared by his inferior 
 condition, in respect of the comforts and necessaries of life, goes 
 into his landlord's pocket, in the shape of rent, not into his own 
 as the savings of his own prudence and frugality. He is also 
 placed in a false position by the land-holders of Ireland, even as 
 compared to the cottar-tenantry, which existed formerly all over 
 Scotland, and still continue in the northern counties. The latter 
 were generally charged a rent in kind, that is, in a proportion of 
 the crops produced, or with a reference to the average crops of the 
 land. The peasant could understand the simple data before him, 
 knew at once whether the land could produce enough to feed his 
 family and leave a surplus such as was demanded for rent, and, 
 if not, he sought a living in some other employment. His stand- 
 ard of living was not deteriorated by his rent in kind, because he 
 had a clearly seen surplus of the best as well as of the worst of 
 the products of his farm for family consumption, after paying the 
 portion of these products that were his rent. The Irish small 
 tenantry, on the contrary, have to pay for their land in money. 
 It would be just as reasonable to make them pay for their land 
 in French wines for the squire, or Parisian dresses for the lady. 
 Their land produces neither gold, nor silver, nor Irish bank notes. 
 It is not reasonable to make the peasant, the ignorant man, pay 
 in those commodities — they are but commodities, like wines and 
 silks — and to make men, simple, inexperienced in trade, and a 
 prey to market-jobbers, to run the double mercantile risk of sell- 
 ing their own commodities, and buying those in which their land- 
 lords choose to be paid their rents. The great capitalist-farmer 
 may choose to add the trade of the corn-merchant to that of the 
 agriculturist, and to take the mercantile as well as the agricul- 
 tural risks and profits upon himself; but even the shrewdest of 
 this class, the great farmers of the south of Scotland, are dropping, 
 as fast as they can, this mercantile branch of farming-business, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 71 
 
 and coming back to the natural principle of flirming, that of pay- 
 ing for their land a proportion of what the land produces, so 
 many bolls of grain per acre — throwing upon the laird the risk 
 wliich, in reason and common sense, ought to devolve upon him, 
 that of turning his share of the produce raised by the farmer's 
 labour, skill, and capital, out of his acres, into gold or bank bills. 
 
 Money rent deteriorates the condition of a small tenant in two 
 ways. The more honestly he is inclined, the more poorly and 
 meanly he must live. He must sell all his best produce, his grain, 
 his butter, his flax, his pig, and subsist upon the meanest of food, 
 his worst potatoes and water, to make sure of money for his rent. 
 It thus deteriorates his standard of living. He is also tempted 
 by money-rent out of the path of certainty into that of chance. 
 It thus deteriorates his moral condition. Ask him six barrels of 
 oats, or barley, or six stones of butter, or flax, for a piece of land 
 which never produced four, and his common sense and expe- 
 rience guide him. He sees, and comprehends the simple data 
 before him, knows from his experience that such a crop cannot 
 be raised, such a rent cannot be afforded, and he is off" to England 
 or America to seek a living. But ask him six guineas per acre, 
 for a piece of land proportionably as much over-rented as the 
 other, and he trusts to chance, to accident, to high market prices, 
 to odd jobs of work turning up, to summer or harvest labour out 
 of the country — in short, he does not know to what ; for he is 
 placed in a false position, made to depend upon chance of markets, 
 and on mercantile success and profits, as much as upon industry 
 and skill in working his little farm. 
 
 In all those respects the condition of the small tenant and that 
 of the small proprietor are so totally different, that our political 
 economists reason upon false data, when they conclude that a 
 country divided among small proprietors must necessarily present 
 or fall into the same evils in the social condition of the people, as 
 a country occupied by a small over-rented tenantry. 
 
 They set out, also, in their speculations, with a false axiom. 
 They admit that a certainty of subsistence — food, fuel, clothing, 
 and lodging, being all comprehended under this term subsistence 
 — is the first and greatest good in the physical condition of nn 
 individual or of a society ; and they assume it as an axiom, that 
 those parts of a social body, those individuals or classes, who are 
 employed in producing articles of general use or desire among 
 
72 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 men — to put the case in the strongest hght, say blacksmiths, 
 tailors, shoemakers, and such classes as produce articles which 
 every individual in the community requires and u^es — are as 
 near to this first and greatest good of a certain subsistence by 
 their work, as those immediately employed in its production by 
 husbandry. Now this may be true, where husbandry is a manu- 
 facture, as with us in Britain, for producing by hired labourers the 
 greatest quantity possible of grain, meat, and other products out 
 of the soil, to be exchanged against the products of other branches 
 of industry. It may be true that the hired labourers of the manu- 
 facturer of corn from land are no nearer to a certainty of sub- 
 sistence than the hired labourer of the manufacturer of cloth or 
 leather. But it is not true, where husbandry is followed, as in 
 France, and in the countries divided among a small proprietary, 
 for the sake of subsisting the husbandman himself, the actual 
 labourer on the land, as its first object; and where the exchanging 
 its products for other articles, even of general use and necessity, 
 is but a secondary object. A man will not give up his needful 
 food, fuel, clothing, or lodging, to gratify even his real and most 
 pressing wants of iron-work, leather-work, or cloth-work. His 
 surplus only will be applied to acquiring those secondary neces- 
 saries of life ; and those who live by making them are, conse- 
 quently, far from being so near to that first good in social con- 
 dition, a certain subsistence, as he is. But if two-thirds of the 
 population of a country be in the situation of this individual, who 
 has his certain subsistence out of his own land by his own labour, 
 and depends upon no man's surplus for his own needful food, 
 fuel clothing, and lodging, I take that to be a good state of society, 
 a better arrangement of the social structure than where needful 
 subsistence is not certain to the great majority of its numbers. It 
 carries, moreover, within itself, a check upon over-population 
 and the consequent deterioration of the social condition, and which 
 is totally wanting in the other social system. In even the most 
 useful and necessary arts and manufactures, the demand for la- 
 bourers is not a seen, known, steady, and appreciable demand ; 
 but it is so in husbandry under this social construction. The 
 labour to be done, the subsistence that labour will produce out of 
 his portion of land, are seen and known elements in a man's cal- 
 culation upon his means of subsistence. Can his square of land, 
 or can it not, subsist a family ? Can he marry, or not ? are ques- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. - 73 
 
 tions which every man can answer without delay, doubt, or 
 speculation. It is the depending on chance, where judgment has 
 nothing clearly set before it, that causes reckless, improvident 
 marriages in the lower, as in the higher classes, and produces 
 among us the evils of over-population ; and chance necessarily 
 enters into every man's calculations, when certainty is removed 
 altogether ; as it is, where certain subsistence is, by our distribu- 
 tion of property, the lot of but a small portion, instead of about 
 two-thirds of the people. 
 
 Another axiom taken up as granted, and as quite undeniable, 
 by our agriculturists and political economists, is that small farms 
 are incompatible with a high or perfect state of cultivation in a 
 country. In the same breath they recommend a garden-like cul- 
 tivation of the land. Pray what is a garden but a small farm ? 
 and what do they recommend, but that a large farm should be, as 
 nearly as possible, brought into the state of cultivation and produc- 
 tiveness of a garden or small farm? This can only be done, they 
 tell us, by the application of large capitals, such as small farmers 
 cannot command, to agriculture : let us reduce these grand words 
 to their proper value. Capital signifies the means of purchasing 
 labour; the application of capital to agriculture means the appli- 
 cation of labour to land. A man's own labour, as far as it goes, is 
 as good as any he can buy, nay, a great deal better, because it is 
 attended by a perpetual overseer— his self-interest, watching that 
 it is not wasted or misapplied. If this labour be applied to a 
 suitable, not too large nor too small, area of soil, it is capital 
 applied to land, and the best kind of capital, and applied in the 
 best way to a garden-like cultivation. A garden is better dug, 
 and manured, and weeded, and drained, and is proportionably far 
 more productive than a large flirm', because more toil and labour, 
 that is, more capital is bestowed upon it, in proportion to its area. 
 A small farm held, not by the temporary right of a tenant, and 
 under the burden of a heavy rent, but by the owner of the soil, 
 and cultivated by the labour of his family, is precisely the prin- 
 ciple of gardening, applied to farming ; and in the countries in 
 which land has long been occupied and cultivated in small farms 
 by the owners— in Tuscany, Switzerland, and Flanders— the 
 garden-like cultivation and productiveness of the soil are cried 
 up by those very agriculturists and political economists, who cry 
 down the means, the only means, by which it can be attained 
 
74 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER, 
 
 universally in a country— the division of the land into small, 
 garden-like estates farmed by the proprietors. It is possible that 
 the family of the small proprietor-farmer consume almost all that 
 they produce, and have very little surplus to send to market; 
 but that merely affects the proportions of the population engaged 
 in producing food, and in producing objects to be exchanged for 
 food. The produce supports the same number of human beings 
 — every potato finds a mouth — whether the whole of it belongs 
 to one man, who sells it for the labour and productions of the 
 rest of the number, or belongs in small portions to the whole. 
 The traveher who considers the prices, supplies, and varieties of 
 agricultural food in the market towns in Flanders, France, Swit- 
 zerland, and the liberal use, or more correctly, the abundance 
 and waste in the cooking and housekeeping of all classes in 
 those countries, will scarcely admit, even, that in proportion to 
 the number of the whole community not engaged in husbandry, 
 a smaller surplus for their consumpt is sent to market by the 
 small farmers. It cannot be denied that a minute division of the 
 land into small, free, garden-like properties, seems, a priori, more 
 favourable to a garden-like cultivation of a country than its divi- 
 sion into vast baronial estates, and the subdivision of these into 
 extensive farms, on which the actual husbandmen, as a class, are 
 but hired labourers, having no interest in the productions of the 
 soil, and no object in their work but to get the day over. 
 
 How stand the statistical facts that bear upon this important 
 question ? It is stated by Dupin, that the amount of arable land at 
 present in France is but little more than it was in 17S9, but that 
 the population is increased by about eight millions; and in con- 
 sequence of the division of property by the law of succession, that 
 one-half of the whole population are proprietors, and counting 
 their families, two-thirds of the whole are engaged in the direct 
 cuUivation of the soil. It will not be said by the most strenuous 
 advocate of those feudal arrangements of society which the French 
 revolution annihilated in France, that the French peopie now are 
 worse fed, worse clothed, worse lodged, or less generally provided 
 ■with the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life, than they were 
 before 17S9, before the revolution, when Arthur Young described 
 the wretched condition of the people. The imports and consumpt 
 of the tropical products in France prove how superior, beyond all 
 comparison, is the present stale of the people. Now how is this 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 75 
 
 additional popLilation of eight millions of individuals fed from the 
 same extent of arable land, if not by their superior cultivation of 
 that land ? The same extent of arable land is supporting about 
 one-third more people — for the population of France was then 
 reckoned about 25 millions, and now about 33 millions— and in 
 greater abundance and comfort. How is this, if the land is not 
 in a more productive cultivation under the present division into 
 small properties? It is evident from the statistical facts, that with- 
 out any noticeable improvement in the modes, rotations, or uten- 
 sils of husbandry, tlie mere subdivision of the area to which 
 labour is applied into small-property farms cultivated in a garden- 
 like way, and the converting the labour formerly applied to the 
 same area, from hired labour, or perl^aps unpaid labour of serfs, 
 into the labour of proprietors working on their own land, are 
 sufficient to account for a more garden-like cultivation and pro- 
 ductiveness of the same extent of arable land. Two generations 
 of adults, or fifty years have passed away under the deteriorating 
 efi'ects of the partition of land denounced by Arthur Young, in 
 17S9, as even then "the greatest source of misery that can be 
 conceived." This greatest conceivable source of misery has not 
 diminished the population, nor made it more miserable. This 
 partition and repartition of land have not reduced all estates to one 
 minimum size, like an Irish cotter's acre. Estates of all sizes and 
 values, from 500/. to 50,000/. in price, are to be found on sale in 
 France, as in England. The aggregation of land by deaths of 
 co-relatives, balances the partition of land by deaths of parents. 
 The application even of great capitals, and scientific skill to ob- 
 jects of husbandry, has not been impeded by this partition of 
 land. The capital, for example, laid out in France in establish- 
 ments for making beet-root sugar, is greater, perhaps, than has 
 been laid out in Britain during the same period on any one agri- 
 cultural object. The thing itself, the making sugar from beet- 
 root, as an agricultural operation in modern husbandry, may be 
 impolitic, if such sugar can only be made under protecting duties, 
 and if sugar can be got cheaper, and without slave labour, from 
 the West Indies— a point not at all ascertained ; but the value of 
 the fact for our argument remains the same. A beet-root sugar 
 work requires science, skill, expensive machinery, and very con- 
 siderable capital. Hydraulic presses of the best construction 
 to express the juice, and steam engines to pump it up, arc not 
 
76 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 rare in beet-root sugar works. I have visited one in the Pas de 
 Calais, in which the presses and engines had been made in Lon- 
 don for the work, at a time when we scarcely knew that such an 
 agricultural object existed and was, carried on so near us. At 
 present, that is in 1841, France has 389 beet-root sugar works in 
 activity, although no longer favoured or protected by any unequal 
 duty on colonial sugar; and from January, 1840, to the end of 
 May, 1841, these have delivered to the consumpt of the country 
 26,174,547 kilogrammes, or 5,234,909^ cwt., which have paid in 
 duty to the revenue 3,205,783 francs. The total consumpt of 
 France, yearly, appears to be about 16,518,840 cwt. of sugar. It 
 may, perhaps, be a question whether in all England south of 
 Trent, there can be found so many threshing machines of the best 
 and most expensive construction — such as cost from 800/. to 
 1200/,, in the best agricultural districts of Northumberland, Rox- 
 burghshire, and the Lothians — as France, under her partition law 
 of succession, can produce of these complicated, and far more ex- 
 pensive establishments. 
 
 The social effects of the partition of property upon the condi- 
 tion of the people, as well as the economical effects on their agri- 
 culture, are very wide of those preconceived and predicted. What 
 has been the march of society under this law since 1816, when 
 France first began to enjoy it in a settled state of peace ? In the 
 first seven or eight years after 1816, all society had still a martial 
 air and habit. The soldier was everything and everywhere; 
 Boys would strut about, and have you believe that they had seen 
 fire at Montmartre, or, at the least, had been with the army 
 of the Loire. For the first tly-ee or four years, France was one 
 great camp of disbanded soldiers swaggering, and idling about, 
 in town and country. The small proprietors had not confidence 
 in the security of their portions of confiscated domains of the 
 church, or of the emigrant noblesse, and had not the means or 
 courage to improve them. The predictions of our political econo- 
 mists seemed hastening to fulfillment. But in the next period of 
 six or eight years, a change came over the spirit of the land. The 
 military mania abated. On se lasse de tout, especially in France. 
 The soldier was in the back ground. The vietix militaire was 
 voted a tiresome, old, stupid bore. Idlers of the middle and lower 
 classes were evidently diminishing in numbers and importance. 
 The young men you met with in the diligence, or at the table- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 77 
 
 d'hote, were no longer billiard-table loungers and half-pay officers, 
 but sons of proprietors from the south, selling their wines in the 
 northern departments, or of merchants and manufacturers from 
 the north, extending their business in the south. Industry was 
 evidently on the move. Houses were in building in every village. 
 The small land-owners had acquired means and confidence, and 
 were beginning to lodge themselves on tlieir little estates. Prices, 
 profits, speculations, undertakings, establishments in business, en- 
 grossed all conversation among all classes. Now, in the last 
 period of seven or eight years, the French are passing from a 
 military to an industrious people, as rapidly as such a change in 
 the spirit of so vast a mass of population so lately military, can 
 be expected. This change in the spirit of a nation cannot be 
 rapid, because there is at first an under supply of commercial and 
 manufacturing means, and objects, to employ the activity and 
 restlessness of mind reared in military habits ; and the government, 
 unfortunately, agitates for military pre-eminence in Europe, in- 
 stead of favouring the advance of peaceful habits in the popula- 
 tion; but the change evidently is in progress, is advancing, is far 
 advanced, and all France is undoubtedly alive with an industry, 
 and a commercial and manufacturing spirit, unknown at any 
 former period of her history. 
 
 The condition of the French people as to food, clothing, and the 
 comforts of life, compared to their condition before 1789, is un- 
 doubtedly better. What is the condition of their labouring class at 
 present, compared to that of our own ? The only means of com- 
 parison is to take one class of men, \those condition is in all 
 countries the same relatively to that of the common labourer, the 
 military — and to compare the condition of the common labourer in 
 each country, with that of the common soldier. Now in England, 
 since 181G, no bounty, or very trifling bounty, is required to obtain 
 recruits for the army : and none but men of the best description 
 as to age, health, and stature, are received. The inference to be 
 made is, that the condition of our common soldier is so much better 
 than, or so equal to the condition of our common labourer, that 
 little or no inducement of bounty is required to make able-bodied 
 men enlist in sufficient numbers. But the condition of our soldier 
 has not been altered for the better since the peace, since 1S16. It 
 is the condition of our labouring class that h\is altered for the 
 worse. In England, as in France, the soldier is fed, paid, lodged, 
 
78 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and clothed, precisely as he was five-and-tvventy years ago. But 
 in France, aUhough the term of service is only for six years, so 
 far are the labouring class from such a condition as to enlist with- 
 out the inducement of bounty, that from 1800 to 2000 francs, or 
 80/. sterling, is usually offered for a recruit, to serve as a substitute 
 for one who is drawn by ballot for the army. Clubs and assur- 
 ance companies are established all over France, for providing 
 substitutes for the members who may happen to be drawn for 
 service. The inference to be made is, that here the condition of 
 the common labourer is too good to be exchanged for that of the 
 common soldier without the inducement of a premium ; his labour 
 too valuable to be given for the mere living and pay of the soldier, 
 although the soldier's pay and living are as good, in proportion 
 to the habits of the people and price of provisions, as in England. 
 How ludicrous, as one sits on the deck of a fine steam-vessel 
 going down the Saone, or the Rhone, or the Seine, passing e very- 
 half hour. other steam-vessels, and every five or six miles under 
 iron suspension bridges, and past canals, short factory railroads 
 even, and new-built factories — how laughable, now, to read the 
 'lugubrious predictions of Arthur Young half a century ago, of 
 Eirbeck a quarter of a century ago, of the Edinburgh Review some 
 twenty years ago, about the inevitable consequences of the French 
 law of succession. " A pauper warren !" Look up from the 
 page and laugh. Look around upon the actual prosperity, and 
 well-being, and the rising industry of this people under their 
 system. Look at the activity on their rivers, at the new factory 
 chimneys against the horizon, at the steam-boats, canals, roads, 
 coal works, wherever nature gives any opening to enterprise. 
 France owes her present prosperity, and rising industry, to this 
 very system of subdivision of property, which allows no man to 
 live in idleness, and no capital to be expended without a view to 
 its reproduction, and places that great instrument of industry and 
 well-being, property, in the hands of all classes. The same area 
 of arable land, according to Dupin, feeds now a population greater 
 by eight millions, and certainly in greater abundance and comfort, 
 than under the former system of succession ; because now its pro- 
 duce is applied to feeding reproductive labourers, who, either in 
 husbandry on their own little estates, or in manufactures, or trade, 
 are producing, while they are consuming, what brings back either 
 consumable produce, or the value of what they consume, in due 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 79 
 
 time. But the produce applied to the feedhig of soldiery, of la- 
 bourers employed by a splendid court in works of mere ostenta- 
 tion and grandeur, in building palaces, or constructing magnificent 
 public works of no utility equivalent to the labour expended, and 
 to a certain extent, even in the fine arts, and, above all, in support- 
 ing a numerous idle aristocracy, gentry, and clergy, with their 
 dependent followers, was a waste of means, a consumpt without 
 any corresponding return of consumable or saleable produce from 
 the labour or industry of the consumers. In this view, the com- 
 parison between the old feudal construction of society in France, 
 and the new under the present law of succession, resolves itself into 
 this result, — that one-third more people are supported under the 
 new, in greater abundance and comfort, from the same extent of 
 arable land, in consequence of the law of succession having swept 
 off the non-productive classes, forced them into active industry, 
 and obliged all consumers, generally speaking, to be producers 
 also, while they consume. In this view, the cost of supporting 
 the old court, aristocracy, gentry, clergy, and all the system and 
 arrangements of society in Frsfnce, under the ancient regime, has 
 been equivalent to the cost of supporting one-third more inhabit- 
 ants in France, and in greater comfort and well-being ; and this 
 is the gain France has realized by her revolution, and by the abo- 
 lition of the law of primogeniture, its most important measure. 
 
 Let us do justice to the French character. Their self-command, 
 their upon-honour principle, is very remarkable, and much more 
 generally diffused than among our own population. They are, I 
 believe, a more honest people than the British. The beggar who 
 is evidently hungry, respects the fruit upon the road-side' within 
 ills reach, although there is nobody to protect it. Property is much 
 respected in France; and in bringing up children, this fidelity 
 towards the property of others seems much more carefully incul- 
 cated by parents in the lowest class, in the home education of 
 their children, than with us. This respect for the property is 
 closely connected with that respect for the feelings of our neigh- 
 bours, which constitutes what is called good manners. This is 
 carefully inculcated in children of all ranks in France. They are 
 taught to do what is pleasing and agreeable to others. We arc 
 too apt to undervalue this spirit, as tending merely to superficial 
 accomplishments, to empty compliment in words, and unmeaning 
 appearance in acts. But, in reality, this reference to the feelings 
 
80 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of Others in all we do is a moral habit of great value where it is 
 generally diffused, and enters into the home training of every 
 family. It is an education both of the parent and child in morals, 
 carried on through the medium of external manners. Our lower 
 and middle classes are deficient in this kind of family education ; 
 and there is some danger that the parents in those classes may 
 come to rely too much with us, for all education, upon the parish 
 and Sunday schools. It is but reading, writing, reckoning, and 
 the catechism, after all, that can be taught a people by the most 
 perfect system of national school education; and 'those acquire- 
 ments would be dearly bought if they interfere with or supersede 
 family instruction, and parental example, and admonition in the 
 right and wrong in conduct, morals, and manners. It is a fine 
 distinction of the French national character, and social economy, 
 that practical morality is more generally taught through manners, 
 among and by the people themselves, than in any country in 
 Europe. One or two striking instances of this general respect for 
 property have occurred to me in travelling in France.. I once 
 forgot my umbrella in a diligence •going to Bourdeaux, in which 
 I travelled as far as Tours. My umbrella went on to Bourdeaux 
 and returned to Tours in the corner of the coach, without being 
 appropriated by any of the numerous passengers, or work people, 
 who must have passed through it on so long a journey, and have 
 had this stray unowned article before them. I once travelled 
 from Paris to Boulogne with a gentleman who had come up the 
 same road a few days before. We were conversing on this very 
 subject, the honesty of the people in general, and he recollected 
 having left on the table of one of the inns half a basket of grapes, 
 worth about twelve sous, which, he said, he was sure he would 
 find safe. On arriving, he asked the waiter if he had seen the 
 grapes, and they were instantly produced, as a matter of course, 
 out of a press in which they had been carefully put away as 
 property not belonging to the house. It is the great diffusion and 
 exposure of property in small things, among a nation of small 
 proprietors, that produce this regard for its safety even in trifles, 
 this practical morality. It is not the value lost, but the injury to 
 the feeling of ownership, which constitutes the criminality or rather 
 the injury, in many petty aggressions on property; and respect 
 for the feelings of others enters into the manners and morals of 
 the French. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 81 
 
 Society left to itself will, probably, always work itself up to its 
 moral wants. The moral condition of France, from 1794 to 1816, 
 had certainly no aid from the clerical, educational, civil, or military 
 establishments of its government, or from the wars and tumults 
 in which the country was engaged ; yet countries blessed, during 
 all that period, with the fullest, most powerful, and best endowed 
 church establishments, as part of their government, may envy the 
 moral condition of the great mass of the French people. The 
 social economist, who looks at France and at the United States 
 of America, will pause before he admits in its fullest extent the 
 usual clerical assumption, that a powerful church establislniient, 
 and an union of church and state, are essential to the morality, 
 piety, or education of a people. He will be apt to conclude, that 
 society left to itself will provide according to its wants, and to its 
 recipient capabilities, for education, morals, and religion — that 
 these must grow naturally out of social circumstances, and cannot 
 be forced by establishments, clerical or educational, into any whole- 
 some existence — and that a people will no more fall into barbarism, 
 or retrograde in civilization, from the want of establishments suita- 
 ble to their social condition, than a family will turn cannibals from 
 wanting a butcher's shop or a cook. 
 
 It is nearly half a century since the decimal division of money, 
 weights, and measures, was adopted by the French Convention, 
 and by every succeeding government it has been adhered to, and 
 enforced by law. The learned in all other countries, as well as 
 in France, are unanimous in recommending its adoption, on ac- 
 count of the greater practical facility in op'erations and accounts, 
 of the decimal than the duodecimal division of weights, measures, 
 and money ; yet, in spite of law and science, the French people 
 continue to use the duodecimal division. They persist in thinking 
 duodecimally, even when by law they must express themselves 
 decimally. Is this obstinate adherence to the least perfect and 
 most diflicult mode of reckoning quantity, or value in the ordi- 
 nary afikirs of life, the effect of mere prejudice, of blind custom, 
 of the perversity, in short, of the public mind ? I suspect the 
 cause lies deeper. Prejudice, custom, or perversity, will not make 
 people forego a clear advantage. Men of science, and legislators, 
 in recommending and adopting the decimal division, have con- 
 sidered only the arithmetical operations to be performed with 
 numerals ; but not the nature of the subjects to which those 
 
82 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 operations with numerals are applied. Weights, measures of 
 capacity or of extension, and money, are measures applied to the 
 products of nature, or of human industry, and to their value in 
 exchange with other products through the medium of money. 
 Now the value of the products either of nature, or of art, is the 
 time and labour involved in them. The value of the most valu- 
 able of natural products, the diamond, has the same base as the 
 value of a pin, — it is the value of scarcity ; that is to say, of the 
 time and labour it will cost to find such another diamond, or 
 to make such another pin. The value of those two elements — 
 time and labour — is what we buy, and sell, and record in our ac- 
 counts, and to which all measurement of quantity with a reference 
 to value, and all reckoning in the ordinary transactions of life, 
 refer.* One of these two elements— time — regulates, in a conside- 
 rable degree, the value of the other — labour— and is the usual 
 measure of it. It is the time employed by which we measure the 
 work done, and estimate its value in ordinary affairs. But time 
 is divided by nature duodecimaliy, not decimally. The four 
 seasons, the twelve months, of a year, the four weeks in a month, 
 the twenty -four hours in a day, the twelve working hours, the 
 hours of light and darkness, the six working days in a week, are 
 partly natural divisions of time connected with changes in our 
 planetary position, and partly conventional, such as the number 
 of working hours in a day, or of working days in a week, but 
 derived from the natural divisions, and all are duodecimaliy 
 divided. Labour being estimated by time, and time divided 
 duodecimaliy, the products of time and labour— that is to say, all 
 that men buy, sell, use, or estimate in reckoning — a-re necessarily 
 and properly measured by weights, measures, or money, also 
 duodecimallydivided ; so that parts of the one correspond to parts 
 of the other. To measure or pay in decimals what is delivered 
 in duodecimals, is not an easy or natural process ; although, apart 
 from all consideration of what numerals are apphed to, and in 
 more abstract operations with them, the decimal system is i!n- 
 questionably the most easy and perfect to reckon by. To pay 
 one hour's work, or two hours' work, of a day divided into twelve 
 working hours, out of money divided duodecimaliy, is an easy 
 process — or to measure the product of time and work by measures 
 of quantity also duodecimaliy divided ; but to measure the same 
 by decimal weights or measures, or pay for the work in decimally 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. S3 
 
 divided money, is not a simple operation. It is time, in reality, 
 which is the element bought and sold between man and man, if 
 we resolve the value of productions to its base ; and unless time 
 is divided decimally, which natural arrangement renders imprac- 
 ticable, the decimal division cannot be generally adopted in ordi- 
 nary affairs. It would be a retrograde step to measure all pro- 
 duction in which time is the main element of value, by one scale, 
 and to measure time itself by another. It may be arithmetically 
 right, looking only to the abstract operations with the numerals, 
 to adopt the decimal division ; but it would be philosophically 
 \\^rong, looking at the nature of the things to which the numerals 
 are to be applied. A great proportion of the food of mankind, 
 also, is divided by nature duodecimally. The beasts of the field 
 and birds of the air happen to have generally four, not five limbs; 
 and the butcher, in spite of decimals, will divide, cut, and weigh 
 his beef and mutton by quarters and halves, not by five-tenths or 
 five-twentieths of the carcass. In many of the most necessary 
 and perpetually recurring applications of weight, measure, time, 
 labour, and money value, to natural objects duodecimally divided 
 by nature, the decimal division is inconvenient, and therefore 
 never will come into general use in France or anywhere else. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOCIAL ECONOMY — WHY NOT TREATED AS A DISTINCT SCIENCE.— 
 ARISTOCRACY REPLACED BY FUNCTIONARISM IN FRANCE— IN GER- 
 MANY. — INTERFERENCE OF GOVERNMENT WITH FREE AGENCY.— 
 AMOUNT OF FUNCTIONARISM IN A FRENCH DEPARTMENT — INDRE 
 ET LOIRE.— AMOUNT IN A SCOTCH COUNTY — SHIRE OF AYR.— EF- 
 FECTS OF FUNCTIONARISM ON INDUSTRY— ON NATIONAL CHARAC- 
 TER—ON MORALS— ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL LIBERTY.— CHANGE IN 
 THE STATE OF PROPERTY IN PRUSSIA.— TWO ANTAGONIST PRINCI- 
 PLES IN THE SOCIAL ECONOMY OF PRUSSIA, 
 
 Social economy — the constmctioii of the social body of a 
 country, the proportions in numbers and influence of the elements 
 of which it is composed, the arrangements and institutions for 
 the administration of its laws, police, and public business, civil, 
 military, anjd ecclesiastical, and the principles on which all this 
 social machinery should be constructed for working beneficially 
 on the physical and moral condition of the people— is a science 
 distinct from the sciences of government, legislation, jurisprudence, 
 or political economy. These are but branches of social economy 
 in its most extended meaning. It embraces all that affects social 
 prosperity, and the* well-being, moral and physical, of the indi- 
 viduals composing the social body of the country. Although its 
 subjects are well defined, and its objects important, this science is 
 rarely touched upon by philosophers. What we know of the 
 social economy of any foreign country, we must gather from 
 travels and statistical works. These give the materials, but not 
 the principles ; the facts, but not the conclusions upon their causes 
 or consequences. The political philosopher has never taken up 
 these materials, or facts, and deduced from them the principles 
 on which society ought to be constructed for attaining the highest 
 moral and physical well-being of all its members. The cause 
 of this neglect may be that in Germany, the prolific mother of 
 theory and speculation, it might not be very safe to write or to 
 lecture upon this science ; for a good social economy would imply 
 social arrangements altogether adverse, both in principle and in 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 85 
 
 operation, to the political power of the state over private free 
 agency which is the basis of all social institutions in Germany. 
 The mind, too, bred amidst these slavish institutions of Germany, 
 is itself slavish. The political conceptions of the German mind, 
 as expressed at least in writings or conversation, are, in general, 
 either abject to the last degree, or extravagant to the last degree 
 — the conceptions of slaves, or of slaves run mad ; both equally 
 distant from the sober, rational speculations and conclusions of 
 free men on the subject of their political and civil liberties. In 
 England, no sudden overwhelming revolution in property and 
 government, since the Norman conquest, has forced upon the 
 country a total reconstruction of her social arrangements. The 
 power of her legislature also to alter, amend, or enact laws, 
 according to exigence or public opinion, and still more the nature 
 of her jurisprudence, by which cases are decided and become 
 landmarks in law, by the common sense of the age influencing 
 courts and juries, and not, as in feudally constructed countries, 
 by the rigid application of the principles of a code belonging to 
 a different age and social condition, have removed the necessity 
 of the English mind occupying itself with speculations upon the 
 principles of the social arrangements of the country so generally, 
 as upon the principles of its national wealth, of population, of 
 pauperism, and of other branches of its political economy. The 
 wants of society, as of the individual, are less felt, or less thought 
 of, when the remedy is ready ; and its application is at all times 
 in our power, and is even going on of itself in amending obvious 
 defects in social arrangements. We are only beginning slowly, 
 and piecemeal, to alter and improve our social arrangements for 
 the administration and execution of law and public business, for 
 police, for relief of destitution, for the health and education of the 
 people ; and we advance from exigence to exigence as the occa- 
 sion for interference arises, and not by a reference to, and a sud- 
 den change in, any general principles or established practices. 
 
 In France, new social arrangements were suddenly forced upon 
 the country by the Revolution. The people were enthusiastic 
 for changes in the old system ; and the new arrangements were 
 formed suddenly, and induced suddenly over the face of the 
 country, at a moment when military invasion or aggression, and 
 civil disorder and anarchy, were to be apprehended and pro- 
 vided against. The principle of military power, and of the hand 
 
86 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of government being applied to everything, entered of necessity, 
 at this crisis, into all the new social arrangements. Although these 
 were sown and reared in the hot-bed of the warmest enthusiasm 
 for liberty, equality, and the rights of man, and in the wildest 
 moments of the Revolution, they have been found so well adapted 
 to all the purposes of despotic government, that they have been 
 transplanted from France into all the other Continental state§. It 
 is not the least curious of the anomalies of modern times, that the 
 whole internal social arrangements of La Repuhlique Francaise, 
 for the administration of law, police, and civil and military affairs 
 among her free citoyens, have been adopted by all the monarchi- 
 cal and arbitrary states of Europe, as the most suitable machinery 
 for their governments. The cause is the same. 
 
 The abolition of an hereditary aristocracy in France, as an 
 influential power in the social structure, threw each successive 
 government, under whatever power or name, republican, con- 
 sular, imperial, or monarchical, upon one principle for support — 
 the influence of an extensive government patronage. It is the 
 characteristic of the French mind to systematize, to carry out 
 every principle to the utmost extreme of minuteness and subdi- 
 vision. The new social arrangements for the administration of 
 law, police, and public business, were carried at once to a minute- 
 ness of efficiency and perfection, altogether inconsistent with the 
 civil liberty or public spirit of a people. The extreme spirit of 
 system, of interference in all things, of surveillance over all things, 
 required a vast body of functionarism, a civil army of public 
 officials among the people ; and this influence, both directly ef- 
 fective, and indirectly, by the beneficial employments it affords, 
 acting as bribes to the active and educated in every class, has 
 been the basis of the social support of every government in France 
 since the Revolution. 
 
 In Germany the same cause has produced the same effect. 
 The decline of aristocracy as an influential element in society, 
 partly by the direct working of the Code Napoleon, and the 
 partition or sale of the estates of the nobility, wher^ the French 
 occupied the country, partly and chiefly by the general advance 
 of the middle class in wealth, intelligence, independence, and 
 influence over public opinion, has thrown all the Continental 
 governments upon a similar support. Aristocracy is succeeded 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 87 
 
 by functionarism as a state power, as a binding influence between 
 the people and their governments in the social structure of Europe. 
 
 This mechanization of all social duties in the hands of govern- 
 ment is a demoralizing influence incompatible with the develop- 
 ment of industry, free agency, or public spirit. England reduced 
 at the peace her civil army of tax-gatherers and government 
 functionaries, as well as her military. France kept up her ma- 
 chinery of civil establishments. The arrangements adopted at an 
 early period of the Revolution by the Directory have continued 
 augmenting, rather than diminishing, under each successive go- 
 vernment, and have silently spread over all the Continent; less, 
 perhaps, from direct imitation or approval, than from the wants 
 of all the Continental governments, during the war and since, 
 having been the same — men and money ; and the same arrange- 
 ments which were seen to be effective in France for raising men 
 and money were adopted by her neighbours. The conscription, 
 the passport system — the division of the country into departments, 
 circles, cantons, and communes, each with its functionaries for 
 civil, financial, and military affairs, — and the military organiza- 
 tion of all classes of government functionaries, and the system 
 of government interference and surveillance in all matters, are 
 transferred from republican France to monarchical or despotic 
 Germany, and appear to have been equally suitable to both. 
 
 It is in France this system should be studied, as in France it 
 arose. It is a shoot from her tree of liberty, which seems to find 
 something very congenial to its nature in despotic soils. 
 , France is divided into eighty-six departments, containing no 
 less than 38,061 communes, or civil parishes, in each of which 
 there is a local government functionary. Taking the population of 
 France in 1838 at 33,540,903 individuals, each group of 176 fami- 
 lies, or 881 souls, has one public functionary, exclusive of police- 
 men, tax-gatherers, &c., among them, for administration or execu- 
 tion of governmental business. Besides the inferior local function- 
 aries, who are expectants upon higher places and emoluments, a 
 group of communes forms a canton, a group of cantons an arron- 
 dissement, a group of arrondissemcnts a department ; and each of 
 these groups has its superintending and revising colleges of func- 
 tionaries, for the administrative, executive, and financial duties. 
 
 The great social problem of this age is, to what extent should 
 the hand of government interfere in matters which directly or in- 
 
88 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 directly affect the public ? Should superintendence and surveil- 
 lance be extended over all matters in which the public can by 
 any possibility be affected ? or should all such matters be left 
 entirely to private free agency and judgment ? government inter- 
 position being the exception, not the rule, and exerted only in the 
 rare cases in which private interests, acting against the public 
 good, are unopposed by other private interests. The same ques- 
 tion under another name is that of centralization in our social 
 system in Britain, of the administration of law, police, and local 
 business in which the whole community is interested, such as the 
 charge of roads, of the poor, of education, of criminal prosecution 
 — in the hands of the general government, and of its paid magis- 
 trates and functionaries — or leaving them, as heretofore, in the 
 hands, and under the management, of the people themselves. 
 
 In this important question in social economy — upon the final 
 and practical solution of which the future shape of society, and 
 the amount of civil liberty enjoyed by the people of Europe 
 mainly depend, the English nation stands at one end of the line, 
 with their descendants on the American continent, and France 
 and Prussia, with all the imitative German states, at the other. 
 We understand, more or less, our own social economy in Great 
 Britain, and the general principle of non-interference of govern- 
 ment, unless in rare exceptive cases, on which it rests; but we 
 are generally ignorant of the social economy of the Continent, of 
 the amount of government interference and superintendence car- 
 ried into affairs which are conducted, with us, by the private in- 
 terests, or public spirit of individuals, and of the effects on the 
 industry, civil liberty, and moral condition of the people, by the 
 limitation of individual free-agency, and the intermixture of 
 government functionarism in all the acts and duties of private 
 life. Every traveller is struck with the numbers and military 
 organization of the civil functionaries in the pay of government, 
 whom he meets at every step on the Continent. It is perhaps 
 •the first feature in the different social economy of those countries 
 which attracts his notice ; but no traveller has given us any view 
 of the amount, or any speculations on the social effects of this 
 widely-spread functionarism. 
 
 I shall endeavour to point out the numbers of government 
 functionaries in a given population in France, in order to obtain 
 an approximation, at least, to the amount of this power in their 
 social economy. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 89 
 
 In 1830, the population of France is stated at 31,851,545 souls, 
 which would give an average of 370,367 souls in each depart- 
 ment. The chief towns of the 86 departments, that is, the towns 
 in which the departmental courts and establishments are seated, 
 contain together 2,273,939 souls, which allows on an average a 
 population of 26,441 souls to each chief town. Now, looking for 
 an average department, and one which could be easily compared 
 with one of our counties, I find the department of the Indre et 
 Loire, containing 290,160 souls, and its chief town, Tours, 23,100 
 souls, as near an average as any; and it has the advantage, for 
 comparison, that at the same period, 1830, the shire of Ayr was 
 in population as nearly equal to one-half of the population of the 
 department of the Indre et Loire as we can expect ; viz., the popu- 
 lation of the county of Ayr was, according to the population re- 
 turns, 145,055 souls, and of the county town, 11,626 souls, being 
 also, as nearly as we can expect, one-half of the population of 
 Tours, the chief town of the Indre et Loire. I take these two 
 groups of populations, therefore, in preference to others. Now, 
 what number of public functionaries are employed by the French 
 government in the civil affairs of the 290,160 people inhabiting 
 the department of the Indre et Loire ? 
 
 This department is divided into three arrondissemens — so is 
 the shire of Ayr into three districts, Carrick, Kyle, and Cunning- 
 ham; the three arrondissemens are further divided into 25 can- 
 tons, and the 25 cantons into 292 communes, or civil parishes ; 
 the sliire of Ayr, if I mistake not, reckons 46 parishes. In each 
 of these 292 communes, are a mayor, adjunct, and municipal 
 council. The mayor presides over the public business ; the ad- 
 junct acts as public prosecutor before the primary or lower local 
 courts. But as the mayor and municipal council, and perhaps 
 the adjunct, are not, I believe, oflices paid by, although confirmed 
 by, government, but held by candidates expectant on the higher 
 and paid offices, I do not reckon them, amounting to 584 persons, 
 among the functionaries living in government pay and service ; 
 although, in as far as they are candidates for higher civil office, 
 and depend on government for their future means of living, their 
 influence on the social economy of the people is much the same 
 as that of the classes of paid civil functionaries. Each of the 25 
 cantons has a primary local court composed of 5 paid function- 
 aries, making in all of paid officials 125. Each of the three ar- 
 7 
 
90 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 rondissemens is provided with an upper court, with 10 paid offi- 
 cials, and that of the chief town with 20, clerks, officers, &c., 
 included, in all 40. Thus for the administration of justice there 
 are 165 persons who are paid functionaries, divided into 25 
 primary local courts, and 3 superior courts, for the civil and 
 criminal business of a population just about double of that of the 
 shire of Ayr. For the collection of the government taxes in the 
 department of the Indre et Loire, the amount of functionarism is — 
 Eeceivers of taxes - - ■ - - - - - 68 
 
 Inspectors, stamp masters, registrars ----- 37 
 
 Directors and controllers of land tax - - ' - - - 1 
 
 Measurers of land for land tax ----- 12 
 
 Receivers of indirect taxes . - - - - - 23 
 
 Receiver-general ------- i 
 
 Treasurer -------- i 
 
 Persons in offices connected vv^ith receipt of taxes, in all, functionaries 152 
 
 For the general government of this little imperium in imperio 
 of a department, we have, moreover : 
 
 Monsieur le Prefet - - - - - - . - 1 
 
 Sous-prefets, one to each arrondissement - - - - 3 
 
 Council of the Prefet - 3 
 
 Chiefs of bureaux -.-.--. 6 
 
 Keepers of archives ------- 2 
 
 Officers of roads, bridges and mines - - - - - 6 
 
 Officers of woods and waters ------ 6 
 
 Officers of weights and measures ----- 3 
 
 Officers of affairs of the mint ------ 3 
 
 Officers of the national lottery ------ 2 
 
 Officers of the post-office - - - - - - 26 
 
 Being 15 paid functionaries for general government, and 45 paid 
 functionaries for different branches of public business, which 
 government chooses to centralize in its own management. 
 
 The grand total of fiuictionarism in a district of about double 
 of the population of the county of Ayr, is: 
 
 Paid functionaries connected with the administration of law - 165 
 
 Paid functionaries connected with receipt of taxes - - • 152 
 
 Paid functionaries for general government - - - 15 
 
 Paid functionaries for other government business - - 46 
 
 Paid functionaries, in all, for a population of 290,160 souls - 378 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 91 
 
 and this is exclusive of the establishment of the doiiane, or cus- 
 tom-house, which in the frontier provinces has very numerous 
 establishments, and even forms a regular military cordon, on duty 
 night and day, and exclusive of the whole executive police, or 
 gendarmerie, who patrol the roads, and have posts all over the 
 country, and exclusive of the whole establishments for the con- 
 script system, and its necessary accompaniment, the passport sys- 
 tem, which give employment to an army of clerks and function- 
 aries in the bureaux in every town, and exclusive also of the 
 whole educational establishment of which the patronage is in the 
 hands of government. Monsieur de Tocqueville reckons the 
 total amount of functionarism in France, that is, of civil appoint- 
 ments under government, at 138,000 offices, costing yearly 200 
 millions of francs. Taking the population of 1830 at 31,851,545 
 souls, this gives one paid functionary to every 230 persons. But 
 this does not ^ive a just view of the influence and extent of the 
 principle of functionarism in the social economy of France. The 
 functionary is an adult male, with fixed income, and is, therefore, 
 either a head of a family, or in a social position equivalent to the 
 head of a family; and the figures of the population represent the 
 infants, aged, infirm, and females, as well as the effective adult 
 male members of the community. In a just view of the propor- 
 tion of functionarism in the social economy of France, one family 
 in every 46 lives by functionarism, and at the public expense ; 
 there is one functionary family for every 46 families of the people. 
 Now, let us reckon the amount of functionarism in the Scotch 
 county of Ayr, containing, as nearly as possible, one half of the 
 population of the French department of the Indre et Loire. A 
 Scotch county is selected in preference to an English, because, in 
 Scotland, the feudal law, and feudal arrangements of society, are 
 similar in principle to those which prevailed on the continent 
 before the changes in social economy produced by the French 
 Revolution ; but to the social economy of England, in which the 
 administration of law, the police of the country, the roads, the 
 public business of every kind, are under the management of the 
 people themselves, and not of the general government of the 
 country, nothing analogous exists or ever existed on the continent, 
 no social arrangements whatsoever similar in principle. In tiic 
 English county of Suflblk, for instance, containing 296,317 souls, 
 being GS57 more than the population of the French department 
 
92 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of the Indre et Loire, excepting in the post-office department, and 
 those of the excise, customs and stamps, no pubUc functionaries, 
 or very few, not perhaps in all half-a-dozen, could be pointed 
 out who live by paid offices to which they are appointed by the 
 government. The unpaid magistracy, the unpaid constables, the 
 unpaid sheriffs, lord-lieutenants, &c., do all the duties which the 
 host of functionaries in France, living upon the public in the pro- 
 portion of one family in every 46, do in this French department. 
 Person and property are not less safe, criminal offence not more 
 common in Suffolk, than in this French department of equal 
 population. The moral effects, therefore, of each system on the 
 habits and minds of the people must be compared, before judg- 
 ment is given for or against either system : that of interference, 
 centraUzation, and surveillance by government, as in the French 
 system ; and that of non-interference, and leaving all to be done 
 by the people, as well as for the people, in social business, as in 
 the English. 
 
 But to return to the shire of Ayr. For the administration of 
 law in civil and criminal affairs there are of paid functionaries : 
 
 The sheriff depute, the equivalent to the prefet as an organ of 
 the executive government, and with his resident substitute, the 
 procurator fiscal, and the sheriff clerk with 3 deputies, the equiva- 
 lent of the 165 functionaries living by the administration of law 
 in the French department ; being 7 persons in judicial functions. 
 
 In the collection of taxes in this county, the amount of func- 
 tionarism appears to be : 
 
 Collector of taxes, surveyor, collector of county rates - ■■ - 3 
 
 Distributor of stamps --..... i 
 
 Collector and comptroller of customs ----- 2 
 
 Excise officers, collector, clerk and supervisors - - - - 8 
 Postmasters living entirely on salary of office, suppose one in each town 
 
 or village, in which sheriff or justice of peace courts are held - 7 
 
 21 
 
 The whole functionaries living by offices under government in 
 the collection of taxes, do not certainly exceed from 21 to 25 
 persons, and this number is the equivalent for 153 functionaries 
 in a department of only double the population. Instead of 21 
 persons, the Scotch county would, on the French system of func- 
 tionarism, have 76 persons living by public employment in the 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 93 
 
 financial department of its business. To cover all possible omis- 
 sions in this list of 21 public functionaries in a Scotch county, as 
 from the mixed nature of their means of living it would be diffi- 
 cult to determine exactly who live entirely by public employment, 
 and who live principally by the exercise of other trades or pro- 
 fessions, but having some office, as postmasters, also, we shall 
 state them at from 30 to 35 individuals ; and this number certainly 
 does cover all persons having their livings in a Scotch county, by- 
 public function in the administration of law, finance and civil 
 government, which in a French department gives offices and 
 livings to 378 paid functionaries. In the ratio of the population, 
 189 paid functionaries in France live upon the public, by doing 
 the duties which, at the utmost, from 30 to 35 paid functionaries 
 live by doing in Scotland. 
 
 The effects upon the social condition of a people of the two dis- 
 tinct principles — that of doing everything for the people by paid 
 functionaries, and government management, in a system of per- 
 fect centralization — and that of doing everything for the people 
 by the people themselves, and with as little as possible of govern- 
 ment agency — have never been satisfactorily examined by our 
 political philosophers. We have tirades enough against the abuse 
 of power in the hands of the unpaid magistracy of England, and 
 examples enough of the abuse ; but we have no impartial judg- 
 ment given on the advantages and disadvantages of the system, 
 compared to that of a paid body of judicial functionaries. Lord 
 Brougham has frequently insisted on the great social benefit of 
 bringing cheap law and justice home to every man's fireside ; but 
 that great political philosopher has never stated what this cheap 
 law and justice would cost. The financial cost is not the principal 
 or important cost in a system of extensive functionarism, but the 
 moral cost, the deteriorating influence of the system on the indus- 
 try, habits, and moral condition of the people. Wc see a tendency 
 in our most enlightened and liberal statesmen — which is only held 
 in check by the financial cost of indulging it — to centralize in the 
 hands of government much of the public business, the local magis- 
 tracy and police, the prosecution of ofl'ences, the care of the poor, 
 the support of high roads, the education of the people, instead of 
 leaving these duties to be, as heretofore, performed by the people 
 for themselves. 
 
 A few of the effects of the functionarism which necessarily 
 
94 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 overspreads these countries in which governments do what it 
 should be left to the public spirit or the necessity of the people to 
 do for themselves, are sufficiently visible, and may assist in solving 
 the question. 
 
 All this subsistence in the field of government employment 
 paralyzes exertion in the field of private industry. This is an 
 effect which the most unobserving traveller on the Continent re- 
 marks. The young, the aspiring, the clever, and the small capi- 
 talists in particular, look for success in life to government employ- 
 ment, to public function, not to their own activity and industry in 
 productive pursuits. With us, civil or military employment under 
 government is scarcely seen, is nothing in the vast field of employ- 
 ment which professional, commercial, or manufacturing industry 
 throws open to all. Abroad, all other employments are as nothing 
 in extent, advantage, social importance, and influence, compared 
 to employment under government. Functionarism has, in its 
 effects on the industry and wealth of nations, replaced the mo- 
 nastic and overgrown clerical establishments of the middle ages. 
 It was not the vast wealth of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 of its convents, monasteries, and other establishments, that was 
 detrimental to the national wealth and prosperity of a country. 
 These were but an additional wheel in the social machine. All 
 that was received was again expended; and whether a bishop or 
 a duke, an abbot, or an earl, received and expended the income 
 derived from the same acres, could make no diflerence in national 
 wealth. As receivers and expenders, the clerical were perhaps 
 better than the aristocratical land-owners, because they understood 
 husbandry better, and expended their revenues in peace, in their 
 own fixed localities, by which a middle class beneath them was 
 enabled to grow up. Still less was it, as Voltaire and the political 
 economists of his days imagined, the celibacy of so many idle 
 monks, and nuns, and clergy, and the want of population by their 
 celibacy, that were injurious to the prosperity of Catholic countries. 
 The celibacy of the Popish clergy is in no other way injurious to 
 a nation than that a single man can live upon less than a man with 
 a family, and that consequently many more individuals can obtain 
 a living in an unproductive profession, as the clerical (considered 
 economically) is, from the same amount of church revenue, than 
 if all in the profession were married. Our church extensionists 
 ought, in consistency, to advocate the celibacy of the clerical order 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 95 
 
 among us, because the same revenues of the church — either of the 
 Church of England, or of the Church of Scotland — would thereby 
 support three times the number of effective clergy, and in equal 
 comfort; the expense of a family being at least three times greater on 
 an average than that of a single man, and it is church endowments, 
 and not the mere dead stone and lime work of buildings, that are 
 necessary in true and effective church extension. But it was 
 neither the wealth, nor the numbers, nor the celibacy of the Po- 
 pish clergy, that made them in the middle ages, and make them 
 at this day in all Catholic lands, detrimental to national wealth and 
 prosperity. It was, and is, the amount of easy living, of social 
 importance and influence, which the clerical employment offered, 
 and which naturally turned, exactly as functionarism on the Con- 
 tinent does at present, all the youth of abilities, and with small 
 capitals to defray the expense of education, to a clerical living 
 instead of to industrial pursuits. We see even in Scotland, in re- 
 mote parts, that the ease with which, during the last war, clerical 
 students could accomplish the Httle that country presbyteries re- 
 quired in studies at the university, and could slip into a kirk, turned 
 away from the broad paths of worldly industry many who ought 
 to have been sitting behind the loom, or the desk, and whose talent 
 extended just to finding out and securing a good pulpit-hvelihood. 
 Abroad, the employment under government, in the present age, 
 attracts to it, as the Church of Rome did in the middle ages, all 
 the mind, industry, and capital of the middle classes, on whom 
 the wealth and prosperity of a country are founded. The little 
 capitals stored up in those classes are saved, not to put out their 
 ^i-oung men, as with us, into various industrial pursuits, and with 
 suitable means to carry them on, or to extend the original branch 
 of business in which the family capital was acquired, but to sup- 
 port their sons while studying, and waiting for a hving by public 
 function in some of the numerous departments of government 
 employment. It may be reasonably doubted if tiie Popish church, 
 in the darkest period of the middle ages, abstracted so many peo- 
 ple, and so much capital from the paths and employments of pro- 
 ductive industry, as the civil and military establishments of the 
 continental governments do at the j)rcsent day in France and 
 Germany. The means also of obtaining a livelihood in monkish 
 or clerical function were less demoralizing to the public mind and 
 spirit; for some kind of intellectual superiority, or self-denial, or 
 
96 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 sacrifice, was required, and not merely, as in fimctionarism, bare- 
 faced patronage. 
 
 National character partakes of the spirit which the main object 
 of pursuits among a people produces in individuals. It is at the 
 hand of government, by favour and patronage, and through sub- 
 servience to those in higher function, that the youth of the Conti- 
 nent look for bread and future advancement. All independence 
 of mind is crushed, all independent action and public spirit buried 
 under the mass of subsistence, social influence and honours, to be 
 obtained in the civil and military functions under government on 
 the Continent. It is to be observed, that, in time of peace, the 
 military service in most foreign countries is scarcely different from 
 the civil. Having no distant colonies to garrison, no posts in un- 
 wholesome climates to occupy, no perpetual rotation at home from 
 one quarter to another, but being generally stationed for many 
 years in the same towns, the military act upon the industry of 
 the country in the same way, and with the same effects, as the 
 body of civil functionaries. Both together form a mass of subsist- 
 ence, influence, and distinction to be attained by other means than 
 productive industry, and which smothers all exertion and spirit 
 of independence in the industrial classes. The sturdy-minded 
 English industrialist toils and slaves at his trade, to become some 
 day an independent man, to be beholden to no one, to be master 
 of his own time and actions, to be a free agent individually, acting 
 and thinking for himself, both in his private, and, if he has any, 
 in his public capacity, or business. To this end he brings up his 
 sons, and puts them out in the world with a trade, and with 
 capital, if he has any, to attain this end. The dependence upon 
 others for a living, the subserviency and seeking for favour, inher- 
 ent in a functionary career, do not come within his sphere of 
 action. A living by productive industry is, generally speaking, 
 far more certain, and more easily obtained in our social system, 
 in which military, clerical, and legal functions under government 
 patronage, and a living in either of those branches of public em- 
 ployment, are rare, and altogether out of reach and out of sight 
 of the middle classes in general, forming no object to the great 
 mass of the industrialists-class to breed up their sons to. This 
 is the great moral basis on which the national wealth, industry, 
 and character of the English people rest ; and is the only basis 
 which can uphold real liberty in a country, or a social state in 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 97 
 
 which civil Uberty as well as political, free agency in private life 
 as well as free constitutional forms of government, can exist. The 
 Germans and French never can be free people, nor very industri- 
 ous, very wealthy nations, with their present social economy — 
 with their armies of functionaries in civil employments, extending 
 the desire and the means among the classes who ought to rely 
 upon their own independent industry in the paths of trade and 
 manufacture, of earning a living in public function by other means 
 than their own productive industry. This universal dependence 
 upon public function smothers at the root the growth of independ- 
 ent feeling, action, and industry. 
 
 Political liberty, the forms of a liberal legislative constitution, 
 the Continent may obtain ; and France has obtained such a con- 
 stitution as always opposes a considerable, and often a successful 
 check to the measures of the executive : yet with all this real 
 political liberty, the French people have as yet no real civil 
 liberty, and in consequence of the general diffusion of the spirit 
 of functionarism through society, no idea of, or feeling for civil 
 liberty. The private rights of individuals as members of the 
 social union are every hour infringed upon by their social insti- 
 tutions in a way which individuals with any just feeling of inde- 
 pendence and civil liberty, and with political liberty to give effect 
 and reality to their sentiments, would never submit to. As an 
 instance of the state of the public mind in France, and indeed all 
 over the Continent, on the rights and civil liberty of the individual 
 members of society, ic is matter of leave and license, of passport 
 and police regulation, for the native Frenchman or German to 
 move from place to place, or to exercise in many countries any 
 kind of trade, profession, or means of living, within his own 
 native land. The very elector, going from Paris to his own home, 
 to exercise perhaps the highest privilege of political liberty — his 
 elective franchise, in voting for a representative to the chamber 
 of deputies — has so little civil liberty, and so little idea of it, that 
 he must apply for and travel with a passport asked from and 
 signed by a government functionary. This is a caricature of 
 liberty. It is liberty in chains, her charter in her hand, her paper 
 cap of liberty on her head, and manacles on her feet. 
 
 The German populations have not even attained this state. 
 They are without political liberty, as well as civil liberty. 
 
 The police of the country, the security of person and property, 
 
98 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 are, it is alleged, better provided for by this governmental sur- 
 veillance over and interference in all individual movement. The 
 same argument would justify the locking up the population every 
 night in public gaols. Good police, and the security of person 
 and property, however valuable in society, are far too dearly 
 paid for by the sacrifice of private free agency involved in this 
 ultra-precautionary social economy. The moral sense of right, 
 and the individual independence of judgment in conduct, are 
 superseded by this conventional duty of obedience to office. Men 
 lose the sentiment of what is due to themselves by others, and to 
 others by themselves ; and lose the sense of moral rectitude, and 
 the habit of applying it to actions. A Frenchman or German 
 would not think himself entitled to act upon his own judgment 
 and sense of right, and refuse obedience to an order of a supe- 
 rior, if it were morally wrong ; nor would the public feeling, as 
 in England, go along with, and justify the individual who, on his 
 own sense of right and wrong, refused to be an instrument of, or 
 party to, any act not approved of by his moral sense. The 
 spirit of subordination and implicit obedience, which we isolate 
 and confine entirely to military service, enters on the Continent 
 into civil life. The scenes of bloodshed in France under the 
 revolutionary government, could never have taken place among 
 a people bred up in habits of moral free agency, and of reflecting 
 independence of individual judgment on action. The instru- 
 ments would have been wanting in the tribunals. The general 
 moral sense would have opposed the enactment or fulfilment of 
 such decrees. 
 
 The non-interference of government in our social economy 
 with individual free-agency, and the intense repugnance and 
 opposition to every attempt at such interference with the indi- 
 vidual's rights of thinking and acting, have developed a more 
 independent movement of the moral sense among the English 
 people than among the continental. It is their distinguished na- 
 tional characteristic. The individual Englishman, the most rude 
 and uncivilized in manners, the most depraved in habits, the most 
 ignorant in reading, writing, and rehgious knowledge ; standing 
 but too often lower than the lowest of other nations on all these 
 points; will yet be found a man wonderfully distinct, and far 
 above the educated continental man of a much higher class, in 
 his moral discrimination of the right or wrong in human action, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 99 
 
 far more decidedly aware of his civil rights as a member of so- 
 ciety, and judging far more acutely of what he terms fair play, 
 or of what is due to himself, and by himself, in all pubhc or 
 private relations or actions. It is the total absence of government 
 interference, by superintendence and functionaries, in the stream 
 of private activity and industry, that has developed, in a remark- 
 able degree, this spirit of self-government, and the influence of 
 the moral sense on action among the English. It is their educa- 
 tion. We may call them uneducated, because they cannot read 
 and write so generally as the Scotch, the French, or the Prussian 
 people ; but as men and citizens they have received a practical 
 education, from the nature of their social arrangements, of a far 
 higher kind and value than the French, the Prussian, or even the 
 Scotch can lay claim to. They -are far more independent moral 
 agents in public and private affairs. 
 
 In France and Prussia, the state, by the system of functionarism, 
 stepped into the shoes of the feudal baron on the abolition of the 
 feudal system ; and he who was the vassal, and now calls him- 
 self the citizen, is, in fact, as much restrained in his civil liberty, 
 and free agency, as a moral, self-acting member of society, by state 
 enactments, superfluous legislation, and the government spirit of 
 intermeddling by its functionaries in all things, as he was before 
 by his feudal lords. The physical condition of the people of those 
 countries has, beyond all doubt, been improved by the general 
 diffusion of property through the social mass, and has advanced 
 to a higher state of well-being and comfort than with us ; but 
 their civil and moral condition has not kept pace and advanced 
 with it. They have the property, but their governments endea- 
 vour to retain the privileges which belong to property, the rights 
 of individual free agency in the moral and industrial use of it. 
 These are two antagonist powers in the social economy of the 
 Continent. An unseen power called the state is held now, as it 
 was in the most stringent days of the feudal system, to be the 
 owner of all the materials of human industry, of all occupations, 
 trades, and professions, of human industry itself, of all the deeds 
 and thoughts of each individual, of his body and soul, it may be 
 truly said ; for instead of being free to do what law does not 
 prohibit, he can do nothing lawfully but what law permits. 
 He cannot engage in the simplest act of a free agent in civil 
 society without leave and license, and being in some shape or 
 
100 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Other under the eye and regulation of this unseen proprietor of 
 all earthly. He may, as in France, enjoy a considerable share of 
 political hberty that is of a constitutional voice in the enactment 
 of laws ; but civil liberty, the uncontrolled freedom of action, and 
 of the use of property, of body, and of mind, subject only to the 
 most obvious and urgent necessity of interference by government 
 to prevent evil to others — is as little enjoyed by him in the con- 
 stitutional as in the despotic state ; as little in Belgium or France, 
 as in Prussia or Austria. The same principle of intrusion on the 
 civil liberty of the subject pervades the social economy of all 
 these states — interference is the rule, non-interference the excep- 
 tion. Yet of what value is political liberty, or a representative 
 legislature, but to give and secure to every man the full and free 
 enjoyment of his civil liberty ? A free constitution is but a plat- 
 form for political adventurers to declaim from, if it does not bring 
 civil liberty into the social economy of a country. 
 
 The just conclusion is, that mere changes in the forms of go- 
 vernment, and in the machinery and forms of legislation, will not 
 suddenly, and as a necessary consequence, change the spirit of 
 the people, and that in genuine liberty, in practical civil liberty, 
 in the individual freedom of action and of mind, and the influ- 
 ences of this freedom on moral, intellectual, and national charac- 
 ter, the people of the Continent are but little more advanced now 
 than they were under Frederic the Great, or Louis XIV", or 
 Napoleon. They are still slaves in the spirit and principles of 
 their social economy. What they understand by liberty, and are 
 clamorous for, is political liberty, not civil liberty, the instrument 
 of liberty without its use, the outward forms without the spirit in 
 their social economy. 
 
 But this is not always to be so. This is but the transition state 
 of society just casting off the net-work of slavery in which the 
 feudal system had for ages enveloped it. The vassal is now the 
 proprietor, and in France at least more or less the legislator him- 
 self. It is his mind that is behind his social position. He is 
 a proprietor without knowing the rights of property. The old 
 feudal spirit still hngers in the regenerated governments and 
 people ; but the seed is sown, the leaven is working. Property 
 will gradually take its own place, and assume its own rights in 
 social affairs. It has been widely diffused by the effects of the 
 French Revolution throuffh all ranks and classes of the social 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 101 
 
 body of France and Germany. It is not merely property in land, 
 but also personal property, capital, that has been spread among 
 the people, and a spirit of industry, a feeling of individual inde- 
 pendence, naturally accompanied this ditTusion of property. But 
 the rights inseparable from industry and property — free-agency, 
 the uncontrolled use and exercise of them — are retained by go- 
 vernment as a basis for the support of kingly, power. The prin- 
 ciple of government when land was almost the only influential 
 property in society, and that was in the hands of a small privileged 
 class deeply interested in the support of the source from which 
 they derived their property and privileges, and held them exclu- 
 sively, is transferred to a social state, in which land is in the hands 
 of all, and no one class has any exclusive interests or rights, de- 
 rived from the crown and connected with lands, to maintain. 
 Owing to the natural and unextinguishable influences of property 
 on the human mind, this can only do, either in France or Ger- 
 many, until the public mind becomes educated and elevated up 
 to its social position, and along with the physical enjoyment and 
 possession of property, claims also all that morally and politically 
 belongs to the enjoyment and possession of property, viz. : free 
 agency as individuals, self-government by representative constitu- 
 tions as citizens. It is evident that one and the same principle as 
 a support of uncontrolled kingly power, cannot be found equally 
 efl'ective in two such totally distinct combinations of society, as 
 that of all land being concentrated in the hands of a small privi- 
 leged class closely connected by every tie and motive with the 
 crown, and that of the general diff"usion of land among a popula- 
 tion quite unconnected with it. The very fiction of law of the 
 crown being the source from which the landed proprietor derives 
 his rights, falls to the ground where the right is almost universal, 
 and conveys no conventional privilege attached to such property, 
 and where succession by primogeniture is abolished. The crown 
 attempting to retain restrictions on the use and free enjoyment of 
 property after it has lost all connection with it, is in a false position. 
 Two distinct powers in society— the power of property and 
 the kingly power— have thus, by the great convulsion of the 
 French Revolution, been placed in a state of incompatible co-exist- 
 ence. They are two antagonist powers in the social economy of 
 France, Prussia, and Northern Germany, two powers in oppo- 
 sition to, not in unison with each other. The rights of property, 
 
102 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the free agency of the possessor in the use and application of it, 
 the moral free agency of the individuals possessing it, their self- 
 government and self-management of all that affects it, are natural 
 prerogatives of the possessors of property which, where a whole 
 nation are the proprietors, cannot be usurped to support, by dint 
 of an unnatural system of functionarism extending over the pre- 
 rogatives of property and the private rights of proprietors, a royal 
 autocratic power of the community that has no exclusive rights 
 or privileges now to bestow upon any class of proprietors. Such 
 an usurpation of the rights of property, and of the natural pre- 
 rogatives of proprietors, by the intrusion of functionarism into all 
 the social relations, affairs, duties, and industrial movement of a 
 people of proprietors, can be no stable or very long endured 
 arrangement of the social economy of a country. What is the 
 jarring between the monarch and the states in Hanover? What 
 are the petitions for a constitutional representation to the new 
 sovereign of Prussia from the most important towns in his do- 
 minions? What is that great national movement, the German 
 commercial league, but the efforts of property to obtain its natural 
 rights in society — the distant sounds that precede a storm? 
 
 When this usurpation of the rights of property in the social 
 economy of the Continent is removed, either by gradual steps or 
 by sudden convulsion, on what has kingly power to rest? A 
 monarchical government and a democratical distribution of the 
 landed and other property cannot exist together. They are an- 
 tagonist elements in social economy. 
 
 The French Revolution, considered as the beginning of a radi- 
 cal, inevitable, and beneficial change in the physical, moral, and 
 political condition of the European people, must be regarded by 
 the social economist as a movement only in its commencement. 
 It has left the continental population in two very distinctly marked 
 divisions. The one consists of the populations in which, with a 
 few modifications and reforms not affecting the grand principle 
 of their social economy, the old feudal arrangements of property, 
 and the aristocratic basis of kingly power raised upon feudality, 
 are retained. Austria is undoubtedly at the head of this division. 
 The other consists of the populations which have adopted a new 
 social economy in which the two corner-stones of feudality, pri- 
 mogeniture and hereditary privilege, are taken away, and kingly 
 power has only the temporary basis of functionarism for its sup- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 103 
 
 port. France is at the head of this division. The diffusion of 
 property, the abohtion of privilege and primogeniture, and the 
 introduction of functionarism as a substitute for aristocracy and 
 a basis for the support of government, are all derived from the 
 French Revolution ; and Prussia entered voluntarily into the cir- 
 cle of the new social economy of this division, mider the adminis- 
 tration of Prince Hardenberg, in 1809. 
 
 It was found necessary, if Prussia was to preserve a national 
 existence, to give the mass of the population that interest in the 
 defence of the country which was totally wanting under the feu- 
 dal distribution of the land into noble estates cultivated by the 
 forced labour of serfs. The following sketch will explain im- 
 perfectly the amount of change in the state of landed property 
 in Prussia produced by this measure. 
 
 Previous to 1800 landed property was, on the greater part of 
 the Continent, divided into noble or baronial, and peasant, rotu- 
 rier, or not noble holdings. The former class of estates coidd 
 only be held by nobility, and had many unjust exemptions from 
 public burdens, and many oppressive privileges attached to them. 
 These baronial estates, by far the greatest in extent, had the 
 peasantry who were born on the land adscripti glebx ; had a 
 right to their labour every day for the cultivation of the domain ; 
 had civil and criminal jurisdiction over them in the baronial court 
 of the estate ; had a baronial judge, a baronial prison on the estate 
 to incarcerate them, and a bailiff to flog them for neglect of work 
 or other baronial offences. These slaves were allowed cottages 
 with land upon the outskirts of the estate, and cultivated their 
 own patches in the hours or days when their labour was not 
 required on the barony lands. They paid tithes and dues out of 
 their crops to the minister, the surgeon, the schoolmaster, and the 
 barony or local judge who resided on the estate, and was ap- 
 pointed by the proprietor, as patron both of the church and of 
 the court of the barony, but out of the number of examined 
 jurists, or students of law, who were candidates for these local 
 judgeships. 
 
 This is, for the system is not abolished altogether, the ^reat 
 object of the numerous body of law students at the German 
 universities. The local judge is, like the minister, with a fixed 
 and comfortable salary not depending on the will of the patron, 
 and he is a servant of the state revised by, and reporting to, the 
 
104 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 higher local judicatories, and with promotion open to him from 
 the local baronial to the higher courts of the country. 
 
 If the serf deserted, he was brought back by the military, who 
 patrolled the roads for the purpose of preventing the escape of 
 peasants into the free towns, their only secure asylum, and was 
 imprisoned, fed on bread and water in the black hole, which 
 existed on every baronial estate, and flogged. The condition of 
 these born serfs was very similar to that of the negro slaves on a 
 West India estate during the apprenticeship term, before their 
 final emancipation. This system was in full vigour up to the 
 beginning of the present century, and not merely in remote un- 
 frequented corners of the Continent, but in the centre of her 
 civilization — all round Hamburgh and Lubeck, for instance, in 
 Holstein, Schleswig, Hanover, Brunswick, and over all Prussia. 
 Besides these baronial estates with the born-serfs attached to 
 them, there were Bauern Hofe, or peasant estates, which held 
 generally of some baron, but were distinct properties, paying as 
 feu duties or quit-rents so many days' labour in the week, with 
 other feudal services and payments to the feudal superior. The 
 acknowledgment of these as distinct legal properties not to be 
 recalled so long as the peasant performed the services and pay- 
 ments established either by usage or by writings, was the first 
 great step in Prussia towards the change in the condition of the 
 peasantry. It was stretched so far as to include the serfs located 
 on the outskirts of the barony, and paying daily labour for their 
 patches of land, and who originally were intended by the pro- 
 prietor to be his servants and day-labourers for cultivating his 
 mains or home-farmed land, but who, by long usage and occupa- 
 tion for generations, had become a kind of hereditary tenants not 
 to be distinguished from those occupants acknowledged to be pro- 
 prietors, or what we would call copyholders. Prince Hardenberg's 
 energetic administration made all these occupants the absolute 
 proprietors of their several holdings, for the yearly payment of 
 the quit rents they had been paying to the baronial proprietor, 
 and had these quit rents, whether paid in labour or other services, 
 or ingrain, valued by commissioners at fixed moderate rates, and 
 had them commuted and brought up from the dominant property, 
 under inspection of the commissioners, by the surrender to it of a 
 portion of the land of the servient property, if the peasant had 
 no money for the purchase of the redemption. This great and 
 
NOTES OK A TRAVELLER. 105 
 
 good measure, which was projected and carried into effect by 
 Stein- and Hardenberg in a succession of edicts, from that of 
 October 9, 1S07, up to June 7, 1821, is the great and redeeming 
 glory of the reign of Frederic-William III, and, like all great 
 and good measures, was accomplished with much less difficulty 
 than was anticipated. Feudality had become effete. A strong 
 and vigorous exertion was necessary to give the people some- 
 thing to defend — some material interest in the country. 13y this 
 measure, Prussia was at once covered with a numerous body of 
 small proprietors, instead of being held by a small privileged class 
 of nobility. 
 
 This revolution in the state of property was almost as great as 
 that which had taken place in France, and it is pregnant with the 
 same results and tendencies. It gave comfort, well-being, pro- 
 perty, to a population of serfs. It emancipated them from local 
 oppression, raised their moral and physical condition, gave them 
 a political, although as yet unacknowledged existence, as the most 
 important constituent element of the social body. But here the 
 Prussian Revolution has stopped short of the French. It gave no 
 political liberty or influence under any form, no representative 
 constitution to those to whom it had given clear and distinct pro- 
 perty, and consequently the feelings, influences on the human 
 mind, and the requirements which the possession of property 
 brings along with it. The people hold the property, and the 
 crown, by its system of functionarism and military organization, 
 endeavours to hold all the rights and prerogatives belonging to, 
 and morally and civilly essential to property, all the civil and 
 political liberties of the proprietors of the country. 
 
 As a necessary sequence of the emancipation of the country 
 population from feudal services to the noble land-owner, the town 
 populations were emancipated from the restrictions and privileges 
 of their feudal lords, viz.: the incorporation of trades and bur- 
 gesses. Every man was entitled to be admitted to the rights of 
 burgess or citizen on paying a certain fixed sum (in Berlin it is 
 thirty thalers) for his burgess ticket, and is entitled, whether he 
 has or has not served an apprenticeship, to exercise any calling 
 or trade. This second step completed the change in the social 
 economy of Prussia, and altogether obliterated its former cliarac- 
 ter of feudality as far as regarded the people, although the govern- 
 ment still clings to the feudal principle of autocracy, without any 
 8 
 
106 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 representation of the proprietors of the country. If these were 
 small privileged classes of nobility, and incorporated bodies, inter- 
 woven with royalty, as under the old feudal arrangements of 
 society, and kept by exclusive privileges and distinctions apart 
 from the main body of a people, and closely united to each other 
 and to the crown by every tie of interest and honour, this order 
 of things might, although opposed to the spirit of the times, and 
 to the gradual but great advance of society in an opposite direc- 
 tion, linger on, as in Austria and other feudally constituted coun- 
 tries, in a feeble existence, waiting the blast that is to overturn it. 
 But in a whole nation of proprietors, it is a false social economy 
 — an order of things too unnatural to be stable. 
 
 In France, the body of proprietors possessing the land of the 
 country have obtained a portion, at least, of political liberty, a re- 
 presentation, by a part at least, of their own body in the legislature, 
 and. may, without any very violent convulsion, give themselves 
 hereafter the civil hberty they still want, in proportion as the 
 public mind becomes prepared to cast off the trammels on indi- 
 vidual liberty and free agency imposed by functionarism and 
 government interference. Prussia has not taken this step, and is 
 now in the false position of holding fast by a power which has 
 no roots in the new social economy she has adopted. The govern- 
 ment has cast loose the absolute kingly power from its sheet- 
 anchor, the feudal system, and is now clinging to the twig of 
 functionarism to save itself from being hurried along with the 
 stream of social improvement. 
 
 France and Prussia should be viewed by the social economist 
 consecutively. They have the same two antagonist principles in 
 their social economy, although in France the ultimate predomi- 
 nance of the power of property over absolute kingly power is no 
 longer doubtful. Functionarism in France, enormous as it is, will 
 be broken down as a state element for the support of kingly 
 power, by the element of popular power in the constitution, the 
 Chamber of Deputies. But in Prussia the people have no shadow 
 even of legislative power, no kind of representative chamber, and 
 are abjectly patient under the total want of civil and political 
 liberty. Property, and a prodigious social reform, have been 
 thrust upon them by their government in a kind of speculation 
 on improvement, rather than attained by any invincible desire of 
 their own, or by any national struggle for their ameliorated social 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 107 
 
 condition. All has been clone for them, not by them; and they 
 enjoy the physical good this change has brought them, like a body 
 of emancipated slaves who receive their own natural rights as 
 gifts from their former masters, and sit down in grateful content- 
 ment. The kingly power, both in Prussia and in France, seems 
 aware of its false position, and anxious to reconstruct an order of 
 hereditary aristocracy, endowed with entailed landed property and 
 privilege, as a social power for the support of monarchy. But in 
 social economy, as in human life, the nulla pes relrorsxim is the 
 principle of nature. The abolition of primogeniture, and the 
 consequent diffusion of landed property through society, have 
 morally, as well as territorially, done away with the class of privi- 
 leged feudal aristocracy as an influential social element in both 
 countries. It would be the show, not the reality, of a nobility 
 that could be re-established now in Prussia or in France. The 
 social position and importance of an hereditary aristocracy are, 
 besides, filled up by the new social power — the body of function- 
 aries, in the social arrangements which have sprung up from the 
 ashes of the French Revolution. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PllUSSiA.-^NOT CONSTITUTING ONE NATION.— PRUSSIAN POLICY IN THIS 
 CENTURY.— ATTEMPT TO FORM NATIONAL CHARACTER.— WHY NOT 
 SUCCESSFUL.— MILITARY ORGANIZATION OF PRUSSIA.— LIABILITY TO 
 MILITARY SERVICE OF ALL PRUSSIANS.— SERVICE IN THE LINE.— IN 
 THE ARMY OF RESERVE.— FIRST DIVISION.— SECOND.— EFFECTS OF THE 
 SYSTEM ON THE POLITICAL BALANCE OF EUROPE.— ITS ADVANTAGES. 
 —ITS DISADVANTAGES COMPARED TO A STANDING ARMY.— ITS GREAT 
 PRESSURE ON TIME AND INDUSTRY.— ITS INFERIORITY AS A MILITARY 
 FORCE.— AMOUNT OF MILITARY FORCE OF PRUSSIA.— DEFECT IN THE 
 CONTINENTAL ARMIES.— NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.— MEN.— TOO 
 DELICATELY BRED IN THE PRUSSIAN ARMY.— LONGEVITY OF OFFI- 
 CERS.— THE PROBABLE ISSUE OF A WAR BETWEEN PRUSSIA AND 
 FRANCE.— POLICY OF ENGLAND IF SUCH A WAR ARISE. 
 
 The Prussians are not nationalized by those moral infiuences 
 ■which bind men together into distinct commmiities. They are 
 not, like the English, the French, the Spaniards, a people distinct 
 in character, spirit, and modes of living— a nation unamalgamated 
 and unamalgamable with others. They have no national lan- 
 guage, literature, or character ; no old established customs, man- 
 ners, traditions, modes of living and thinking, laws, rights, or in- 
 stitutions of ancient times peculiar to and distinctive of Prussians. 
 Their history as a nation is but of yesterday, and is not properly 
 their history, but that of the sovereigns of a small part of the 
 present Prussia— -of Brandenburg— who beginning the world 
 about a century ago with a margraveship of about one and a half 
 million of subjects have, by good luck and military talent, gathered 
 together a kingdom of shreds and patches of other countries, con- 
 taining about fourteen millions of people. These have no national 
 history of ancient times common to all, or to a majority of Prussians, 
 and connecting the present with the past by feelings of veneration 
 and hereditary attachment. Prussia has, in ordinary parlance, 
 only a geographical or political meaning denoting the Prussian 
 government, or the provinces it governs — not a moral or social 
 meaning. The Prussian nation is a combination of words rarely 
 heard, of ideas never made, the population not being morally 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 109 
 
 imited by any common sentiment or spirit of nationality distin- 
 guishing them in character, mind, or habits from the other German 
 populations around them, the Austrian, Bavarian, Saxon, or Han- 
 overian. The German populations have never been distinguished 
 by any strong spirit of nationality. They have always been 
 divisible, like a flock of sheep, into any parcels at the pleasure of 
 their shepherds, without vigorous indications of such national 
 distinctiveness, character, and feelings of their own, as might 
 render their division and amalgamation with other groups danger- 
 ous or impracticable. To remedy this defect in their social struc- 
 ture, to kindle a spirit of nationality, form a national character, 
 and raise a Prussian nation, bound together by moral influences 
 like the French or English, as well as by mere territorial and poli- 
 tical arrangements, is the great under-principle which has run 
 through all the domestic policy of the Prussian government in this 
 century. Frederic the Great had no higher policy than to retain 
 the territories he had acquired by the means which acquired them 
 — a strong standing army, and a military system superior to that 
 of other powers. His successors adhered to the same policy ; but 
 the first shock with the armies of a people animated by national 
 spirit dissolved the dull German delusion, that drill and discipline 
 alone are sufficient in modern warfare to replace the higher moral 
 influences. Germans against Germans, monarch against monarch, 
 in a scramble for territory, and the people in apathy and indifl'ei'- 
 ence, and with no interest at issue, the contending potentates made 
 conquests according to the number of their highly disciplined 
 troops. WarVas really, what it was often compared to, a game 
 at chess, in which the royal gamesters could calculate upon the 
 powers and effect of each piece and move. The French wars 
 from 1794 to 1814 wrought a mighty change in this royal game, 
 and made every cabinet of the old school feel, that with national 
 sentiment kindled by moral influences, no people can be subdued, 
 and without it none can be secure. The alteration in Prussia of 
 the law and holding of landed property, and the subversion of the 
 ancient feudal relations between the peasantry and the nobility — 
 a change almost as great in the state of property, and altogether 
 as great in the structure of society, as the revolution produced in 
 France ; the new military system, by which the people themselves 
 became the only standing army ; the new educational system, by 
 which government has in its own hands the training of the mind 
 
110 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and opinions of the public through its own functionaries ; the new 
 ecclesiastical system, by which the two branches of the Protestant 
 church, the Lutheran and Calvinistic, are joined together, and 
 blended into one different from both, the Prussian church ; the 
 German custom-house union, or commercial league, centralizing 
 in Prussia the management of the commercial and manufacturing 
 industry connected with the supply of the other German popula- 
 tions, and raising a Prussian dominancy over the industrial pur- 
 suits of the rest of Germany, are so many steps towards the one 
 great object of imbuing the Prussian population with those moral 
 influences, without which a populatian is not a nation, and on 
 which national greatness, independence, and even existence, de- 
 pend. " To what extent has this great experiment been successful ? 
 this solitary attempt on the old continent— analogous to that which 
 has been so successful on the new — to form a national character, 
 to kindle a national spirit, to convert a mass of individuals of 
 different origins, languages, religions, histories, laws, customs, into 
 a nation ? The American cement, the main ingredient in the 
 American cement, is totally wanting in Prussia — freedom, the 
 uncontrolled freedom of industry, property, mind, and person, 
 without interference of the government by laws to the enactment 
 of which the people are no party, and by a system of function- 
 arism which supersedes free agency in all civil and even many 
 domestic relations of life, and extinguishes the moral influences 
 and national spirit which the government wishes to kindle, leaving 
 the people a passive mass in the hands of their rulers. The 
 Prussian government has taken one step, and is afraid to take the 
 next, which naturally and unavoidably must follow the first, and 
 lives in an unavailing struggle to reconcile things irreconcilable 
 with each other — a supreme interference of the state in all human 
 action and opinion among her subjects, with the activity, industry, 
 and prosperity, the national character, public spirit, and patriotism, 
 which a people only attain where action and opinion are free and 
 uncontrolled. 
 
 The present military organization of the subjects of Prussia is 
 one of the most important features in the social economy of the 
 Continent. It has been adopted, with more or less rigour in its 
 application, by almost all the secondary European powers, and 
 its principle and spirit enter into all the civil as well as the mili- 
 tary arrangements of those countries, and extend an influence 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. Ill 
 
 over the whole social condition of the European population, 
 much more extensively than any other military system has done 
 since the decay of the feudal. The system of standing armies 
 which preceded it, and which still exists with us, entered but 
 slightly as an element in the social economy of a country. The 
 classes who had to furnish recruits to it either by enlistment, or 
 impressment more or less concealed under the forms of a ballot, 
 suffered a loss of the members thus abstracted from civil Hfe ; but 
 that was almost the only effect on the social economy of the mass 
 of the population, excepting the taxation more or less heavy in 
 different countries, necessary for supporting a standing army to- 
 tally distinct from the people. It is a singular historical fact, that 
 Prussia has twice, within these hundred years, furnished the model 
 on which almost all the other European powers have formed their 
 military force, even to the most minute details. The former mili- 
 tary system of Prussia, as it was left in its highest perfection by 
 Frederic the Great to his successors, was one of harsh and bruti- 
 fying discipline, enforced by the cudgel over trembling squads of 
 serfs trained into mere movable machines. The first shock with 
 the undisciplined troops of the French republic proved that this 
 system was false, that humanity was not to be outraged with 
 impunity in the formation of armies, and that mind and moral 
 influences were superior elements even in modern tactics to the 
 deadening discipline of the corporal's stick. The whole of the 
 European armies formed, even to the shape of their buttons, 
 upon this Prussian model, were by numberless defeats totally 
 disorganized. It is not the least of the benefits resulting from the 
 French revolutionary wars, that a more humane spirit of military 
 discipline, a greater consideration for the mind and rights of the 
 soldier, as a human being, and a greater dependence upon the 
 spirit and moral influences than upon a forced mechanical move- 
 ment, have been introduced, in consequence of these defeats, into 
 the military system of every country. 
 
 The new military system of Prussia, as established by edicts 
 of 3d September, 18M, and 21st November, 1815, has been 
 adopted by almost all the secondary European powers. By this 
 system* every subject between the ages of 20 and 25 years, with- 
 out distinction of fortune, birth, class, or intended profession, is 
 bound to serve as a private soldier in the ranks of the standing 
 * Gesclzc uebcr die Militair Pflichli-koit. Berlin, ISlo. 
 
112 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 army for a period of three successive years. From this obliga- 
 tion only the most obvious incapacity from bodily or mental 
 defect or infirmity can excuse any individual, and that incapacity 
 must be examined and admitted by the local board of commis- 
 sioners for military affairs, whose proceedings are reported to, 
 and watched over by, a superior provincial board, and both 
 report up6n every claim for exemption to the war department. 
 By the construction of these boards it is impossible that favour, 
 partiality, or local interest can screen any individual from his 
 turn for entering the service for three years — which turn is deter- 
 mined by lot drawn by those who are between the prescribed 
 years, viz. : between 20 and 25 years of age — nor from serving 
 his three years in that particular branch of service or regiment 
 for which, from stature, constitution, or previous occupation, he 
 may be best adapted. Officers from each branch of service — 
 of the guards, artillery, cavalry, and infantry — attend these boards 
 at their sittings, for this selection. In order not to press too se- 
 verely on the professions or occupations incompatible with such 
 a long period of military service, certain exemptions on account 
 of the social position of the individual are allowed by favour, 
 and on certificate from the proper authorities, so as to reduce the 
 period of service in a regiment of the line from three years to 
 one year, the individual thus favoured being at the expense of 
 his own clothing and accoutrements. But such exemption is the 
 exception, not the rule ; is not matter of right, but of favour ; 
 and also political convenience, when the ranks of the standing 
 army are already sufficiently full. After this service of three 
 years in a regiment of the line or standing army, the individual 
 returns on leave of absence as a supernumerary, liable to rejoin 
 his regiment in case of war ; but upon attaining his 26th year, 
 after his three years' service, he is discharged from the lists of 
 the standing army into the army of reserve, and into that division 
 of it which is called erster Aufgeboths, or first for service. This 
 is the real army of the country, being composed entirely of sol- 
 diers of three years' training, and between the ages of 26 and 
 32 years. The standing army is the formation-school for the 
 population. One-third of its numbers is discharged every autumn 
 into this division of the army of reserve, and replaced in spring 
 out of the population by the local and provincial boards of com- 
 missioners. The army of reserve is called out for exercise and 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 113 
 
 field manoeuvres for fourteen days every year, which, however, is 
 sometimes extended to four weeks. The individual, after his 32d 
 year, is turned over from this first division to the second division 
 (zweiten Aufgeboths) of the army of reserve. In case of war, 
 this division would not t^ike the field, but would do garrison duty, 
 as being composed generally of men with families, and more 
 advanced in life, and also of half-invalids who had been found 
 unfit for severer duty. After his 49th year, the individual is 
 turned over into the land-sturm, or levy en masse, which is only 
 mustered or exercised in its own locality, and would only be 
 called out in case of actual invasion, or domestic tumult. The 
 whole land is thus one vast camp, the whole population one 
 army. Every man in every station of life, and in every locality, 
 is a drilled soldier, who knows his regiment, his company, his 
 squad, his military place in it, and appears under arms at his 
 rendezvous for duty with as little delay or confusion, and as 
 complete in all military appointments, as a soldier of any stand- 
 ing army quartered in cantonments. The admirable precision 
 and arrangement with which all the equipments of each portion 
 of the army of reserve are placed in convenient depots and head- 
 quarters over the country, for the inhabitants of each locality 
 belonging to that force, prevent any confusion in the working of 
 this vast and admirably arranged military system. Standing 
 armies, composed of men enlisted, or impressed, for an unlimited 
 period of service, or for a period long enough to separate thenci 
 from the rest of society almost entirely, to detach them as a class 
 from all the ties and habits of civil life, exist now only in Russia, 
 Austria, France, and England. Prussia and all the secondary 
 powers have dropped this kind of military force. In France six 
 years, and in Austria eight years are the term of service for the 
 conscript drawn by ballot for the army, and lately the period is 
 extended to eight years in France ; and, as far as regards the 
 individual's habits and ties, this is almost equivalent to unlimited 
 service. All the other European powers have organized their 
 military Ibrce upon the Prussian principle ; and this has imper- 
 ceptibly altered most essentially their relative political importance, 
 and the weight of Prussia in European allUirs ; and particularly 
 has become an element in the social structure, and in the pohtical 
 balance of power of the European states, of great interest to 
 the political philosopher observant of those silent changes which 
 
114 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 come over civilized society unremarked, until on some sudden 
 crisis they produce striking effects. This national army of the 
 Prussian system appears to be the cheapest, the most effective, 
 and most valuable military force a country can keep. Its cheap- 
 ness, indeed, in proportion to its great numerical strength, and to 
 the fine and efficient appearance under arms, to which good 
 arrangement and disciphne have brought this force in Prussia, 
 has led to the almost general adoption of the system on the Con- 
 tinent. The soldiery are only in pay during the period they are 
 embodied, that is, during the three years' service in the line, 
 when they may be considered as learning their military duty, 
 and, afterwards, only during the few weeks yearly of army of 
 reserve service, when the troops are assembled for field manoeu- 
 vres, in great masses, in different points of the kingdom. Our 
 military men who gallop about at these grand Prussian reviews 
 declare unanimously their admiration of the appearance, move- 
 ments, manoeuvres, and military excellency of the Prussian army ; 
 and its drill and equipments, as well as its organization, have 
 become a model for other troops, almost as generally as they 
 were at the commencement of the revolutionary war, before the 
 onset of troops far less exquisitely drilled and dressed than the 
 old Prussian army, settled the real value in the field of this parade 
 perfection for half a century. 
 
 This kind of military force, however, if duly weighed in all its 
 bearings on the community by the political economist, will be 
 found in reality the most expensive and ruinous, instead of the 
 cheapest, a country can support. It is an enormous pressure, a 
 ruinous tax, in reality, upon the industry of a nation — a reckless 
 waste of the property — of the time and labour which constitute 
 the property — of the labouring and middle classes, and which re- 
 duces, and for ever keeps down, the people to a state of poverty. 
 Look at its working among those classes. Take, for instance, a 
 lad of two and twenty who has just learnt his business as a car- 
 penter, smith, weaver, or other handicraft, and then for three years, 
 the three most valuable years in his life for acquiring steady habits 
 of work, and manual dexterity and skill in his trade, put him into 
 a regiment of the line in a distant part of the country to live the 
 idle life of a soldier for three years, away from the advice or con- 
 trol of his friends, and without seeing or handling the implements 
 of the trade he was bred to. What kind of operative tradesman, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 115 
 
 or head of a family, is such an education to produce? But after 
 three years' service he finds his way home, resumes his original 
 trade, marries, and from 25 to 4S years of age, that is for 23 years, 
 he has to give at the least two weeks yearly — I believe it is more 
 usually four weeks — to his army of reserve duty. Now, if we 
 take the working years of such a man to be 40, that is from 22 to 
 62 years of age, we have 14,600 working days in his life, includ- 
 ing, however, Sundays, holydays, sickness-days, and drunkenness- 
 days; and out of this gross capital of 14,600 days, this man's 
 military duty of three years' service in the line, and 14 days for 
 23 years afterwards in the army of reserve, takes away 1417 days, 
 or just about 10 per cent, of his operative life. It is equivalent to 
 a property tax of 10 per cent., taking the lowest data of calcula- 
 tion, upon the labour and industry of the working, producing 
 classes of the nation ; and observe it is not 10 per cent, on the 
 value only of the produce of the time, labour, and industry of the 
 people, that is consumed by those governments, but one-tenth of 
 the productive powers themselves— of the very time and labour 
 of the people. Nor is this all. It is in the good weather half-year, 
 in the drilling and reviewing season only, that many kinds of out- 
 door labour and many sorts of crafts can be carried on to advan- 
 tage ; and, besides, the greater severity of winter in Prussia, and 
 generally on the Continent, the extent of country, and the conse- 
 quent inferiority of cross-roads and facilities of transport, impede 
 industry and business during the bad weather half-year, to a de- 
 gree unknown in our compact, well-roaded land. The working 
 man's time is worth double to him at the very season it is taken 
 from him by his government for drills and parades. The system 
 is incompatible with a progressive condition of a people, with any 
 considerable growth of national wealth, or any extensive develop- 
 ment of manufacturing industry. The labouring man cannot 
 raise his condition to the middle class ; scarcely can he gather 
 savings for old age. The middle class is formed under this system 
 of taxation on time and labour, not by the rise of individuals from 
 the lower class, as in our social system, but by the breaking down 
 of the class above itself The German military system, and the 
 German commercial league, are at direct variance with each other. 
 If the former prevail, and continue to devour the only basis of 
 national wealth and prosperity — the time and labour of the people 
 — the latter will linger in a forced existence, and gradually die 
 
116 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 away. If the latter prevail, and Germany become in reality a 
 thriving, industrious, manufacturing country, this military system, 
 and the whole system of interference of the continental govern- 
 ments with the people in all their doings engendered by it, must 
 fall to the ground. Many conceive, theoretically, that it must be 
 the great safeguard of the liberties of a country, its best protection 
 from tyranny, that the whole people have arms in their hands and 
 know how to use them. This may be true, if political liberty 
 alone, that is, the form or constitution of a free government, be 
 all that is understood by liberty, and if the people have got the 
 forms of a free government, which they have not in Prussia ; but 
 if civil liberty — the right of every individual to the free use of 
 his mental and bodily powers, and to his own free agency as a 
 moral and social being, subject only to such restrictions as he him- 
 self has concurred in and imposes by his own representatives for 
 the general good — be the end, and political liberty only the means, 
 then this is not true of such a military organization of a whole 
 people. It is sacrificing their civil liberty — which is the great end 
 and object of free institutions— for their political liberty, if they 
 had any, for the defence of a share in the forms of legislation. It 
 is paying for the saddle, and leaving nothing to buy the horse. 
 
 It is stated by a statistical writer, Jancigny, as an approxima- 
 tion to the proportion of the military to the population of different 
 countries, that in Russia 1 in 57 of the population is serving as a 
 soldier ; in Prussia 1 in 80 ; in Austria 1 in 118 ; in France 1 in 
 122 ; and in England 1 in 320. But in this statistical approxima- 
 tion the writer forgets the most important element in it, as far as 
 regards the industry, morals, and habits of a people, viz., that in 
 England this 1 represents a whole military generation. As long 
 as this 1 lasts, the 320 do not furnish another 1 to fill his place as 
 a soldier, and when they do, it is 1 who can be spared, whose 
 social condition allows him to enlist. In Russia it appears to be 
 the same — the 1 represents a whole military generation. In 
 Austria and France, the 1 represents 8 years, and 6 years respec- 
 tively, during which periods the 1 is not replaced out of the body 
 of the community ; and as, after 6 or 8 years of military service, 
 many soldiers have lost all civil ties and means of earning a living, 
 and re-engage as substitutes for those drawn to replace them, the 
 system is nearly equivalent in practice to the English and Russian. 
 J3ut in Prussia the 1 represents only 3 years. He is then thrown 
 
NOTES OP A TRAVELLER. 117 
 
 back with his half military, lialf civil habits, into the mass of the 
 community, and another 1 is taken out of the SO, without regard 
 to his social position or relation to others, to be demoralized by 
 the same process. By demoralized, it is not here meant that the 
 soldier is necessarily a less moral man than the civilian, but that 
 his habits of industry and steady application to work, and his 
 knack or skill in his trade, are necessarily deranged ; and in this 
 sense his military service demoralizes him for civil utility. His 
 mind and habits, as well as his manual dexterity and aptitude, are 
 injnred. The operative, taken away from his factory, where his 
 individual intelligence and dexterity may often be most important 
 to its prosperity, to be drilled and lead a military life for three 
 years, and afterwards yearly for several weeks, returns with his 
 habits, mind, and hand out, as workmen express it, when they 
 resume their tools after long disuse. He is no competitor against 
 a workman in the uninterrupted exercise of his handicraft all his 
 life. 
 
 A public trained in the habits of military life are, also, bad 
 consumers, as well as bad producers. The whole community 
 necessarily brings from the ranks the rough tastes and habits 
 easily satisfied with rude production, and very little of it, which 
 are inseparable from the condition of the common soldier, what- 
 ever class he may flave been originally drawn from. As con- 
 sumers, they do not bring into the home market the almost fas- 
 tidious and finical taste for and estimate of fine workmanship, 
 superior material, and perfect finish, which is a principal element 
 in the superiority of one manufacturing country over another. 
 
 Notwithstanding the testimony of all military officers to the fine 
 appearance and efficiency of the Prussian troops, it is reasonable to 
 believe that men who know that they are only tied to their military 
 service in the line for three years, and are hankering after their 
 civil occupations, and counting the days until they can return to 
 their homes, are, as soldiers, not equal to men who have no con- 
 nection with civil life, no tics, cares, hopes, property, or domicil 
 beyond their military position. This seems to be a point in human 
 nature, on which others as well as military men are able to form 
 an opinion ; and as, immediately previous to 1794, the testimony 
 of all the military officers of Europe ran quite as high in favour 
 of the efficiency of the Prussian army, as then constituted, such 
 testimony to its superiority as now constituted cannot be received 
 
118 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 as altogether infallible. Regiments of the line almost totally re- 
 newed in the course of three years, with one-third of their strength 
 always raw recruits, and their oldest soldiers, generally speaking, 
 of less than three years' standing, can scarcely be equal to old 
 regiments of seasoned soldiers, although they may be pattern 
 regiments for drill, dress, and good arrangement ; and regiments 
 of reserve, although consisting of soldiers of three years' standing, 
 if only --embodied for a few days or weeks in summer, are after 
 all only a good militia. England, Russia, France, and Austria 
 have adopted a far cheaper military system for society, one better 
 for the civil liberty of the people, and probably one better too for 
 having effective troops, by taking a proportion of the people by 
 voluntary enlistment, or by forced conscriptions, and keeping the 
 same individuals always, or as long as they are fit for service, 
 embodied as an army, relieving the rest, the great body of the 
 community, altogether from the heavy annual tax on their time 
 and industry, which presses on the people in Prussia and the other 
 German States. These scape-goats for the rest of the community 
 form, probably, more effective soldiers individually; and collec- 
 tively are, without doubt, a more effective military power in the 
 hands of a government. The whole population of a monarchy, 
 organized, drilled, disciplined, regimented, ready and effective at 
 a call to fight for king and country, sounds remarkably well in a 
 schoolboy's oration, or a newspaper paragraph. But look closely 
 into the thing. A modern army is a political machine composed 
 of artillery, cavalry, and infantry, in the hands of a state, and 
 movable at its pleasure; and unless this- machine be not only per- 
 fect in its parts, but movable and disposable for offensive, aggres- 
 sive operation, as well as for mere defence of its native land, it 
 is of no real political weight in Europe. Does the Prussian system 
 fulfil these conditions of an effective, political, military power ? 
 Is it perfect in all its parts, or only as perfect as the nature of its 
 formation allows it to be? Artillery and cavalry, the most essen- 
 tial parts of this machine, can scarcely be formed at all in less than 
 three years, we are told by our most experienced officers who have 
 written on tactics ; and in these services the man is part and parcel 
 of his horse, or of his gun. He has not, like the infantry soldier, 
 a value independent of other things; but out of connection and 
 practice with the identical gun, horse, and squad he is trained to 
 work with, he is but part of a tool, the stock of a firelock, the 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 119 
 
 handle only of a hammer. It is evident there can be no perfection 
 in these two important branches of military power in such militia 
 troops. 
 
 Is such a military machine as that of Prussia movable and 
 disposable ? Is it a military force which could be shipped to 
 attack or to garrison distant colonies — and without colonies Ger- 
 many can scarcely become what German politicians fondly dream 
 of, a great commercial power — or to carry on such a war as 
 France has now on her hands in Africa, or as Russia wages in 
 the Caucasus, or even to carry on a few campaigns in Germany 
 itself, or in the Netherlands ? If Hanover were to occupy the 
 Duchy of Brunswick, or France to invade the Baden or Hessian 
 provinces on the Rhine, or to get up a war in the East, is the 
 Prussian national army, constituted as it is, a military force which 
 could be freely used in a succession of campaigns, like any other 
 political military force, on such ordinary political occasions no 
 wise affecting directly the safety of Prussia ? Or is this military 
 machine defensive only, and, from its composition, of no weight 
 or value as an available offensive power? Prussia was called 
 upon by sound policy, and the ties of kindred, to prevent the 
 dismemberment of the kingdom of the Netherlands, and to extin- 
 guish the Belgian revolution; and a few disposable regiments 
 sent to Brussels to support the King of Holland— on the same 
 principle that Austria sends a few regiments on every alarm into 
 the Papal or Neapolitan states — would have turned the scale. 
 At the siege of Antwerp, Prussia was obviously called upon in 
 honour to take a part, when a French force was actually in the 
 field against her allies the Dutch. A good cause was not wanting, 
 nor evidently was the will wanting on the part of the Prussian 
 royal family and cabinet : but the means, the machinery of an 
 aggressive military power, movable at the pleasure of the state, 
 for any purpose, for any length of time, and to any quarter, were 
 wanting. A Prussian army could be assembled for annual exercise 
 and manceuvre on the frontier, for purposes of demonstration, 
 and even of occupation of adjoining parishes in Luxembourg; 
 but however brilliant, expert, and well disciplined such an army 
 might be, and however ready and eager to engage in actual war- 
 fare its officers or its»men might be, it is obviously so constituted 
 that it cannot be freely used in the field by its government as a 
 political machine. The property, the industry, the intelligence. 
 
120 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the influence of the country, are in its ranks — all that is vakiable 
 in a nation is in its ranks, and not merely a class given up to 
 military service as scape-goats for the rest of the community, and 
 composed generally of the least valuable and most isolated mem- 
 bers in it, whose loss is simply the loss of soldiers. Here, the 
 loss would be the loss of the owners or heirs of the property 
 of the country — the loss of fathers, husbands, sons — of men on 
 whom the interests and industry of the country hinge — of the 
 most useful and influential classes in it, not of the unconnected, 
 idle, and outcast only, of whom an ordinary standing army is 
 composed. The loss by a victory would be greater to Prussia in 
 a political and economical view, than the loss by three defeats of 
 ordinary troops. The affairs of society would be more deranged ; 
 more useful life would be destroyed. An army composed of such 
 materials^cannot be risked, unless on the rare occasions, as during 
 the last war, when national existence and safety are visibly at 
 stake. The loss even of time and labour to all the productive 
 classes, the destruction of all manufacturing industry and enter- 
 prize by calling out the army of reserve, composed as it is, for 
 actual service for a campaign or two, would be such a sacrifice of 
 all social interests, as only the most imminent danger could justify. 
 If all wars were, like the last, for national existence, no system 
 could be superior to the present military arrangement of the 
 Prussian population ; and all the secondary European powers 
 have run headlong into it, on account of its obvious excellence 
 for the defence of a country, and its apparent economy ; and for 
 the same reasons, all politicians and political economists are loud 
 in its praise. If all the European countries had adopted the same 
 miUtary system at the conclusion of the last war, this might have 
 been wise. The only question would have been, whether the 
 economy is not in appearance only — whether the taking up of the 
 time and labour of the whole productive classes of a nation for 
 military service, be not in reality a retrograde step in civilization 
 and political economy, and one more expensive and ruinous to 
 the people than the taxes upon the value of the products of their 
 time and labour, necessary to pay a particular class to perform 
 that military service for all. But the other powers have each re- 
 tained a disposable military force of a different nature, consti- 
 tuted on a different principle, and available as a political machine 
 for any purpose, in or out of the country, without regard or refer- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 121 
 
 ence to the machine itself, or its connection with the industry and 
 property of the nation, and therefore, as a maciiine, of superior 
 weight and availabihty in European affairs. The new national 
 armies have no aggressive capabiUty, and consequently no power 
 of intimidation in them. They are like the enormous pieces of 
 ordnance found in old fortifications, to be fired off only in one 
 direction, and only in defence. A French diplomatist would 
 probably laugh in the face of a Prussian diplomatist who could 
 talk seriously of an armed alliance of Prussia and the other Ger- 
 man powers who have adopted her military arrangements, for 
 any political purpose whatsoever beyond the simple defence of 
 their own territories, each for itself from within. The power of 
 acting offensively without their own territories is gone. Tliis 
 great difference in the constitutions of their armies since the peace 
 has produced the most important alteration in the relative weight 
 and importance of the European powers. It has altogether 
 changed, in an unseen way, the balance of power in Europe. 
 For offensive war, and as a political power, Prussia has dropped 
 the sword; while Russia, Austria, France, and England have 
 retained it as something of weight ready to be thrown, upon 
 great questions arising, into the political scale. It is a mistake 
 to talk of the five great dominant European powers ; for as a 
 belligerent capable of giving effect by offensive operation beyond 
 her own territories to her political determinations, Prussia is 
 in reality as much out of the question as Denmark, or any of 
 the secondary powers in the European system. It is a signal 
 instance of the hidden compensations which neutralize and coun- 
 terbalance all excess of evil in human affairs, that this great 
 military monarchy, the last which made and retained conquests 
 and acquisitions of territory without reference to moral principle, 
 or appeal to the feeling of the people themselves, or to the sense 
 of right among mankind — for such were the conquests of Frederic 
 the Great, the acquisitions of Silesia, and of the Polish and Pome- 
 ranian provinces now concealed under the name of East Prussia 
 — is the first which was shaken to the ground in the late war, 
 by the insufficiency of her own military power for her own de- 
 fence — a mechanical military power without national feeling; 
 and now, by the perfection of the mechanism of her military 
 power for home-defence, she is paralyzed, and disarmed as a 
 great political power. 
 9 
 
122 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Of all the European powers, Prussia supports the greatest mih" 
 tary establishment in proportion to her extent, population, and 
 finances. The infantry of the line is reckoned 132,013 men. The 
 cavalry of the line and of the guards, 25,200 men. The artillery 
 of the line and of the guards, 22,365 men. Pioneers, miners, and 
 other bodies of the engineer corps, 13,500 men. The infantry of 
 the landwehr, exercised yearly, 124,737 men. The cavalry of 
 the landwehr, exercised for four weeks yearly, 19,656 mounted 
 men. The artillery of the landwehr, 17,292 men. The amount, 
 including 8118 officers, is 362,881 fighting men. Two-thirds of 
 the landwehr, first for service, are sufficient to complete the land- 
 wehr regiments to their war establishment, so that one-third 
 (above 80,000 men) of this division of the force remains dispo- 
 sable, and the whole of the division of the landwehr second for 
 service, which is. as strong as the first division. The whole 
 available exercised force of Prussia is reckoned by military 
 writers at 532,000 men. The artillery is said— of course no 
 exact information on such a point can be obtained or sought by 
 the traveller — to consist, in pieces complete and useful, of 648 
 six-pounders and howitzers, of 216 twelve-pounders, and of 216 
 light field-pieces for horse-artillery, besides an unknown amount 
 of heavy guns in the fortresses and in 336 garrison towns. The 
 funds required in time of profound peace and non-movement of 
 troops, to keep up this enormous military force, appears to be 
 22,798,000 thalers, out of a total revenue of 51,287,000 thalers. 
 The revenue being pushed to the utmost point beyond which the 
 productiveness of additional taxation would be null, being man- 
 aged and collected also with great economy — the direct taxes 
 costing but 4 per cent., and the indirect taxes 15 per cent., on the 
 gross amount, as expense of collection— it does not appear how, 
 in the event of a war, funds could be found to move this huge 
 military machine. The time, labour, industry, and money which 
 should have been accumulating during peace in the hands of the 
 people, and forming a capital diffused over the country capable 
 of bearing the expenses of a war, are expended every year in 
 military shows, drills,, and manceuvres, which, even admitting 
 that they make perfect soldiers of the whole population, leave 
 nothing to move them with in the event of real war — nothing to 
 raise taxes from. In the whole Prussian population the number 
 of males fit for productive labour, that is, between their, seven- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 123 
 
 teenth and forty-fifth year inclusive, appears to be about three 
 millions. It is 3,042,946, including the infirm, sick, blind, lame, 
 deformed, and all fit or unfit for military duty and productive 
 labour. Above one-sixth of this gross number of productive 
 labourers is taken by the state every year, for longer or shorter 
 periods, from productive labour, to be employed in the unpro- 
 ductive labour of handling their firelocks, marching and manoeu- 
 vring. A people whose time and labour are thus taken away 
 from industrial occupation can never become rich or powerful as 
 a nation, nor well off as individuals. The Duke of Wellington 
 was right in an observation which has often been caviled at — 
 that notwithstanding our heavy taxation, the English labouring 
 people are the least heavily taxed of any labouring people in 
 Europe. The time and labour of the common man, with us, are 
 not taken from him by his government. The unwieldiness and 
 disproportion of the Prussian military force to the industrial force 
 which should raise the means to move it, appear from the follow- 
 ing comparison : — Prussia,'' with a population of 14 millions, has 
 an army of 532,000 men. Austria, with a population of 32 mil- 
 Hons, has an army of 750,000 men : but if Austria adopted the 
 Prussian military system, her army would amount to 1,216,000 
 men. France, estimated in 1841 to have a population of 35 
 millions, has an army of 840,000 men; but on the Prussian mili- 
 tary system, her army would amount to 1,330,000 men. Great 
 Britain, with a population of 26 millions, would, in proportion to 
 Prussia, have an army of 987,000 men as her present establish- 
 ment—a greater number than in the heat of the last war, reckon- 
 ing volunteers, yeomanry, and all, were ever withdrawn from 
 preparing the sinews of war by the exercise of private industry, 
 to make shows and sham- fights, or even to repel a threatened 
 invasion. 
 
 It is a defect in the present construction of the continental 
 armies — of that of France as much as any — that the private 
 soldier who has raised himself to the station of a non-commissioned 
 officer, has no prospect whatsoever of attaining the rank of an 
 ofllcer. The class of non-commissioned ofliccrs is, in fact, ex- 
 pressly excluded from any higher military promotion by the dis- 
 tinction kept up, in most services, between nobility, from whom 
 
 * Betrachtungen eines Militaers ueber einem bevoistehendeu Krieg 
 zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich. Leipsic, 1841. 
 
124 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 alone officers can be appointed, and the non-noble, citizen, or 
 burgerliche class. In France and Prussia this distinction is kept 
 up by appointing officers only from the cadets, or military schools, 
 and requiring scientific examinations for a commission. The 
 sons of functionaries, civil or military, who are educated care- 
 fully, and at some expense to the state, as well as to their 
 parents, are thus exclusively entitled to become officers ; and as 
 functionarism breeds up to its own supply, there is especially in 
 the healthy services of those powers who have no colonies or 
 unwholesorbe climes to wear out human life in, always a surplus 
 of those who have a right by education, promise, and long ex- 
 pectation, to vacancies as they occur in the regiments in which 
 they are doing duty as expectants or cadets. The meritorious 
 private soldier or non-commissioned officer is thus entirely ex- 
 cluded from any chance of promotion. Now this is a defect 
 upon which a civilian is entitled to form an opinion as well as a 
 military man, because it is a defect in the application of principles 
 of social economy common to all institutions in society, as well 
 as to an army. To exclude merit or capability from the highest 
 point to be attained can never be a good arrangement in any 
 social institution. Education is the plea upon which this exclu- 
 sion of the whole class of non-commissioned officers from pro- 
 motion in the Prussian service is justified. Education is certainly 
 not to be undervalued, especially for the officer ; but, if we con- 
 sider what the duties of a commissioned officer are, as ensign, 
 lieutenant, or captain, and that in an army of a hundred thousand 
 men, not two hundred are required to apply science or high 
 education to their military duties, it appears obviously to be only 
 a cover for the monopoly of the rank of commissioned officers 
 by a particular class, to require that every subaltern should be 
 educated to take the command of the movement of armies, and 
 should pass through scientific examinations which would proba- 
 bly puzzle a Wellington. A sergeant-major with his sergeants 
 manoeuvres his company, troop, or regiment, without the aid of 
 the officers. He does daily the duties which they superintend, 
 and in reality learn practically to do from him. To shut the 
 door totally upon this class is evidently a faulty arrangement of. 
 the hiilitary system of a country. The efficiency of the French 
 armies, so long as this door was thrown wide open — that is, during 
 the whole of the Republican period, and until the Emperor Napo- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 125 
 
 leon shut it upon them, and upon his own success — proves that 
 210 military force is well constituted under the exclusion of the 
 common soldier from the hope of attaining the higher military- 
 situations. The moral principle is too powerful for the aristo- 
 cratic, in modern times, even in military arrangement. The 
 French and Prussian governments, without acknowledging the 
 exclusion in favour of a noblesse, introduce it practically, by re- 
 quiring the education which their noblesse, or functionary class, 
 can alone afford to give. I could not hear of a single instance in 
 Prussia of a man, not entered as a cadet, and entitled by his ex- 
 aminations in science to a commission, who had risen from the 
 ranks, since the peace, to the station of an officer. The govern- 
 ment, indeed, has expressly declared, that the ultimate reward of 
 long service and merit in this class is to be the appointment to 
 such civil offices in the departments under government, as the 
 non-commissioned officer or private soldier may be qualified to 
 fill. In France, it is this defect in her military system which, in 
 time of peace, seems inseparable from her civil arrangements, 
 from her functionary system, that keeps alive the discontented 
 republican spirit in the great body of the youth who supply the 
 ranks, yet are excluded from promotion in the army. The reign- 
 ing family never can obtain military popularity, as this exclusion 
 is naturally ascribed to their system of government, and is not 
 upheld by any distinction in civil society between those within 
 and those without the pale of military promotion. The "/?e/<7 
 caporal,^'' applied to Napoleon, is not merely a term of endear- 
 ment in the recollections of the French soldiery — it has a political 
 meaning. In England, this defect in the old military arrange- 
 ments has been perceived by the late liberal ministry ; and the 
 non-commissioned class has been raised to a higher respectability 
 than in any service in Europe. The chances are small, no doubt, 
 in the British army, of the private soldier or non-commissioned 
 officer attaining the rank of officer ; yet more such promotions of 
 men, originally from the ranks, take place in one year in the 
 British service, than have taken place since the peace in all the 
 continental services put together. The non-commissioned class in 
 an army are tho equivalent to the middle classes in civil society. 
 When the want of education, the vice, the brutality of our lower 
 orders, are so much talked of by our higher orders, it is some- 
 
126 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the enlisted soldiery — no want of men of education and conduct 
 to form a class which, in moral and intellectual condition, stands 
 above the middle class of civil society, and not at all below the 
 higher orders who vilified that fmm which it is formed. Is it not 
 in a great degree a mere fa^on de parler among our gentry, 
 when thoy speak of an ignorance and moral and intellectual 
 degradation of our working classes, with whom they in reality 
 never mix or converse on such a footing as to know what they 
 are ? The superior status, as men of conduct and intelligence, of 
 this middle class in miUtary life, its higher respectability, and 
 greater efficiency in the British service, strike the traveller 
 abroad, who happens to observe the different style of doing 
 those ordinary duties in which the men are left entirely with a 
 corporal or sergeant — as in relieving sentries — in the British and 
 in foreign regiments. In the latter, it is obvious that, when the 
 eye of the officer is off, the restraint of discipline is not upon the 
 men. The unmilitary observer abroad can apply no other test of 
 the state of discipline to what he sees of soldiery, than the precise 
 or lax style of the men when in charge of non-commissioned offi- 
 cers only. If this be an admissible test, the discipline of the 
 British service is more genuine and better than that of the Prus- 
 sian. 
 
 Two distinct elements may enter into the construction of a 
 military force in modern times. The rough peasant, or working- 
 man-element may compose not only the main body of the soldiery 
 and non-commissioned officers, but may be mixed pretty high up 
 even in the class of commissioned officers ; or the gentleman-ele- 
 ment, that of the educated, refined, delicately bred and brought 
 up classes, may, by the formation of the military force out of the 
 social body, be found preponderating, if not in numbers, at least in 
 example and influence, in the ranks of an army. Which of the 
 two, as military machines, would a Wellington prefer to work 
 with in a campaign? It is possible that a certain delicacy of 
 mind and body, a certain impatience of fatigue and discomfort, 
 a certain over-refinement for the work of the common soldier, 
 may creep into and pervade too generally the mass of an army, 
 assimilating the rougher material of which soldiery, to be effect- 
 ive, must be composed, too much to itself The soldier, like the 
 horse, may be too finely bred, too delicately reared for his work, 
 too soft, too refined, too much used to comforts. The composiT 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 127 
 
 tion of the Prussian army, drawn indiscriminately from all classes, 
 from the middle and comfortable as well as the roughly living 
 classes, has this defect evidently in it, Tlie common labouring 
 man himself on the Continent is, from the nattire of the climate 
 and his indoor employments for half the year, much less exposed 
 to, and le^ hardened against wet, cold, fatigue, and privation, 
 than our common people. Those above the mere labouring class, 
 the peasantry, the artisans, the middle class, and higher classes, 
 all of whom are in the ranks, are so comfortably brought up, so 
 wont to their regular meals, their cup of cofiee, their pipe, their 
 warm clothing, warm rooms, and are so cold-catching and sensi- 
 ble of weather, wet, fatigue, and discomfort, that even our high- 
 est classes of nobility and gentry are much more hardy, and, as 
 every traveller remarks, far more robust in constitution and capa- 
 bility of enduring great fatigue and privation, than the very serv- 
 ants they hire on the Continent to attend them. A military force 
 composed of such a material may be very brilliant for a single field- 
 day, a battle, or a short campaign even, and very effective for home 
 defence, but is not of the stuff' for long rough fatigue and perse- 
 vering endurance of all discomfort and privation, which in all ordi- 
 nary military conjunctures are the military qualities that insure 
 success. Something of this want of the rougher material, and 
 of this excess of the finer material, appears, even to the unmili- 
 tary eye, about the Prussian soldiery. They are light, well made, 
 even elegant figures — youths evidently formed upon the standard 
 of a higher class of society than the common men in other ser- 
 vices. They have not only the use of their limbs, but the kind 
 of grace of movement which such exercises as dancing, fencing 
 and gymnastics give. They attitudinize well on sentry, dress 
 individually well, and with a certain degree of dandyism, panta- 
 looned, padded and laced in, and which beseems the soldier. 
 But still the unmilitary English eye of the common traveller 
 misses the giant frame, strength, and vigour, of the front rank 
 men of our good regiments of the line. The guards even, and 
 cuirassiers, compared to the British, appear — can it be prejudice, 
 or is it reality? — of ordinary infantry and ordinary dragoon make 
 and size. Put them in the uniforms of riflemen, or of hussars, 
 and they would pass for such on ordinary unmilitary people ; but 
 put one of our horse-guards or cuirassiers on the horse, and in 
 the accoutrements of a light cavalry man, or one of our grcna- 
 
128 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 diers, not of the guards alone but of any of our good regiments, 
 into a light infantry company, and there is not a grocer in Mary- 
 lebone parish who would not find out at once that thjs kind of man 
 was misplaced. Now this kind of man— the strong, sinewy, 
 bony, muscular, grenadier frame of man, such as composes the 
 front ranks at least of all our good regiments of the line — is a 
 very scarce kind of man in Germany, probably from the natural 
 growth and make of the people, and also from their softer and 
 more delicate, more sedentary, more indoor life in boyhood when 
 the frame is forming. If you see a stout man he is generally 
 fleshy, with more weight than strength. A tendency to grow 
 corpulent, and with what generally accompanies that tendency 
 of the frame, a shortness of the arm bones as compared to men 
 of the same size, of lean, spare constitutions, is very common in 
 Germany. This tendency to a lusty, roundabout, rather than a 
 muscular growth, strikes the eye in the Prussian soldiery, and is 
 no doubt derived from the easy, regular, good living, to which the 
 classes from whom the ranks are filled have been accustomed from 
 infancy. If a doubt maybe permitted to a traveller, not certainly 
 qualified to judge of such military matters, it would be — Is this 
 so good a material to form an army of, this admixture of a class 
 more delicately bred than the common labouring man, and giving 
 its own habits, wants, and tastes, to the whole mass ? Is this 
 gentleman-element so well adapted to stand privation, fatigue, 
 discomfort, and all that assails the common soldier, as the rougher 
 material, the common working-man element, out of which our 
 army is composed ? 
 
 Another obvious defect in the military establishment of Prussia 
 is the want of any cure for longevity. The common men live, 
 indeed, too short a time in the service — only for three years; 
 but the officers live by far too long. Captains of companies of 
 forty-five years of age, and lieutenants advancing to that time of 
 life, are too common. Africa in the French service, the East and 
 West Indies, the expense of home quarters, and the good half 
 pay in our service, are remedies counteracting in some degree 
 this malady, the most pernicious to the efficiency and vigour of a 
 military force that can get the ascendency in it. It was the main 
 cause of the destruction of the Prussian army in the first cam- 
 paigns of the revolutionary war against the French •, and our own 
 army never did any good in the last war until the elderly gentle- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 129 
 
 men were got rid of, and captains of companies were generally 
 under five-and-twenty, and field officers under five-and-thirty. 
 With officers of the age when, in the course of nature, activity, 
 endurance of fatigue, elasticity of body and mind, are failing, 
 order, discipline, and appearance may be kept up admirably in a 
 body of men, but the spirit and dash are wanting. Prussia has 
 no unwholesome districts, or severe military duties wearing out 
 human life, or disgusting the officer with the service, and but few 
 advantages for the military man to retire upon when getting too 
 old for the duties of the inferior officer. The promotion is con- 
 sequently slow, and men grow old in situations which require 
 the spirit and activity of youth. It is not in the habits, also, of 
 the upper class to keep themselves young by hard exercise or 
 fatigue. The French officer is perpetually in movement like a 
 hyena in his den. It may be only a den of a coffee-room, or 
 billiard-room ; but there he is all day, in perpetual activity of 
 mind and body. The English officer has his daily feat of pedes- 
 trianism, harder than any forced march ; his hunting, his shooting, 
 and is always in wind and working condition for any exertion. 
 The German officers seem naturally of more sedentary habits. 
 You seldom see them taking heavy downright fatigue for mere 
 pleasure or emulation, as our young officers do. The very school- 
 boys walk, and don't run in Germany. 
 
 In the event of a rupture with France upon the French claim 
 of having the Rhine for their boundary, the chances would run 
 very much against Prussia, notwithstanding the excellence of her 
 military arrangements for defence : it is a national question in 
 France, one which has become almost personal in the spirit of 
 every Frenchman : it is a mere political distant object to the great 
 majority of the Prussian population. They have shown them- 
 selves capable of great exertion on great occasions ; but this 
 would not be one of those great occasions which call forth na- 
 tional spirit for the defence of national existence, or material 
 interests. German steam is not easily got up. The jealousy of 
 the governments extinguishes everywhere in Germany the ex- 
 pression of public opinion, and consequently the diffusion of 
 national spirit on subjects not immediately pressing upon the 
 people. No political discussions in newspapers or in conversa- 
 tion, no agitation or party feelings upon their own affairs, keep 
 alive the flame. In public places where people meet and talk, 
 
130 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the literature or science of the day, the theatre, opera, or ballet, 
 and perhaps the reviews of the military, and the journeys of their 
 princes to or from their residences, are discussed, but never the 
 national objects, interests, or politics. You never hear among the 
 lowest class of Germans the vulgar prejudices of the vulgar 
 Englishman, Frenchman, or American, about the superiority of 
 his country, which make him insufferable as an individual, but 
 respectable as an atom of a nation inspired with the same intense 
 public spirit. The Prussians are educated, trained, and governed 
 out of this spirit. The German newspaper writers, since the 
 agitation of France, under the administration of Thiers, about 
 the Rhine boundary, begin to talk of a German national spirit to 
 be kindled in every breast by the German commercial league, but 
 have only got so far, as yet, as to tie quarreling about whether 
 this universal Teutonic flame is to be lighted upon a Prussian 
 hearth-stone, or is to have a fire-place for itself: whether all 
 Germany is to be Prussia, or Prussia a part of all Germany 
 united into one bundle, and set fire to as soon as the French 
 march to the Rhine. Considered as a question in the social 
 economy of Europe, France has already made the conquest. 
 French law and French distribution of property through society, 
 French courts for civil and criminal affairs, French ideas of the 
 rights of a people to a constitutional representation in the legisla- 
 ture of the country, are already at the Rhine. The French con- 
 stitution in which the people have some share of political power 
 in the legislature, and some checks upon the government of the 
 monarch, the trial by jury, the publicity of all public affairs, the 
 one simple code of Napoleon regulating all private affairs, place 
 France some ages in advance of Prussia with her uncontrolled 
 autocratic principle of government. The people on the Rhine 
 are advanced to that social condition with respect to industry, 
 property, and intelligence, in which the French government 
 would suit them, and have got far beyond that condition for 
 which the Prussian government may be suitable. The political 
 change from the one form and principles of government to the 
 other must inevitably follow. Prussia, in reality has not, in the 
 event of a war, the means to prevent it. The partition of Poland 
 is but beginning now to present her with the fruits of iniquity. 
 The two or three millions of Polish subjects of Prussia, so far 
 from being amalgamated with the Prussian subjects, live in a 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 131 
 
 Stale of passive resistance to the Prussian government. They 
 cuhivate their own nationaUty, will not piix with the Prussians, 
 and will not even accept of civil office, or educate their children 
 in the German language, customs, and laws, so as to fill the civil 
 functions in their own country. They hold themselves as subju- 
 gated provinces, and are evidently in a state which will paralyze 
 the Prussian military power the moment the French throw up a 
 signal rocket from the banks of the Rhine. All that time had 
 done since the partition of Poland towards amalgamating the 
 people with Prussia, has been lost by the Prussian government 
 delivering up to Russia the Poles who had sought refuge, during 
 the late commotions in Poland, among their relations and friends 
 on what they considered Prussian territory. At present the Polish 
 peasants who desert their homes in Russian Poland to escape the 
 military conscription, are seized in the villages of Prussian Poland, 
 and sent back. This, say the Prussian Poles, justly enough is not 
 the state of a country amalgamated and incorporated with another 
 independent country and protecting government, but the state of 
 a subjugated country held only by conquest, and entitled to throw 
 oft' the yoke. So general has this spirit of passive resistance to 
 Prussian rule become in this part of the Prussian dominions, that 
 his present majesty has been obliged, since his accession, to remind 
 his Polish subjects by a proclamation, that they have been incor- 
 porated with his kingdom in the settlement of Europe, in 1815, 
 by the five great European powers. The Poles quietly reply, 
 that three of the five are themselves the robbers, partaking in 
 the spoil to which they gave themselves these legitimate rights ; 
 and refer to the undeniable non-protection of their provinces as 
 Prussian territory, for the proof that they are not Prussian. 
 
 It is here, and on the Rhine, that the flame of war will first 
 break out on the Continent of Europe. What will be the policy 
 of England? The day is past when an English ministry, how- 
 ever conservative, could venture to propose to the country to join 
 a despotic state in subjugating Poland, or in repressing the exten- 
 sion of constitutional representative government over an enlight- 
 ened, manufacturing, and commercial population on the Rhine. 
 The aggrandizement of France by such an accession of territory 
 and people is a bugbear which, in the present age, would not 
 mislead the common sense of England, because it would be an 
 accession of the elements of peace, inttustrj^, manufactures, and 
 
132 NOTES OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 power in the public affairs of France, lodged in the hands of an 
 enlightened, industrious, peaceful population— not an accession of 
 warlike spirit and means ; and is at any rate an aggrandizement in 
 no way affecting English interests or honour. England can only 
 be a gainer, if every population from the White Sea to the Straits 
 of Gibraltar were to give themselves free institutions, civil and 
 political liberty, influence of the public over public affairs, and 
 the power of restraining their rulers from wars or oppression. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GERMAN CUSTOMS' UNION, OR COMMERCIAL LEAGUE.— ITS ORIGIN 
 OBJECTS—POLITICAL BEARINGS— AND PROBABLE EFFECTS. 
 
 Will Prussia find in manufacturing and commercial industry, 
 under the working of the German commercial league, that aug- 
 mentation of her national wealth and power, that political great- 
 ness and weight in the European system, which she has evidently 
 missed by her overstrained military arrangements ? It may be 
 doubted. The military arrangements of the Prussian system of 
 government, and that social economy under which productive 
 industry flourishes in a country, are altogether opposed to each 
 other. They are founded on adverse principles : the one on re- 
 straint, superintendence, and the interference of government with 
 all individual action ; the other on the perfect free agency of men 
 in all industrial pursuits. Both cannot exist together. 
 
 But the German commercial league is a social movement so 
 important in principle, so pregnant with great unlooked-for results, 
 and so novel in the social economy of the German people, that it 
 would be a very short-sighted view to consider it with reference 
 to Prussia alone. Prussia, indeed, established it in its present ex- 
 tent, is at the head of the union, and her population is about one 
 half of all included within it; and Prussia being in possession, on 
 the Baltic, on the Rhine, and in her Silesian and Saxon provinces, 
 of almost all the commerce, manufactures, and capital within the 
 circle of the union, will undoubtedly derive great advantages from 
 it. But it has become a general overwhelming movement of the 
 whole Germanic people towards a higher social condition — a 
 movement in which the temporary and partial interests or influ- 
 ences of one state or another are lost, and in which the govern- 
 ments which began it, lead it, and are ostensibly at the head of it, 
 are but the instruments. They have brought it to a certain point, 
 beyond which it is rolling of itself, independent of their petty 
 control, to higher social results than perhaps they ever wished or 
 
134 NOTES OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ever contemplated. The German people are, for the first thne in 
 German history, united in one great object of material interests. 
 They have been united before, in great and conflicting masses, 
 for the political interests of their rulers, for religious interests, for 
 the support or subversion of interests which may be called intel- 
 lectual rather than material, as no advantage or amelioration of 
 the social condition of the people was involved in them ; but now 
 they are united for a clearly seen material interest ; and, for the 
 first time, have made the influence of public opinion an effective 
 state power in their internal affairs, and have made the public 
 voice to be listened to and obeyed in the interior of the most 
 exclusive and autocratic of cabinets; it is the " Young Germany" 
 in old heads. The German commercial league is, in its results, to 
 be the most important and interesting event of this half century. 
 
 The first and simple object of this association, which commenced 
 among the small independent principalities in Thuringia, was to 
 save the expense of each little state keeping up custom-house 
 guards all round its own little frontiers, by equalizing the custom- 
 house duties levied on goods imported, exported, or in transit, 
 according to one tariff" adopted by all, so that the duties being 
 once paid at the general frontier, the goods might circulate, free 
 of all other duties or examinations, through all the states of the 
 union. The advantage of this arrangement may be appreciated 
 from the fact, that, when each state had its own custom-house 
 duties and examinations, on the Rhine alone, goods had to pass 
 through twenty-seven different custom-houses. The duties now 
 collected at once upon the general frontier, according to a gene- 
 ral tariff adopted by all, are divided among the different states of 
 the league, or union, in proportions according to the ratio of their 
 respective populations as taken every three years. 
 
 This principle of division, equitable as it appears at first sight, 
 is in reality not so, and on that account includes a germ of discord. 
 States which have great towns, or considerable manufacturing and 
 trading populations, import and consume much more of the duty- 
 paying, taxable commodities than a poor agricultural population 
 of the same numbers ; and such states, Prussia itself among them, 
 draw now much less revenue from the new than they did from 
 the old system of levying the custom-house duties; and as town 
 duties and salt duties, beer duties and others, are still retained by 
 some of the united countries in severality, and the passport system 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 135 
 
 of examination of personal movement is still adhered to in all, 
 the body of functionaries, who are in reality become a state power, 
 is everywhere kept up, nearly as before, in numbers, and the ex- 
 pense to each state of a preventive force on its own frontiers is 
 not greatly diminished. To Prussia it makes a difference of half 
 a million of dollars of loss. It is in fact an luijust principle, how- 
 ever ditficult to find a better, that, for instance, the 64,000 inhabit- 
 arTts of the town and state of Frankfort, the wealthiest and most 
 luxurious, perhaps, in Germany, should produce no more revenue 
 to their government from their consumpt than 64,000 of the 
 wretched peasantry of Hesse or Bavaria to their state. This par- 
 ticular case was, I believe, considered and adjusted more equitably 
 when Frankfort joined the union. 
 
 Another latent source of dislike to the whole system, on the 
 part of the small independent states and principalities, is the dread , 
 that this may be the first step of the Prussian power towards 
 mediatizing them. The command and management of so im- 
 portant a branch of their revenues by an autocratic government 
 inimical to representative government may justly be considered 
 dangerous to the independence of the smaller states, especially of 
 those which have constitutions. This jealousy appears from the 
 represdiitatives of the states engaged in the German league trans- 
 acting their business in different towns in turn, but not at Berlin, 
 or at any fixed place in the Prussian dominions, and from their 
 allowing Prussia only one voice in the affairs of the league, al- 
 though her population is about one-half, and her interest more than 
 half, of all the parties concerned in it. 
 
 Mediatize is a word which came into use at the Congress of Vi- 
 enna of 1814—15, when Europe was parceled oat by Prince Met- 
 ternich and Lord Castlereagh, and signifies the taking of small 
 states because they are small, and giving them to great states be- 
 cause they are great, without more regard to the rights of parties, 
 or wishes of the people, than in the operation called highway rob- 
 bery. A great and undeniable good, however, was obtained by 
 abolishing the vexatious and vexatiously exercised power of many 
 of these petty states. They were founded not on equitable, or 
 federal and natural, but on feudal principle. The people were in 
 all physical and moral circumstances in the same state as their 
 neighbours at a short distance, who stood under a totally different 
 mode of government, with different laws and courls. Tjic exlinc- 
 
136 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 tion of such little independent, microscopic despotisms on the face 
 of Europe was an undoubted benefit to society, and may, fairly 
 considered, reconcile the world to the mediatizing them, unjust as 
 the measure and principle may have been to the little potentate 
 who fell from the glory of an independent ruler over 3000 or 4000 
 subjects, to the rank of a Prussian nobleman. His subjects gained 
 by the exchange of petty vexatious government for general laws 
 which affected all equally, however burdensome they might be, 
 and were administered without favour or partiality to individuals 
 or classes by the public functionaries of a great state. 
 
 It is a question for which Europe perhaps is not yet ripe, but 
 which in the progress of society must be determined, — Whether 
 any power has a right, on just principle, to levy duties upon goods 
 in transit to a third country, and merely passing up or down the 
 rivers, or over the roads of the state levying the duties. Tolls for 
 the repair and support of roads, river-ways, harbours, are unques- 
 tionably equitable ; but any revenue beyond this levied from goods 
 in transit can only be justified on the principle on which the old 
 chiefs of the robber castles on the Rhine levied a similar ransom 
 from the passing merchant — force. It is possible that America 
 may some day tell the European powers who levy this tax on 
 goods not the property of their own subjects,— We supply our 
 customers behind you, the Swiss, Russians or Austrians, with cot- 
 ton for their manufactures, with coffee, tobacco, &c. ; we transport 
 it by sea without paying transit duties to any state 5 and we see 
 no reason why fresh water should not be as free as salt water, and 
 land as either ; and why we should not transport our goods to the 
 buyers, up the rivers, and over the roads, as freely as along the 
 coasts of Europe, paying only for what we use and benefit by, 
 viz., light-houses, harbours, road money, towing-path money, and 
 such tools. The liherum mare includes, if it be a just principle 
 of international law, the lihei^a terra as a necessary consequence. 
 A non-intercourse act on the part of the United States, against 
 those European governments which choose to adhere to the old 
 feudal trammels on the universal freedom of trade which have no 
 foundation but in unprincipled force, would adjust many griev- 
 ances in Europe to their advantage, and is the only kind of force 
 which America can apply efficaciously against the great European 
 powers. 
 
 The second and most popular object of this great social move- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 137 
 
 ment in Germany is, by a prudent and well-constructed tariff of 
 duties, to protect and encourage German industry and manufac- 
 turers, to exclude by duties the foreign producer from the German 
 market, and to extend the exportation of the products of their 
 own industry to foreign markets. " This," says every German, 
 " is the march by which England has reached her present wealth 
 and greatness, and we should follow the same steps, of exclusion 
 of foreign protection of our own manufactures, by duties pro- 
 perly devised, and suited to our position." There are reason and 
 good sense, along with the contrary, in these views. 
 
 It is a mistake to ascribe this mighty movement of the public 
 mind in Germany, as M. Molineau, M. Cargil, Mr. Urquhart, 
 and other writers on politics and political economy do, to political 
 causes, to Russian influence acting secretly on the Prussian go- 
 vernment, or to the jealousy of France entertained by Prussia, 
 or to any enmity of any power to England. There is the most 
 influential of potentates at work in it — the material interest of the 
 German people themselves. Their union on tiieir clearly seen 
 material interests is, in truth, the natural, desirable, and for all 
 mankind beneficial march of civilization in Europe towards a 
 higher state — as beneficial to the English nation as to the Ger- 
 mans themselves ; for in poUtical economy, as in private trade, 
 what enriches our neighbours eventually enriches ourselves. 
 
 The German commercial league, or, more properly, the German 
 custom-house duty association, consists of the following popula- 
 tions : — 
 
 Prussia (excepting Neufchatel, a Swiss canton) - 
 Bavaria (with some Saxon appendages) - - - 
 
 Saxony ...-.-. 
 Wirtemberg (with HohenzoUern Zigmaringen, &c.) 
 Principality of Hesse ..... 
 
 Grand Duchy of Hesse and Hesse Homburg 
 The small states previously associated as the Thuringcr league 
 Grand Duchy of Baden, part of HohenzoUern Zigmariiigen 
 Nassau ....... 
 
 Town and territory of Frankfort - - - - 
 
 Brunswick ...._. 
 
 A population in all about 
 
 Each of the powers above stated has an equal voice in the af- 
 fairs of the union— a concession to the jealousy of the small states 
 10 
 
 - 14,098,125 
 
 - 4.315.469 
 
 - 1.652,114 
 
 - 1,667,901 
 
 632,761 
 
 792,736 
 
 931,580 
 
 - 1,264,482 
 
 383,730 
 
 63,936 
 
 253,500 
 
 - 2(i,646,034 
 
138 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 which Prussia had to make, ahhoiigh in itself unjust, and there- 
 fore only temporary, for her population is half, at least, of all in- 
 cluded in the league. The affairs, the settling the tariff, the 
 establishing custom-houses and preventive guards on the general 
 frontier, the revisal of expenses, of income, of the distribution, 
 and all other business, are managed by delegates from the differ- 
 ent states meeting at different towns in turn. 
 
 This remarkable union, which commenced in 1816 in Thurin- 
 gia, merely for the economy and convenience of levying their 
 duties, was taken up by Prussia with probably more ambitious 
 views, and by persuasion, coercion, and the popularity of the 
 scheme with the German people, and its experienced advantages, 
 has been extended over ail the countries from the Lake of Con- 
 stance to the Baltic, from the Moselle to the Niemen, with the 
 exception only of Hanover, Mecklenburg, the Hanstowns, the 
 Danish Germanic provinces of Holstein and Schleswig, and one 
 or two small principalities. All that can be called Germany out- 
 side of the Austrian frontier is, with these exceptions,incorporated 
 in this Germanic league ; and the people having, for the first time, 
 common interests in all that the league proposes or effects, and 
 the influence of public opinion on public affairs having, for the 
 first time, shown itself in vigour, in carrying through the union 
 with the league of states, which, secretly, were averse to it, or 
 had, as Frankfort, interests directly opposed to it; the enthusiasm 
 and unanimity of all classes on all subjects connected with this 
 league; the discussions of its importance and effects on the pros- 
 perity of all united Germany, exceed any demonstration of the 
 public mind ever known among the German people. The first 
 object of Prussia in taking up the league was, no doubt, Prus- 
 sian ; was to advance her own power over the industry and com- 
 merce of all the rest of Germany ; to secure an exclusive market 
 for the productions of her manufacturing provinces on the Rhine, 
 in all the countries which have no physical advantages for esta- 
 blishing manufactures themselves; and, but for this league, would 
 supply their wants from the nearer and cheaper markets of Swit- 
 zerland, France, Belgium, or England. The object or hope of the 
 Prussian government was, no doubt, to interweave her influence 
 with the industry, commerce, and material interests of all Ger- 
 many, so as eventually to supplant Austria and the state ma- 
 chinery of the German confederated states, and bring all the 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 139 
 
 latter ultimately under the Prussian sceptre. But Prussia had 
 not taken into account the force of the new element she had con- 
 jured up in German aflairs — the will, opinion, determined judg- 
 ment, and effective capital of the German people, which entered 
 with irresistible power into the aflairs and objects of the league. 
 She herself had kindled this spark; for the junction of Frankfort 
 with the league, clearly against her own interests as a great com- 
 mercial entrepot for all foreign manufactures wheresoever pro- 
 duced, and of some of the other states, as Brunswick, was effected 
 by the coercion of public opinion excited by Prussia throughout 
 Germany, to support the objects of the league. This new element, 
 this new power in German affairs, has, in reality, taken the reins. 
 Prussia has to follow, instead of leading, the public mind on the 
 affairs of the league. The commercial treaty with Holland and 
 that with England have been discussed and canvassed in every 
 corner of Germany, as independently of Prussia as of any of the 
 most insignificant states in the union. The treaties are praised 
 or blamed, according to the knowledge and judgment of the writer 
 or speaker ; but it is quite clear, from the general tone and ex- 
 pression on the subject, that Prussian objects or interests in the 
 league are thrown overboard, and that if Prussia is accepted of 
 as the head of one united German interest, it is not as Prussia is, 
 not as an autocratic military state without responsible ministers 
 or a representative constitution, and merely Avith a cabinet of 
 functionaries legislating from their own ideas or experience upon 
 the complicated commercial interests of merchants and manufoc- 
 turers, as upon the simple affairs of peasantry and militia. Prus- 
 sia stands in an awkward political dilemma. She is pledged to a 
 league which, if it succeed even to a moderate extent, must over- 
 turn the autocratic principle of her government. Manufacturing 
 and commercial prosperity and autocratic government, that is, a 
 government legislating, however wisely and mildly, by edicts and 
 irresponsible functionarism from its cabinet, are of incompatible 
 co-existence. Public confidence in it for long unchangeable uni- 
 formity of legislation is wanting, as the uncertain favour of a mi- 
 nister, or life of a sovereign, stands alone between the capitalist 
 and political changes which may aflect his capital. In the pre- 
 sent age the merchant, the manufacturer, the class of capitalists, 
 must have a clear and acknowledged voice in all public affairs, 
 must stand at the helm of the vessel which carries their interests, 
 
140 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and will not trust to the pilotage of royalty and its military and 
 civil functionaries. This unforeseen dilemma of the Prussian 
 state, and the unknown results to the monarchical principle itself 
 as an autocratic power independent of the people, which are in- 
 volved in the spirit in which the league has been taken up by the 
 German populations, and made a common point of union for a 
 liberal object under guidance of public opinion, will probably 
 prove a secret dead weight upon the natural progress of this 
 great social movement. It is already whispered that, in high 
 circles, the retrograde movement to the old restrictions on the 
 exercise of trade is talked of with favour ; the thing, it is con- 
 ceived, has gone too far. 
 
 The imaginative tendency of the German mind certainly leads 
 the public, at present, into exaggerated expectations from the 
 league, and makes them overlook many obstacles, physical, moral, 
 and political, some removable, some not, which will prevent their 
 exaggerated expectations from being realized. Their reasonable 
 expectations, viz., that in time they may supply much of their own 
 wants by their own industry and capital, and give employment in 
 commerce and manufactures to the population which agricultural 
 labour cannot absorb, may, to a certain extent, be attained. Their 
 exaggerated expectations are, that Germany is to run the same 
 career as England ; to attain the same national wealth ; to force 
 or persuade Holland, Belgium, Hanover, Hamburgh, Denmark, 
 to become members of the league ; to exclude all but their own 
 goods and manufactures from the Continent ; to become an ac- 
 knowledged political power; to have a common flag, common 
 revenues; to have fleets, armies, colonies, and to be a great naval 
 power on the ocean.* These wild fancies are gravely stated as 
 practicable objects in the German pamphlets and newspapers of 
 the day; and staid prudent people, from whom any notions so 
 wide of common sense are unexpected, entertain them in all sim- 
 plicity and seriousness. The commercial league occupies much 
 of the public mind in the interior of Germany with such reveries. 
 Imaginative writers, as well as the capitalists in the trading towns, 
 have laid hold of the subject, and have taken the lead from the 
 practical men in guiding public opinion. The real and the delu- 
 sive, the possible and the impossible, are thus so curiously mixed 
 up in the speculations of the Germans with regard to the league 
 * See the Alkemeine Zeitune, 1841. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 141 
 
 and its results, that it will be useful to sum up the amount, and 
 cast out the false items from the true. 
 
 The reasonable and natural objects of the league, viz., to facili- 
 tate communications by the removal of local restrictions, and to 
 promote German industry and manufactures by protecting duties 
 on supplies from abroad of the articles which can be manufac- 
 tured at home, are only to a certain extent practicable in Ger- 
 many, reasonable and natural as they appear, on a general view, 
 to be. lu England we fall into a delusion by applying to Ger- 
 many ideas formed upon our own compact, well-loaded land in 
 which every distant point responds instantly to the pulsation at 
 the heart; the Germans fall into the same error by applying ideas 
 formed upon the social economy of England, or of France, to a 
 vast extent of country peopled by distinct existences, in which 
 each province, each town, each parish, each family has its distinct 
 interests, and from physical as well as conventional causes, lives 
 in a state of isolation. These are not bound together by material 
 interests common to all. France, extensive as her land is, has over 
 all common interests, — has her vast wine manufacture in the south 
 supplying the north with that necessary of life, and her manu- 
 factures and products of the north supplying the south with what 
 it cannot produce. There is a natural bond of material interests 
 uniting all the parts and provinces of France into one whole. 
 But in Germany, independent of all artificial or conventional 
 obstacles which the league may remove, there are natural obsta- 
 cles which the league cannot remove, in the vast extent of terri- 
 tory, and particularly in the sameness or identity of its natural 
 products, to the exchange of industry for industry between the 
 parts, and consequently to the existence of any bond of material 
 interests common to and uniting all the parts. This is a defect 
 which no league can remedy. The corn and timber growing 
 populations, for instance, in the east or north of Germany, have no 
 natural connection whatsoever with the manufacturing or wine 
 growing populations in the west or south. The latter produce 
 in sufficient abundance their own corn, timber, flax, and have no 
 natural demand for the products of the former ; and the former 
 can far more easily and profitably, and, therefore, more naturally, 
 supply their wants of manufactured goods, or of wines, from 
 England, Belgium, and France, which take in return the only 
 products they have, corn, timber, flax, than from the provinces of 
 
142 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Germany on the Rhine, or from Saxony or Silesia, by an expen- 
 sive and uncertain land or river carriage, not open seven months 
 in the year, and without retour carriage for the carriers, and 
 without any reciprocal market for their own products. There 
 is in reaUty no common interests between the parts to unite them 
 into one country. They are one only in name, or, as in the 
 Prussian dominions, in a political junction under one government, 
 but have no real and natural union of material interests. The 
 populations on the banks of the Thames and of the Ganges are 
 much more efficiently and truly united into one nation by their 
 material interests, than the populations on the Vistula or Niemen 
 with those on the Rhine or Moselle. 
 
 The history of the Germanic population down to the present 
 days shows that no real principle of union, no community of 
 material interests, has ever bound together any considerable mass 
 of it into one whole, into one nation, with one common interest 
 actuating all. The reasonable object of the league, therefore, is 
 only attainable to a certain limited extent; and when it is attempted 
 by protective duties, and custom-house cordons, to carry it beyond 
 its natural bounds, and these are the interests of the consumers, 
 one of two results will ensue ; either contraband trade will flourish, 
 and Switzerland and Alsace will supply south-western Germany, 
 France and Belgium north-western Germany, and England north- 
 eastern Germany, just as before, only at a ruinous expense, and 
 with the demoralizing consequences from smuggling to the body 
 of consumers ; or contraband trade will be prevented by vigilant 
 and costly means ; but one part of the country will be ruined for 
 the benefit of another, from the simple and obvious cause, that 
 the inhabitants, by the effect of the protective duties, are obliged 
 to buy what they want from those who can buy nothing from 
 them in return. If they had a free corn and timber trade to 
 England, then indeed the inhabitants of the corn and timber pro- 
 ducing countries of the north-east of Germany, which have no 
 physical capability of becoming manufacturing countries, would 
 have money to buy the manufactures forced upon them by pro- 
 tective duties from the German manufacturing districts of the 
 west. And this perhaps is the best argument against the aboli- 
 tion of our corn and timber duties. The effect of the measure 
 might possibly be— so long as the German states in the commer- 
 cial league levy protective duties in favour of German manufac- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 143 
 
 tures — merely to furnish money to supplant the products of our 
 own manufacture in the continental markets. If we give a free 
 trade in corn and timber, we ought, in this view of the question, 
 to require in return a free trade in our manufactures to the corn 
 supplying countries. 
 
 The effects of forcing the people, by a system of protective 
 duties, to buy in markets in which they cannot sell their own 
 produce, and to supply themselves with v/hat they require from 
 producers who can take nothing from them, make it doubtful 
 whether, considering Germany as a whole, the manufactnring 
 prosperity of the west be not more than counterbalanced by the 
 depreciation of property in the east. The value of land in east 
 Prussia is stated to have fallen two-thirds on an average, and in 
 some places even four-fifths, within the last ten years. Important 
 towns, such as Danzig and Elbing, are stated to be falling into 
 decay, their shipping dismantled,'* their river trade to the interior 
 gone. Elbing, a city which formerly liad considerable trade, and 
 several public institutions, is stated to be so reduced that the town 
 taxes cannot defray the expense of lighting the streets. The cases 
 of sales sitb hasid, or judicial auctions for behoof of creditors be- 
 fore the courts of law, are stated to amount to a yearly average of 
 twelve thousand in one province. These circumstances are stated 
 as statistical facts in an esteemed work, similar but superior to our 
 Annual Register (Venturini's Chronik des 1.0 Jahrhunderls). 
 
 This depression of the eastern agricultural provinces, while the 
 western manufacturing provinces are flourishing, is in reality a 
 see-saw of prosperity — the one end up, the other down — between 
 two parts of an extensive country, which physically and practi- 
 cally have no common interests, no advantageous interchange 
 of productions with each other. The one part is unavoidably 
 sacrificed to the other; and the advance in prosperity or national 
 wealth of the two as a whole is a mere delusion, because natural 
 circumstances, viz., identity of production and distance of trans- 
 port by land or sea between the parts, allow no interchange of 
 industry for industry, no common interests to grow up. 
 
 Tlie German political economists, indeed, while they admit the 
 
 * la 180.7-6 Prussia had 1J02 ships, cairying 1()G,8;)4 hists. In lS:5S-!» 
 Prussia had 617 ships, carrying 78, Ui)7 hists, being a diminution in this l)ranch 
 of industry in her Baltic ports of 485 ships, or of tonnage 28,797 lasts. — Knr's 
 Organismus des Prcussischc7i Slaals. I'cdin, 1841. 
 
144 NOTES OF A TRAVEI^ER. 
 
 depression in the east to be more than equivalent to the mannfac- 
 tnring prosperity in the west of Germany, do not consider the one 
 the cause of the other. They ascribe the depression to the policy 
 of Russia, which has adopted and turned against Germany her 
 own protective system, and attempts to raise Russian manufac- 
 tures by prohibitive duties on foreign goods, and maintains a strict 
 cordon of military custom-house guards upon her frontier, from 
 the mouths of the Niemen up into Silesia. The case appears to 
 be, that while the Baltic ports of Germany had British goods to 
 deal with, they had, owing to the superiority of quality and finish, 
 a considerable trade in them, as either legally, or by contraband 
 means, such goods found their way into the Russian dominions; 
 but having now only German manufactures to deal with, they 
 have lost this home trade, because the Russians manufacture as 
 good and cheap articles as the Germans in iron, and also in cotton 
 and linen fabrics. The trade to Kiachta, also, on the Chinese 
 frontier, formerly took coarse linen from Silesia to the value of 
 eight or ten millions of thalers yearly. Russia now supplies this 
 demand by her own manufacturing industry, and loads the Sile- 
 sian linen with a duty equivalent to a total prohibition. German 
 political economists complain of this; but they have no right to 
 complain, for it is but the application of their own principle to 
 Russian manufacturing industry. When the treaty of commerce 
 between Prussia and Russia, which had existed since 1815, and 
 expired on the 1st September, 1836, was to be renewed, the 
 Prussian commissioner Westphal attempted in vain to obtain ad- 
 mission for German manufactures, and a lower transit doty on 
 Silesian linens intended for the Chinese market. It is matter of 
 astonishment to German politicians accustomed to consider the 
 personal will or relations of the sovereign as supreme in state 
 affairs, that notwithstanding the personal friendship and near 
 connection of the Prussian and Russian autocrats, no relaxation 
 of this prohibitive system on the part of Russia could be obtained. 
 The fact is, that the interests of the great nobility in Russia have 
 some considerable control over the government. They carry on 
 with their capitals the manufactm'es of Russia, especially those of 
 iron and linen , and they consider it for their advantage to exclude 
 the German and Silesian manufactures. The Austrian govern- 
 ment, since the establishment of the league, acts on the same 
 principle; and it may be questioned if German manufacturing 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 145 
 
 industry has not lost more by losing these good, steady, extensive, 
 and near, almost home markets, than gained by attempthig to 
 force a foreign market. The foreign consumers appear not very 
 ready to deal with those who cannot in return deal with them. 
 The Prussian minister at Washington, M. Konne, made proposals 
 for a treaty of commerce with the German league, and the Ame- 
 rican government sent Mr. Wheaton to Berlin to inquire into and 
 report upon the advantages to be derived by the United Slates 
 from such a treaty. The advantages appeared to be all on one 
 side. The league had advantages to receive from America, but 
 none to give which American trade did not already enjoy in 
 Europe. 
 
 Artificial restrictions from the nature of the social economy and 
 of the system of government in Germany, as well as the physical 
 circumstances of the extent of the land, the sameness of its main 
 productions, and consequent want of articles of interchange, pre- 
 vent the rise of a great home market in the country. It is not 
 only each province and town, but each family, generally speaking, 
 of the population, that is a separate existence producing for its 
 own consumpt all it uses, doing everything within itself, supply- 
 ing its own wants by its own work, and giving little employment 
 comparatively to others. This state of social economy can only 
 be altered, if it be for the happiness of a community to exchange 
 it for a commercial or manufacturing prosperity, by time and a 
 radical change in the autocratic principle and military arrange- 
 ment of the continental governments. Its effects on the objects 
 for which the German league is established are adverse. It 
 admits of no home market for the products of manufacturing 
 industry, sufficiently extensive to employ the manufacturing capi- 
 tal and population. These are obliged to force a trade with the 
 foreign consumer, for, small as they are comparatively, they pro- 
 duce more than the home market requires. It is a forced and 
 unnatural trade, because to manufacture for the Mediterranean, 
 or South or North American markets, without shipping, seaports, 
 or commerce, and to depend upon political events and contingen- 
 cies, in which Germany has not from her situation on the globe 
 the power, if she had the right, to interfere, for her access to 
 markets, and to the supply of raw material, is not a safe, sound, 
 natural position for the trade and manufactures of a country. It 
 is here that the imaginative writers in Germany on this custom- 
 
146 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 house union or commercial league mislead the public mind, and 
 indulge in speculations and reveries altogether wild and imprac- 
 ticable. They propose to constitute this league into an acknow- 
 ledged political power in Europe, like the old Hanseatic league; 
 to comprehend in it the old Hanstowns, Hamburg, Bremen, and 
 Lubeck, and Belgium or Holland, or both, Hanover and Den- 
 mark ; to have a fleet composed of the Dutch, and Danish, and 
 Prussian ships of war, common revenues, a common flag ; to 
 conclude treaties, colonize, and become one new, united, acknow- 
 ledged European power.* The symbol always takes the place 
 of the reality in the German mind ; and a flag has actually been 
 devised for this power that is to be, and is even carried by some 
 thirty or forty vessels, with all the quarterings, colours, and em- 
 blems in it of all the powers from the Lake of Constance to the 
 Baltic, who are joined in the German custom-house league. 
 These newspaper dreams would be unworthy of notice, if they 
 did not appear in a semi-official shape. The German newspapers 
 are written for a very diflerent public from that of our papers — 
 for the educated, the capitalist, and the functionary classes ; and 
 being under censorship, either in their publication or in their 
 admission to circulation by post, the political speculations which 
 appear in them come with some degree of official authority. 
 They are at least congenial to, if not the official expression of, 
 the views of persons in power ; otherwise they would be sup- 
 pressed either in the printing-house or the post-office. The go- 
 vernments which exercise a censorship adopt as their own all 
 that they permit to be published under their authority. These 
 newspaper dreamers forget, in their political speculations, that the 
 other European powers would tell the German powers united in 
 the league, You are perfectly entitled to make such custom-house 
 or commercial treaties between yourselves as regard your own 
 interests; but when you raise fleets and armies and common 
 revenues as one political power, you are disturbing the settled 
 political balance of Europe ; you are either creating a new Euro- 
 pean power on sea and land, in which your own political indi- 
 viduality and existence are merged, and by which the existing 
 political interests of other European powers are compromised, or 
 you are increasing an existing power (Prussia, or Holland, or 
 Denmark, or whatever the power may be which your league pro- 
 
 * See the Augsburg Allgeraeine Zeitung; Septeraberj 1S41. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 147 
 
 poses to place at its head), to an extent not contemplated at the 
 general settlement of Europe in 1815, by the Congress of Vienna ; 
 and are giving an augmentation of power to that one state — by 
 treaty, instead of by conquest, but equally an augmentation of 
 power, offleets, armies, revenues, and in fact territorial and political 
 power to that one state — dangerous to her neighbours, and which 
 the policy of the other European powers cannot permit. What- 
 ever the continental powers might do, England would not permit 
 the consolidation of one new naval power on the high seas, with 
 a sea front round the Baltic and North sea from the Russian to 
 the French frontier, with a population of thirty millions behind, 
 with common revenues, a common flag, and all the commercial 
 and belligerent shipping and naval means of the Baltic and Ger- 
 man oceans united, at the disposal of the new European power. 
 It might suit the policy of Russia or France to favour the esta- 
 blishment of such a naval power, but no English ministry would 
 permit the monopoly of the whole seaward side of the north of 
 Europe in the hands of any one power, either in th^e shape and 
 under the name of a German league, or under the name of any 
 existing power. Such a league would be political, not commer- 
 cial, and could not exist under the present political arrangements 
 of Europe. England would dissolve it by the simple practical 
 measure of capturing every vessel on the high seas sailing under 
 a flag not known and acknowledged in the European system. 
 
 But the extension of the German league to such political ob- 
 jects as the German politicians dream of, is counteracted by the 
 nature of the league itself. . It is essentially commercial ; the manu- 
 facturing greatness which it proposes to obtain for Germany being 
 based, not upon the home consumption, but upon the foreign 
 markets. But those states which, like Holland, Denmark, Ham- 
 burg, Bremen, are altogether commercial also, have no advantage, 
 but the contrary to advantage, from being joined to a league which, 
 by its protective duties and its objects as a league, would limit the 
 supply in their markets of the articles required in their commerce 
 or which the stranger buys from their citizens, to those manu- 
 factured within the league; and which articles, with the greater 
 expense of land transport on them to their ports, would be dearer 
 as assortments to ship to Asia or America, than similar articles 
 from Belgium or England. It is not to be supposed that volun- 
 tarily these commercial states would join the league, because it is 
 
148 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 clearly not their interest to do so, and thereby to limit the supply 
 of goods in their markets to one set of manufacturers, instead of 
 having a competition on their own exchange from every manu- 
 facturing .district in the world, to supply the demands of their 
 commerce. Frankfort was coerced into a junction, clearly against 
 her own interests as a free entrepot; but Frankfort had not aside 
 open to the sea like Hamburg or Bremen, was surrounded by 
 countries which had long exercised a right to levy duties on goods 
 in transit to or from Frankfort, and it was a question rather of 
 German than of European interest. But the political existence 
 of the four free cities in the European system, Hamburg, Bre- 
 men, Lubeck, and Frankfort, as independent states, was certainly 
 given to them at the settlement of Europe by the Congress of 
 Vienna, not in respect of their power or importance as states in 
 the European system, but on the principle and understanding 
 that these were to be free emporiums open to the trade of all 
 countries on equal terms, and not to be shut up by any one power, 
 or combination of powers, against the trade of all other powers. 
 It was evidently to prevent this result that these ancient Hansea- 
 tic towns were not incorporated with the adjoining states, but 
 received an independent political existence. The coercion or 
 accession of Fra,nkfort to the league is a manifest violation of the 
 spirit and intent of the settlement of Europe by the Congress of 
 Vienna, by which those Hanseatic markets were considered the 
 free arena in which all European producers and consumers may 
 meet, and buy, and sell, without partiality, control, or protecting 
 duties in favour of one European pqwer more than another. 
 Hamburg and Bremen are great mouths through which the com- 
 merce of the world flows, and are of European and American, 
 not, like Frankfort, of German importance only, and could not be 
 shut up by other pov/ers, or even by their own power as a state, 
 without a violation of the understood compact or principle on 
 which alone they hold a political independent existence. Their 
 own interests as commercial entrepots will always prevent those 
 other states from voluntarily becoming parties in the league, and 
 excluding all but German manufacturers from their markets ; and 
 coercion cannot be applied to them as to Frankfort. They have 
 allies directly interested in their commercial independence, and in 
 the freedom of their markets, viz., the European and American 
 states trading to their ports. As to the accession of Denmark, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 149 
 
 Hanover, Holland, or Belgium to the league, an insurmountable 
 obstacle is the nationality of these countries, and their independ- 
 ence, which would be sacrificed, as well as in the want of any 
 interest to be promoted, or of any advantage to be gained as 
 members of the league. These powers stand commercially with 
 regard to the league in the same position as the United States of 
 America, and would have no visible benefit from limiting theix 
 commerce to the objects of the league, and placing themselves 
 under the pupilage of the petty inland states of Germany in mat- 
 ters of trade. 
 
 The immense development of the consumpt of the British colo- 
 nies and of the independent South American states since the last 
 war, places England in a very different position of interests with the 
 continent of P^urope from that.in which she stood when excluded 
 by Buonaparte, by the Milan and Berlin decrees, from the conti- 
 nental markets. She no longer depends on the European conti- 
 nent for the consumpt of any vast proportion of the products of 
 her manufacturing indtistry, while the Continent, manufacturing 
 for her own and for over-sea markets, is becoming every day more 
 and more politically dependent upon England for access to her 
 supplies of raw materials, and to the markets for her manufactured 
 goods. If political power, without regard to the principle of ex- 
 isting political arrangements, were the object of a British govern- 
 ment, the success of the German commercial league to the utmost 
 extent of the most sanguine dreams of the German political writers 
 on its results, would be the greatest accession to the political power 
 of Britain over continental affairs that could be thrown into her 
 lap. The whole of the material interests and productive industry 
 of Germany united in one concern, and that one concern unable 
 from its physical position to cross the ocean with its goods, or for 
 its needful supplies of raw materials, but by the good will and 
 sutlerance of that power which, from her physical position on the 
 globe, commands all outlets and inlets, and holds the keys of the 
 ocean, would form a preponderating British influence over Euro- 
 pean affairs, increasing in political force exactly in proportion to 
 the isolation of Great Britain. Suppose the extreme case, that 
 the German commercial league could shut out British industry 
 and capital altogether from the continental markets. Our export 
 of goods to the north of Europe, to the amount at present, perhaps, 
 of four or five millions sterling, would be reduced perhaps to a 
 
150 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 smuggling trade of two or three millions ; and Britain having no 
 longer any important national interest at stake in her continental 
 trade, having lost it, whatever may have been its importance, 
 would take that polhical position which her natural position gives 
 her; and when the united industry and capital of Germany were 
 markets and supplies, and concluding treaties and equipping fleets 
 consolidated into one new political power depending upon over-sea 
 as an independent European power, like the Hanseatic league of 
 old, Britain would demand a state of peace or a state of war with 
 this new power, free access to markets, or the retaliation of shut- 
 ting the sea doors of this new power with a few steamers. And 
 who could say to her, Nay ? Britain would be justified on princi- 
 ple. War against a commercial country does not consist merely 
 in acts of violence and aggression on persons and property, but 
 in acts of legislation and commercial arrangement more injurious 
 to her interests than a war would be ; and therefore an English 
 government would encounter a war, rather than endure a peace 
 insidiously concealing all the evils of war in its effects. This 
 would be the position of the British government with the German 
 commercial league, supposing the wild and extravagant ideas of 
 the German political writers on its results were realized: England 
 being totally, and it is to be hoped finally, separated from all 
 Hanoverian considerations or influences, stands on very different 
 ground from her former position in her political negotiations, and 
 would look only and entirely to British interests. 
 
 But there are obstacles arising from the social condition of Ger- 
 many itself, which will prevent even the sober, rational, and every 
 way, and for every country, beneficial objects of the German 
 commercial league from being attained for ages. These deserve 
 consideration, for they proceed from arrangements in social and 
 political economy altogether different from ours, and but little 
 known to us. The dreams of German fleets and armies, and an 
 united German nation, we may leave to the visionary politics 
 which occupy the German newspaper writers from the want of 
 real affairs to think of, or of freedom to discuss the real. 
 
 In every country the home market is the great and steady basis 
 of its manufacturing prosperity. Commerce itself, if it be not 
 founded on a home consumpt, if it be merely a carrying trade 
 between distant producers and distant consumers, has proved 
 itself, as in the Hanstowns, in Genoa, Venice, Holland, to be mi- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 151 
 
 Stable, evanescent, and unattended with any well-being or im- 
 provement in the condition of the mass of the people. With all 
 the colonies and commerce of England, her immense commercial 
 capital, her unrivaled facilities for shipping and trade, her position 
 in the ocean, and her free institutions open to all the trading capi- 
 talists of the world, political economists tell us that more than 
 two-thirds of our industrial products, not including agricultural 
 products, but actually two-thirds of our manufactures, are used 
 in our home consumpt, and one-third only is exported. In the 
 agitation of the corn law question many different estimates, or 
 conjectures, have been given of the amount and value of our foreign 
 compared to our home market, according to the political views 
 of the writers. In one point all the discordant statements agree — 
 that the export trade is but the overflowings of the cup of our in- 
 dustrial production, its fullness is all within its own rim. The 
 late Mr. Macqueen, a statistical writer of no ordinary talent and 
 industry, has given a detailed conjecture on the value of the goods 
 produced and exported in 1834, viz. — *' 
 
 Cotton goods 
 Woolen goods 
 Linen goods 
 Silk goods - 
 Leather goods 
 
 Value of 
 Goods produced. 
 
 Value of 
 Goods exported. 
 
 £52,213,586 
 
 £20,513,586 
 
 44,250,000 
 
 3,736,871 
 
 15,421,186 
 
 2,579.655 
 
 13,425,510 
 
 637,013 
 
 18,000,000 
 
 248.302 
 
 Total £143,610,282 £29,715.430 
 
 Of clothing materials, which are the main articles on which 
 manufacturing labour is employed, it would appear from this 
 view that about four-fifths of the ])roducts of our manufacturing 
 industry are consumed in our home market, and one-fifth only is 
 exported to the foreign market, including our colonial market. 
 Of other manufactured articles produced and exported in 1834 
 this estimate gives us of — 
 
 Iron, cutlery, hardware, &c. 
 
 Ikass and copper wares 
 
 Wood, cabinet-work wares, paper, &c. 
 
 Total 
 and thus the home market for these exceeds still more the pro- 
 
 Value of 
 Goods produced. 
 £38,170,600 
 
 Value of 
 
 Goods e.xporled. 
 
 £2,269,437 
 
 4,900,160 
 
 961,809 
 
 14,000,000 
 
 377.911 
 
 £.57,070,792 
 
 .Ll.-Jn9,ISl 
 
152 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 portion consumed in the foreign market. According to the same 
 political economist, the producing capital of Great Britain in 1836 
 was, of agricultural 3,258,910,810/.; of manufactural 178,404,- 
 278/.; of which only 16,381,322/. was employed in the produc- 
 tion of manufactured goods for the foreign market. 
 
 Such estimates or guesses are, in fact, but vague dreams, and 
 often worse than dreams, because they come clothed in the garb 
 of reality to support or demolish some theory. What can be 
 more preposterous than to state such sums with an eight or ten 
 pounds sterling at their tails, as if such matters could be ascer- 
 tained as exactly as the amount of your tailor's bill ? This taste 
 among statistical writers and political economists is reprehensible, 
 because it imposes on weak minds, and gives an air of exactness 
 to what is entitled to no such character. An approximation to 
 amounts proportional to the exact is all that can be given or taken 
 in such estimates. We may take from this view of our home 
 market, be it correct to the exact proportion or not, that a people 
 must be great consumers, as well as great producers, to be a 
 great manufacturing people, and to attain to any great national 
 wealth. There must be at home an exchange of industry for 
 industry, a circulation of production and consumpt through every 
 pore of the social body itself. What is merely exhaled and thrown 
 off in export is not sufficient to keep up a healthy movement in a 
 munufacturing nation. 
 
 The German league comprehends above twenty-six millions 
 of people ; and if we only look at the numbers and at the extent 
 and fertility of the soil they occupy, they should be buyers in 
 their home market of manufacturing industry, one would sup- 
 pose, as extensively at least as our British twenty-four millions. 
 But here we see the immense difference produced by a different 
 social economy. These twenty-six millions consume less of each 
 other's industry, employ less, buy less, sell less, than four millions 
 of our population. In our social system every man buys all he 
 uses, and sells all he produces ; there is a perpetual exchange of 
 industry for industry. A home-spun and home-woven shirt, jacket, 
 and trowsers, would certainly not be found with us upon the body 
 of one labouring man in forty thousand. All he wears, all he eats, 
 all he drinks, must be produced for him by the industry of others, 
 and bought by the price of his own industry. The very bread 
 of our labourers in husbandry is often bought at the manufac- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 153 
 
 turer's shop. In Germany the economy of society is directly the 
 reverse; not one labouring man, farmer, or tradesman pretty 
 high up even in the middle class of the small towns, uses in 
 clothing, food, furniture, what is not produced at home by his 
 own family. In the centre even of German manufacturing in- 
 dustry, in the provinces on the Rhine, you will not see among 
 twenty labouring people the value of twenty shillings altogether 
 in clothing articles not produced at home by the application of 
 their own time, labour, and industry. They are not badly clothed, 
 but on the contrary, as well, if not better, than our own labourers 
 — in very good shirts, good jackets, trowscrs, stockings, shoes, and 
 caps; but all home-made, or at the utmost village-made — not 
 made by a class of manufacturers doing no other work, and 
 bought with the wearer's money. These are not consumers for 
 whose demands the operative labours, and the master manufac- 
 turer and mechanician invent, calculate, and combine. Tobacco, 
 coffee, sugar, wine, and spirits, cotton yarns for home weaving, and 
 dye-stuffs for home-made cloth, take a large proportion of what 
 these twenty-six millions of people have to expend in foreign 
 articles. It is little, comparatively, they have to expend, because 
 much of their time and labour is applied to the direct production 
 and manufacturing of what they use ; much, a great deal more 
 than with us, goes in eating, drinking, cooking, social enjoyment, 
 and in fuel preparing, and such small household work in which 
 there are no earnings or reproduction ; and, above all, much of the 
 workman's means of earning, much of his time, labour, and pro- 
 ductiveness, is taken by the government in the shape of military 
 and other duties from the working man. The small proprietors 
 occupying and living from the land have no surplus earnings to 
 lay out in products of manufacturing industry. Having the rude 
 necessaries of life very much within themselves, they are not 
 forced into the market by any necessity; and being bred in the 
 rough simplicity of the connnon soldier's life at the age when a 
 man's tastes and habits are forming, they have no very refined 
 indulgences or tastes to gratify, no habits or usages of a mode of 
 living requiring the aid of much manufacturing industry. It is 
 more dillicult, perhaps, to bring a nation to consume, than to pro- 
 duce. 
 
 It is the opinion of some of our most eminent political econo- 
 mists, of Mr. Jacob, Dr. Bowring, and other able writers, wiio 
 11 
 
154 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 have enjoyed the best opportunities of becoming correctly and 
 officially acquainted with the state of the Continent, and from 
 whose opinions, therefore, the ordinary traveller dissents with 
 great diffidence, that the abolition of our corn laws will make 
 these twenty-six millions of people whose industrial product, corn, 
 we would purchase, become in return great consumers of our in- 
 dustrial product — manufactured goods. This is a delusion of 
 these distinguished political economists, arising from their apply- 
 ing ideas taken from our English social economy, state of pro- 
 perty and of labour, to a state and system of society existing on 
 totally different principles. The mass of those twenty-six mil- 
 Hons having, each family within itself, land, labour, leisure, and 
 the inveterate custom to provide their own food, clothing, neces- 
 saries, and luxuries by their own work, and being moreover 
 during the winter half-year under the physical impossibility of 
 doing any regular out-door agricultural work, would spin, weave, 
 and clothe themselves by their own household industry as before, 
 and buy no more of our manufactures than they do now. A 
 change in those habits of a people which are rooted in their 
 social economy, in the distribution of their property, the occupa- 
 tion of their soil, the nature of their country and climate, the in- 
 stitutions and arrangements of their governments, cannot be pro- 
 duced by any influences from without. A very small proportion, 
 also, of the corn exported from Germany to the British marliet is, 
 by Mr. Jacob's own account, the produce of those German pro- 
 vinces which are manufacturing countries, or have any physical 
 capability of ever becoming so. The provinces and countries on 
 the Rhine, Westphalia, and also Saxon Prussia, and Silesia, send 
 us little or no corn ; and owing to the want of cross-country roads, 
 a considerable demand for grain for shipment in one quarter 
 affects but slightly the value of grain at a very small distance 
 beyond. It is quite unreasonable to suppose that they would 
 take our manufactures to the prejudice of their own, because we 
 take corn from the banks of the Vistula ; a country with which 
 they have no natural community of interests ; with which they 
 have no connectionj unless on paper — on the state paper, in which 
 they are handed over to the same crown, — and with which they 
 have actually less intercourse than we have ourselves. These 
 distinguished political economists err here, by applying English 
 ideas of the community of interests which exists in our small land 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 155 
 
 bound up into one whole by the rapidity and freedom of commu- 
 nication over it, and which makes the sacrifice of the interests of 
 a part to the general good a clear and acknowledged benefit, to 
 countries of such vast extent, and with such httle communication, 
 and so few objects of mutual supply of interchange, that the parts 
 are separate existences physically and politically. The parts of 
 the Prussian empire have less community of interests, less inter- 
 course with each other, are less cemented together into a whole, 
 than Bengal and Middlesex. Quebec and Greenock are much 
 more united parts of one social whole, as members of one empire, 
 than Danzick and Cologne. It would be sacrificing one part to 
 another part, and not to a whole, to apply to their political eco- 
 nomy a principle which is quite good in our compact city-like 
 empire. If it were the true interest of Prussia, which it is not, 
 to sacrifice her richest and most improving provinces on the 
 Rhine with manufacturing capabilities, capital, and enterprise, to 
 her poor agricultural provinces on the Baltic, her government 
 would not have the power to do so. Her Rhenish and West- 
 phalian provinces are not only wealthy and manufacturing ; they 
 are liberal, and hang but very loosely to the autocratic principle 
 of the Prussian government. They retained, when they were 
 handed over to Prussia, their former laws and law courts — the 
 Code Napoleon, Code de Commerce, Code de Procedure Civile, 
 Code Criminel — and have nothing in their laws' or courts in com- 
 mon with the rest of Prussia ; suffered no revival or intrusion of 
 the old feudal or the Prussian jurisprudence and tribunals, and 
 have very clearly indicated that they would not suffer it. They 
 have shown, in their support of the Catholic Bishop of Cologne 
 arising evidently not from a blind spirit of flinaticism, but from a 
 spirit of opposition to despotic sway, that they are not a popula- 
 tion to be governed, like military serfs, by the will or caprice of a 
 cabinet. It is from this population, of about 4,000,000 that the 
 impulse has been given to the great movement of the German 
 people in the German league. They arc in no way interested in 
 the corn trade to England, nor would they suffer their material 
 interests and manufacturers to be sacrificed to the trade of Dan- 
 zick, and to the agricultural interests of the old or new Prussian 
 provinces on the Baltic. They have France at their elbow. 
 Bavaria, Wirtenburg, Saxony, Hesse, and the other states joined 
 in the league, have also no interest whatever in such a reciprocity 
 
156 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 as receiving our manufactured goods on a low duty, if we take 
 corn on a low duty from the Polish provinces of Prussia, with 
 which they have no cannection. Their joint population equals 
 that of Prussia ; and in the affairs of the league, each has a voice 
 ^qual to that of Prussia. Prussia is bound to common measures 
 with the other states of the league, and could not enter into such 
 a reciprocity with us without abandoning the league she has 
 formed, and abandoning the interests of her own manufacturing 
 provinces on the Rhine, which, with France at their elbow, with 
 French laws and French ideas on civil and political rights, and 
 constitutional representation of the people, are not to be treated 
 despotically in arrangements touching their material interests. 
 Mr. Jacob, Dr. Bowring, or whoever holds out this argument or 
 inducement for the abolition of our corn laws, must have heard 
 ill, or from incompetent authority, that such a reciprocity ever 
 would have been listened to for a moment by the powers en- 
 gaged in the German league, or that the Prussian government, 
 even if not bound to common measures with them, would find it 
 her interest to adopt such a reciprocity, were it in her power to 
 adopt it, to the injury, real or supposed, of her own manufactu- 
 ring Rhenish, Westphalian, and Saxon provinces. 
 
 If a manufacturing interest and spirit can be diff'used over Ger- 
 many, it must be founded on a consuming population at home, as 
 well as on a body of producers and capitalists; and all Europe 
 would then be in a more sound social condition. Such a popula- 
 tion would even be better customers to British industry, more 
 ready to exchange industry for industry with us, and more able 
 to do so, than the present agricultural, self-supplying, or non- 
 consuming population. But this change from non-consuming to 
 consuming habits is opposed in its growth by the very govern- 
 ments which are the most anxious to establish a flourishing indus- 
 trial interest in Germany. They would have the fruit, without 
 the tree on which it grows. The military system of the German 
 governments engenders a spirit of interference, not only with the 
 labouring class of the community, preventing the free circulation 
 of labour, and the acquisition of steady, expert, quick-working 
 habits, but with all circulation, business, and employment. It 
 enters into, and attempts to direct all industrial action. The 
 capitalist and his operatives work as in a barrack yard, under the 
 eye, influence, and superintendence of government functionaries. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 157 
 
 As an instance of this kind of interference, even in manufacturing 
 Prussia, if a master manufacturer or wholesale dealer has to send 
 a box or parcel to a customer or shop-keeper at a distance, he 
 cannot choose the cheapest way by a carrier taking goods along 
 the road at the lowest rate to which a free and open competition 
 can bring down the expense of carriage : government thinks 
 proper to be the universal parcel carrier as well as letter carrier, 
 and to monopolize this branch of industry. Plis parcel must be 
 inspected, valued, packed, and sealed to the satisfaction of the 
 public functionary, and in his presence ; and the formalities, loss 
 of time, and interference, are such as no free competition trade 
 can exist under, and no home market, and habits of exchanging 
 industry for industry among the people, can grow up under. 
 
 Dr. Nebenius, a great statistical authority, reckons,* or rather 
 guesses from such imperfect data as the subject affords, that the 
 yearly consumption of woollen goods per head of the individuals 
 within the German league, is a-bout forty per cent, less than that 
 of each individual, on an average, in the British population ; and 
 of cotton, he reckons the home consumption of England and 
 Scotland at sixty-four millions of pounds weight, and of the popu- 
 lation of the whole German union, which is greater by seven or 
 eight millions than that of the island of Great Britain, at five 
 millions and a quarter. Another great statistical authority, M. 
 Dieterici, estimates that in Prussia, certainly the most consuming 
 portion of the population within the league, the consumption of 
 each person, on an average, of woollen cloth yearly, is 1-56 yard ; 
 and in the United Kingdom, on the same data, 4-2 yards : and of 
 cotton twist consumed in the Union in 1S3G, the quantity was 
 forty-nine millions pounds; and two hundred and fifty-three 
 millions in the United Kingdom. But in comparing the respect- 
 ive consumption of the two masses of population, these distin- 
 guished political economists overlook the most important clement 
 in it, viz., the amount of industry, and of the exchange of indus- 
 try for industry, which this consumption of clothing, or clothing 
 material, be it greater or less than they so vaguely guess, brings 
 into movement among these two masses of population. In our 
 mass of population, every pound weight of this wool, or cotton, 
 or cotton twist, every yard of this cloth, sets agoing, 1st, an indus- 
 
 * Der Deutsche Zollverein, sein System und seine Zukunft. Von Dr. C. J. 
 Nebenius. Carlsruhe, 1835. 
 
158 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 try or capital to grow it, or bring it home from the grower; Sdly, 
 an industry or capital to manufacture it, to prepare it for use, and 
 bring it to market for sale ; 3dly, an industry or capital to earn 
 the means, by producing and selling its own products, to buy it 
 for wearing apparel. In our social economy, everything that 
 man uses sets agoing these three industries. But in the social 
 economy of Germany, the grower of the wool, or the first buyer 
 of the cotton twist, is himself, very generally, the manufacturer 
 and the consumer also. The same labour and time, or probably 
 a great deal more, may have been employed by him and his 
 household in bringing the raw material into the state of cloth, as 
 if it had been spun, woven, and dyed by the different classes of 
 manufacturers who prepare cloth with us, and had come into the 
 village shop through all the intermediate ramifications of employ- 
 ment which vivify a home market. But there has been no ex- 
 change of industry for industry in this state of social economy 
 among the mass of a population ; no reciprocal employment, no 
 mutual and civilizing working of individuals for each other's 
 wants, in this process of bringing the wool from the sheep's back, 
 and putting it upon the back of the German peasant in the shape 
 of a home-made cloth coat, compared to that produced in the 
 process of putting a new coat upon one of our labouring men, 
 who, of necessity, and by the nature of our social economy must 
 buy all he wants, and sell all he produces ; must exchange indus- 
 try for industry, and who spends not an hour of his life in pro- 
 ducing for his own consumption. Until such a home market is 
 gradually raised, it is a dangerous speculation in social economy 
 to call into existence a body of operatives, and an industrial inte- 
 rest, depending almost altogether upon a foreign demand. This 
 can do no more than raise in a few districts a sickly manufacturing 
 industry fostered with custom-house care, and depending upon a 
 foreign market ; until at last a great body of operatives is reared, 
 who, having no real home consumption for the products of their 
 industry to fall back upon, and no hired agricultural labour, or 
 temporary job-work in other employments, or free access to other 
 trades or localities than their own to fall back upon, and no colo- 
 nies or standing army to absorb them, will be reduced to unex- 
 ampled distress, in the event of war intercepting the transport of 
 their manufactured goods to the foreign market, or of their regular 
 supply, from over sea, of the raw materials ; or if the abolition of 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 159 
 
 the English corn laws should, as expected, deluge all markets 
 with goods still more cheaply produced by England than at pre- 
 sent. Germany manufactures for the foreign market only by 
 sufferance from political contingencies over which she has no 
 control. What would, for instance, be the condition of the work- 
 ing population in the cotton factories of Prussia, Saxony, or Swit- 
 zerland, in the event of a war between England and the United 
 States, or England and France? Their supplies of raw material 
 would be suddenly arrested by the blockade of the ports from 
 which they come, or by which they enter. This mass of manu- 
 facturing population would at once be thrown out of employment, 
 without a refuge at home or abroad from utter destitution. It is 
 evidently a false policy for the States of the German league, to 
 call into existence a mass of manufacturing population depending 
 for bread upon the foreign markets for their products ; which 
 markets are altogether beyond their power or political influence, 
 and may be cut oft' by any naval belligerent, without their having 
 the means to prevent it, or even the right to complain. 
 
 If the German commercial league propose to raise a home 
 market in Germany itself, the habits of the people, the restraints 
 upon their perfect freedom of action, the military organization of 
 the country must be altered. The whole social system will have 
 to be altered ; the armies of civil functionaries, together with 
 almost all their duties, abolished ; and society left to itself by the 
 German governments, to the uncontrolled, untrammelled use of 
 time, property, and individual action, as in the United States, in 
 England, in Switzerland, in every country that has made any 
 advance in national prosperity. A change so entire in the social 
 economy of a people cannot be effected in a generation or two. 
 Germany now, as a country only beginning to have commerce 
 and industry, and to leave the simple state of every family enjoy- 
 ing a rough plenty, but producing almost all it consumes within 
 itself, is standing on nearly the same point as England did in the 
 reign of Queen Elizabeth. Then, in England, as now in Ger- 
 many, every family in the middle or lower classes was employed 
 in spinning, weaving, manufacturing for itself, baking, brewing 
 pickling, preserving, for its own consumption. It has taken three 
 centuries to bring the British population to that social economy in 
 which every man exchanges industry for industry, and a vast 
 home market exists for all production. It may be doubted, how- 
 
160 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ever much England has gained in national or individual wealth, 
 whether her population Tias gained in well-being and social happi- 
 ness by the change. Her operative manufacturing population 
 called into existence by it, although only one-fifth of their numbers 
 are supposed to be employed in supplying the foreign market, are 
 plunged sufficiently often into the deepest distress by the ordinary 
 vicissitudes of the home market, to make reflecting men pause, 
 and ask if this be prosperity ? if national wealth, or the power of a 
 state in its financial means ; if the individual enjoyriient of the 
 luxuries and gratifications which this wealth bestows on one rich 
 class, be worth the amount of human misery and vice accompany- 
 ing it? But to attempt to skip over a home market for a manu- 
 facturing population to fall back upon, and to call into existence 
 prematurely a mass of operatives depending entirely upon a foreign 
 market, cannot be wise policy. The first gust of war will sweep 
 the whole fabric from the face of the earth. The German com- 
 mercial league will have to study the career of England more 
 carefully, and not begin at the wrong end, at establishing a foreign 
 market, before she has a home market for her productive industry. 
 Many regard the German commercial league as inimical to 
 British interests. This view is as erroneous as it is narrow. The 
 richer our neighbours become, the better customers they are to us. 
 The German commercial league has been in full operation, since 
 1833, over a population of 25,608,864 individuals. If we look at 
 its practical effects upon British industry and commerce, since and 
 before that date, we are warranted in the conclusion, that the 
 wealthier and the more industrious our neighbours become, the 
 better customers they are in the world's markets, in supplying 
 which British industry and capital are embarked. Every chandler 
 comes to a similar conclusion on the little circle of customers in 
 the alley in which his shop is situated, and believes that his trade 
 will increase just in proportion as his neighbours thrive. 
 
 In 1829, four years before the full operation of the German com- 
 mercial league, the declared value of British produce and manu- 
 factures exported from the United Kingdom to Germany, was £4,662,566 
 
 As Holland and Belgium take British goods which pass ultimately 
 into Germany, we add the value exported to those countries in 
 the same year, viz. ...... 2,050,014 
 
 The 25,000,000 of our German customers bought in 1829 to the ) £g 7,0 580 
 value of - - - - - - - i ' ' 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 161 
 
 In 1837, four years after the same epoch of 1833, the declared 
 
 value of our goods exported to Germany was - - £5,029.552 
 
 And to Belgium and Holland together - - - 3,844,946 
 
 So that our 25,000,000 of Gerijian customers bought for - £8,874,498 
 
 after four years' thriving, and growing rich, and consuming, by 
 their commercial league. In 1S39, six years after the estabUsh- 
 ment of the league, with all its protections of German industry, 
 the declared value of British produce and manufactures export- 
 ed to Germany was 5,422,021/.; and to Belgium and Holland, 
 4,445,623/., being together 9,867,644/., or an increase of about one- 
 third since 1829, or of about one-eighth since 1837. But in what 
 produce or manufactures of Britain has this increasing sale to 
 Germans been ? in raw goods to be manufactured by their indus- 
 try, or in manufactures which have received the last finish from 
 British industry ? Let us see. In 1829 the declared value of 
 woollen manufactures, exclusive of yarns, exported to Germany, 
 was 613,812/. ; in 1837 it was 725,699/. ; in 1839 it was 817,250/. 
 Now wool itself is a German product. The raw material is in 
 the country ; and although, no doubt, the manufacture of it is 
 improving and extending, the consumption and demand for what 
 we manufacture are also extending. The home market of Ger- 
 many is not fully supplied by her own home industry with all 
 she consumes of an article grown at home. In cotton manufac- 
 tures there is a greater difference, but none of important magni- 
 tude, between the kinds and quantities exported to Germany 
 before and after the full establishment of the German commercial 
 league. In 1829 the number of yards of woven cotton goods 
 exported from Britain to Germany was 41,037,377 yards; in 1837 
 the number was 43,171,229 yards ; in 1839 the number was 38,- 
 910,025 yards. In the ten years from 1829 and 1839 inclusive, 
 the quantity of woven cotton cloths exported each year has ex- 
 ceeded the quantity of 1829, excepting in three years, 1836, 1838, 
 and 1839 ; and the excess has been as much as ten millions of 
 yards, as in 1832 and 1834, while the dimiimtion of export, as in 
 1836,.has never been more than three and a half millions. These 
 appear, therefore, to be the ordinary fluctuations of trade in a 
 steadily increasing market, viewed through a series of years, for 
 our woven cotton manufactures. For our spun but not woven 
 cotton manufactures, our cotton twist, the demand undoubtedly 
 
162 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 seems increased. In 1829 the number of pounds weight of yarns 
 exported to Germany from the United Kingdom was 24,098,301 
 lbs.; in 1837 it was 34,277,531 lbs.; in 1839 it was 38,712,355 
 lbs. There appears in the ten years, 1829, 1839, a steadily in- 
 creasing export of cotton twist which has only employed British 
 industry in the first stage of its manufacture, viz., in the spinning, 
 and is woven by the German manufacturer. But it is a great 
 mistake to imagine that this British cotton twist goes altogether 
 to the weaving factories of foreign manufacturers, who re-export 
 it, or bring it to market in competition with British woven cotton 
 goods. A great proportion of it is for the family weaving of the 
 people themselves into mixed cloths and stuffs for household use; 
 by which the peasant finds a saving of the saleable products, flax 
 and wool, from which alone he formerly manufactured all his 
 family clothing, sheets, and household stuffs. The British demand 
 for fine wool and for flax from the Continent, to be re-exported in 
 cloth or yarns, necessarily causes a vacuity in the mass of the 
 former clothing materials of the Continent, which is filled up by 
 cotton yarn from England. 
 
 The legislators and political economists who labour under the 
 monopolist's ague, and shake at the idea of our neighbours grow- 
 ing rich as well as ourselves by manufacturing industry, may see, 
 even from this statement, that the richer they grow the better for 
 us. They do not burn or bury their wealth. They lay it out ; 
 those who get it lay it out again. It goes round and round, aug- 
 menting the means and industry of men, widening the markets 
 of the world, increasing the number of producers and consumers, 
 and the wealth of all. 
 
 A flourishing industrial interest upon a stable foundation among 
 twenty-six millions of German people, would be the most import- 
 ant advance ever made in modern society ; and would be a bond 
 of peace secured by the people themselves on the very theatre 
 which their rulers have deluged with blood for eighteen centuries. 
 It would be a singular circumstance if the sword of war should 
 be wrested from the hands of autocratic sovereigns by this union 
 of the continental people for their material interests. It is not 
 anticipating too much from it to believe that irresponsible cabi- 
 nets, governments without a constitution, monarchs without a 
 check, military interference in private civil affairs, restraint on 
 free agency and industry, and a want of legislative representa- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 163 
 
 tion, cannot exist by the side of sucli an interest. It is even now 
 a mass of power in the hands of the people, which must be re- 
 presented. The whole policy of the Prussian government is 
 singularly at variance with the natural and obvious tendency of 
 the German commercial league. To delay, to avoid, to refuse 
 any representation of the people in the legislation of the country, 
 yet to plant and foster an interest which, if it is to prosper at all, 
 must have a voice in public affairs ; to establish a military system 
 inconsistent with the manufacturing industry of the working class, 
 a system of functionarism adverse to the application of the middle 
 class to the arts of industry for their living^ a system of interfer- 
 ence and surveillance inconsistent with the free development of 
 the capital, enterprise, and mind of the wealthier class, are con- 
 tradictions in policy only to be accounted for by supposing that 
 the Prussian government did not foresee that the league was to be- 
 come of such importance — was to be, what it now is, the union 
 point of the German people ; and had not considered that this 
 new state power in Germany, as it may be called, must neces- 
 sarily extinguish the military principle of the sole irresponsible 
 government of the monarch. 
 
 The great errror, at present, of the Germans with regard to the 
 commercial league, is that before alluded to — that they are looking 
 too much to the results of a foreign trade, and overlooking too 
 much the necessity of a previously formed home market and con- 
 sumption. The branches of the national prosperity of England 
 which naturally strike the eye of a foreigner are her ships, colo- 
 nies, and commerce. He forgets, or does not see, that these are 
 but the overflowings of a well of industrial wealth, which has its 
 main springs at home. These are but the leaves and flowers of 
 a tree which is rooted in her home social economy. The perfect 
 freedom of circulation of industry in Britain, the consuming and 
 producing habits of the people among themselves, the Macadam- 
 ized roads to every village, the total absence of any restriction upon 
 the internal communications and movements of man or goods, 
 have, in the course of ages, raised a social economy in which every 
 man exchanges industry for industry with his neighbours, is a 
 producer and a consumer in a vast home market. If we look at 
 Germany at present, even in the most advanced districts, how far 
 behind is she in all these essential foundations of national pros- 
 perity ! The common man cannot move from village to village 
 
164 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 in prosecution of his trade, or in search of work, without leave 
 and license ; cannot open a shop, or exercise a business in many- 
 parts of the Continent, or transport himself and his goods where or 
 how he will, cannot produce, and cannot consume, but under au- 
 thority and leave. In the neighbourhood even of such great seats 
 of commercial wealth as Hamburgh, Frankfort, Leipsic, the cross- 
 country roads are scarcely passable, although leading to consider- 
 able masses of population. You see no carriers' carts or wagons 
 conveying goods from the producers to the consumers. In the 
 villages, you see the people in wooden shoes, in home-made 
 woUen, cotton, or Unen clothing : and in the small town shops, 
 you see either the raw unwrought articles for the family consump- 
 tion or home manufacture of the labouring class, such as coffee, 
 sugar, tobacco, dye stuffs, yarns ; or you see gilded ornaments, 
 prints, mirrors, and such expensive articles for the highest class. 
 You see nothing that betokens a great consuming middle class, or 
 a great consuming labouring class buying every article they con- 
 sume, fully prepared for their use, and selling all the product of 
 their own time and labour to supply themselves with all they 
 want. In such considerable towns, even in the most fertile parts 
 of Germany, as Gotha, Dessau, Wittenburg, you see no indication 
 of a great consuming class, or of a great interchange of industry 
 for industry among the mass of the people. In Frankfort and 
 Leipsic, even out of fair-time, you see, no doubt, proofs of great 
 commercial wealth, of many hundreds of great capitalists dwell- 
 ing there with their equipages and attendants ; but they dwell 
 there like the English at a watering place, altogether uninfluen- 
 tially, except to the extent of the expenditure of their incomes, 
 upon the industry and prosperity of the mass of the population 
 around them. They merely transmit, they do not produce, and 
 employ but little labour, except it may be in transport, at parti- 
 cular seasons. This commercial prosperity, as in Holland, Venice, 
 and in the Hans Towns, may be very great, without adding very 
 greatly to the well-being, industry, or national wealth of the com- 
 munity. It is to this commercial prosperity, not to industrial pros- 
 perity, that the attention of the Germans is directed at the present 
 moment, in their expectations from the commercial league. Thqy 
 seem in general to have the idea that national wealth consists in the 
 number of great capitalists in a country, and not in the productive 
 industry of the people ; and that if by foreign trade they can facil- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 165 
 
 itate the augmentation of the number of great capitalists, they 
 shall have attained great national prosperity. But great capital, 
 either in the hands of a few or of many, must, in any sound state 
 of social economy, be the effects, the products, of the productive 
 industry of the people, and actmg as a cause as well as an effect 
 of that industry. If it be not founded on this basis, it adds little 
 or nothing to the real prosperity or national wealth of the coun- 
 try. Baron Rothschild, probably in the course of a year, passes 
 through his hands on the Exchange of Frankfort, as large an 
 amount of capital as the town and its territory would sell for ; but 
 this adds nothing to the national wealth or prosperity of Frank- 
 fort. It employs no industry but the postman's. The manufac- 
 turer, on the smallest scale, in an English town, who is every 
 hour producing, and selling, and transporting, and every year 
 calling into existence new habitations, new villages, new com- 
 munications, new roads, devising new outlets, adopting new 
 operations in his works, giving new employment to his workmen, 
 is adding much more to the national wealth with comparatively 
 very small capital. The Germans wish to begin building their 
 house from the top downwards, instead of from the foundation 
 upwards. 
 
 The railroads, from which the Germans promise themselves 
 exaggerated and imaginary advantages, belong to the objects for 
 which Germany perhaps is not yet ripe as an industrial commu- 
 nity. All her cross-country roads, and a great portion of her main 
 roads between her most important cities, are in a wretched state, 
 scarcely passable, and roads are altogether wanting through dis- 
 tricts where roads should be. The extent of the country is itself 
 a natural impediment to the multiplication and goodness of roads. 
 The difficulties thrown in the way of communication from place 
 to place by the passport system, and the town-duty system, and 
 the monopoly by the governments in a great part of Germany of 
 posting trade, coaching trade, parcel carrying trade, in short of 
 all transport over the roads, reduce all internal traffic to the mini- 
 mum amount with which society can exist. It is of little import- 
 ance to get from Frankfort to Mayence, or from Leipsic to Dres- 
 den, on a railroad, if all the veins and arteries which should feed 
 this railroad are shut up, and choked with mire and sand. The 
 want of roads, and of free traffic and competition on such roads 
 as are, will long retard any considerable development of industry 
 
166 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 in Germany, and the formation of that home market, that mutual 
 exchange among men of the products of their industry, which 
 exists from the faciUty and cheapness of transport and supply. 
 Railroads may even do more harm than good, in the present state 
 of Germany, to her industrial progress in general, by absorbing 
 that capital of governments, or individuals, which would have 
 been applied, with more advantage, to improving the old main 
 roads, and opening up new ; to laying that foundation of trans- 
 port and communication through every district of a country, upon 
 which alone, commercially speaking, railroads can subsist. A 
 railroad is like a horse, very profitable and enriching to the indi- 
 vidual who keeps him, provided there is plenty of productive 
 labour for the horse to do ; but very unprofitable, and impoverish- 
 ing, if the individual has no work for his horse but to drive about 
 on him for curiosity or pleasure. It is still an undetermined 
 question whether railroads can be used with advantage for the 
 conveyance generally of goods. Such valuable goods in small 
 compass, as may be sent from Manchester to Liverpool, or from 
 Birmingham to London, afford no rule to judge by, the cost of 
 carriage being trifling compared to the value of the package. 
 But can the manufacturer not seated immediately on a railroad, 
 transport his coals, his bricks, his lime, his timber, his iron, and 
 all his bulky machinery and raw materials, with advantage on 
 railroads ? He is seldom in a pressing hurry for these, but sees 
 beforehand for some time what he wants of such materials or 
 means, so that speed in their transport is no object, but cheap- 
 ness is ; and if the railroad cannot transport them cheaper, he will 
 prefer the common road, because he has no reloading them to 
 bring them to the spot where they are required. This practical 
 question is not yet determined in England ; but evidently the 
 railroad can only aid, and not supersede the use of good roads ; 
 and is itself comparatively valueless to a country, unless it is fed 
 by a system of good roads all around, and free trade and compe- 
 tition of transport on them. The most enlightened commercial 
 men you meet with in Germany seem not a little fanciful in talk- 
 ing of the vast commerce, and industrial prosperity, to be founded 
 on railroad communications. The transport of passengers on 
 their pleasure tours in summer, and to and from the watering 
 places, is the only business at present on the railroads; and how- 
 ever useful and profitable to the shareholders the amount of this 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 167 
 
 transport may be— and from the nature of the country, the Ger- 
 man railroads have cost the shareholders very little, compared to 
 the usual expense of construction — it adds but little to the internal 
 trade and industry of the country in general, or even of the towns 
 it runs through. It is not, as in England with her railroads, an 
 addition to the facilities which harbours, docks, shipping, a net- 
 work of admirable main and cross-country roads spread over the 
 land, and an unrestricted unquestionable freedom of movement 
 on them for man and goods, give to industry ; but here the rail- 
 road is to be a substitute for, instead of an addition to, all these 
 preliminary steps to a high national state of industry and wealth. 
 This will end in disappointment ; and the rational and attainable 
 objects of the German commercial league, the supply of their own 
 wants by their own industry in the first place, be defeated by 
 straining after objects not attainable — such as a great manufac- 
 turing for a foreign trade, without sea-ports, shipping, or secure 
 access to the foreign markets — and not desirable, if attainable by 
 forced efi'orts and encouragement, until they spring naturally from 
 the overflowings of a great home market for the products of their 
 manufacturing industry. 
 
 It is by raising the condition of the people— their civil and po- 
 litical condition, by removing all the trammels of the military and 
 functionary system upon their personal freedom of action and 
 industry, and by the establishment not only of roads, but of free 
 transport and competition of individual industry on them without 
 any kind of government interference, that the true objects of the 
 German league must be obtained. A hundred Frankforts or 
 Leipsics in Germany would not spread wealth and national pros- 
 perity ; for look at the country a couple of miles from the gates 
 of either of these cities, and you find the roads as impassable, the 
 country people as non-consuming and non-exchanging, and in- 
 dustry as dead, as if these cities had no existence. It is a change 
 in the social economy of Germany that is needed, more than an 
 increase of her class of capitalists. If they arc already driven to 
 manufacture for the foreign consumer, before the home consumers 
 are half supplied with what they might consume, it is clear there 
 is something unsound in the project of beginning to build the 
 national prosperity of Germany under the commercial league, 
 upon a basis which is without and not within the country. Such 
 a change in the social economy of 26 millions of people who have 
 
168 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 but one principle at present in common — that of producing as 
 much of what they consume individually, by their own time and 
 labour, and buying as Kttle of it as possible, — is not to be accom- 
 plished suddenly. It must be the gradual operation of time, of 
 unrestricted intercourse among men, and of civil and political 
 liberty, as it has been in England. The German commercial 
 league, if carried on with the haste, and to the extent, and for the 
 objects which the excited minds of even prudent people in Ger- 
 many call for, and are eager to rush into, will prove a delusion as 
 ruinous as the Mississippi scheme, as devoid of any solid basis, 
 and which the first blast of war will dissolve. 
 
 According to every true German, the league is to be the grand 
 restorer of nationality to Germany, of national character, of na- 
 tional mind, national greatness, national everything, to a new, 
 regenerated German nation. They are to spin and weave them- 
 selves into national spirit, patriotism, and united eifort as one great 
 people. They are to have colonies, if a continent can be disco- 
 vered for them to colonize— an independent flag for their commer- 
 cial league, if the naval powers agree to recognize a nonentity as 
 an effective neutral power on the high seas — and a navy, too, if 
 the Rhine would breed seaman, and Cologne build ships of the 
 line, instead of a dozen or two of river barges. These are inno- 
 cent evaporations of a foggy atmosphere of mind often found 
 among Germans, through which small things appear great, and 
 ideas are taken for realities. Yet the most sensible of the news- 
 paper editors of Germany lend their columns to such day-dreams. 
 The stern reality amidst these childish fancies of the German 
 patriots who ever look to the ideal future, and never to the real 
 present, is, that at no period in modern history have the civil 
 rights and free agency of men in their moral, religious, and in- 
 dustrial relations been more entirely set aside in Germany — at no 
 period have their time and labour been taken from them by go- 
 vernments and local authorities so uselessly and unreproductively 
 for the people, as since the conclusion of the last war. While 
 all that forms the spirit, independent feeling, and moral existence 
 of a nation, and all that forms the wealth and industrial pros- 
 perity of a nation, are kept down by military organization and 
 interference by edictal law, regulations, and functionarism, to a 
 kind of Chinese state of society, German writers dream of na- 
 tional independence, national spirit, national action in European 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 169 
 
 affairs, for the German population. The emancipated negro popu- 
 lation in our West India colonies enjoy in reality more civil and 
 political rights, more free agency, as moral beings, in their reli- 
 gious, social, and domestic relations — have their time and labour 
 more entirely to themselves, and at their own free disposal with- 
 out the interference of government through its civil or military 
 functionaries, than the great mass of the labouring class in Ger- 
 many. The German commercial league may produce a decided 
 alteration in this abject social state ; but it begins at the wrong 
 end with its renovation of Germany, if it only encourages the 
 increase of a body of commercial or manufacturing capitalists, on 
 the one hand, supplying the foreign consumer, and a mass of help- 
 less operatives, on the other hand, thrown into misery whenever 
 the foreign consumer cannot or will not take the usual supplies ; 
 and does not begin with laying a sound foundation for a home 
 German market and home consurnpt for German production, by 
 setting free the industry of the people, and by abolishing the mili- 
 tary restraints on their free agency and productive powers. There 
 are good seeds sown by this great movement. It is a powerful 
 demonstration of the will of the people for a common object, and 
 of the people of capital and experience — of the weightiest people 
 of a society. It can only fail of attaining the object, of raising 
 German industry and well-being, by aiming at such an imprac- 
 ticable object as that of making the league an acknowledged po- 
 litical power, and by such impracticable means as that of getting 
 a flag, a fleet, colonies, and all the idle fancies which scholars and 
 newspaper writers pin upon the one wise and attainable object of 
 the league — the raising a home market for industry first, and a 
 foreign market afterwards as a secondary outlet for the products 
 of a manufacturing body of operatives. 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NOTES ON THE PRUSSIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.— ITS EFFECTS ON 
 THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The educational system of Prussia is admirable — admirable as 
 a machinery by which schools, schoolmasters, superintendence of 
 them, checks, rewards both for the taught and the teachers, and 
 in a word education — that word being taken in the meaning of 
 the means of conveying certain very useful acquirements to every 
 class of society, and to every capacity of individuals — are diffused 
 over the country, and by law brought into operation upon every 
 human being in it. The machinery for national education is un- 
 doubtedly very perfect. The military organization of the whole 
 population, and the habitual interference of government in all 
 the doings and concerns of every individual — his very outgoing 
 and incoming being, from the nature of his military service, mat- 
 ter of leave, license, superintendence, and passport— make it as 
 easy to establish an admirable system and regulation in every 
 object government undertakes throughout the kingdom as in 
 a barrack yard. But great statesmen and politicians, especially 
 of the mihtary and nobility,. who see only one class or one side, 
 of society, are very apt to mistake the perfection of the means 
 for the perfection of the end. The mistake is common with our 
 own parliamentary philosophers. An admirable machinery is 
 constructed, which with its various and well-considered regula- 
 tions and checks improved on perhaps by the experience and 
 ingenuity of successive generations, is in reality a masterpiece of 
 human wisdom and contrivance — such for example was our own 
 excise system with its salt laws, and such is the same excise system 
 now, in all that comes under its superintendence : and in the regu- 
 lar working and wise adaptation of all the parts of this beautiful 
 and perfect machinery, we forget that the object itself may not be 
 worth all this wisdom, may be attained in a more easy, natural, 
 and effective way, or may be even not worth attaining. The 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 171 
 
 ^visc!om and perfection of the machinery of the laws, and arrange- 
 ments for attaining the end, are confounded with the vahie and 
 wisdom of the end itself. The educational system of Prussia is 
 no doubt admirable as a machinery ; but the same end is to be 
 attained in a more natural and effective way — by raising the moral 
 condition of the parents to free agency in their duties, or if not — 
 if education, that is, reading, writing, and arithmetic, cannot be 
 brought within the acquirements of the common man's children 
 but upon the Prussian semi-coercive principle of tlie state, through 
 its functionaries, intruding npon the parental duties of each indi- 
 vidual, stepping in between the father and hisfiimily, and enforcing 
 by state regulations, fines, and even imprisonment,* what should 
 be left to the moral sense of duty and natural affection of every 
 parent who is not in a state of pupilage from mental imbecility 
 — then is such education not worth the demoralizing price paid 
 for it — the interference with men as free moral agents, the substi- 
 tution of government enactments and superintendence in the most 
 sacred domestic affairs, for self-guidance by conscience, good prin- 
 ciple, and common sense — the reduction, in short, of the population 
 of a country to the social condition of a soldiery off duty roaming 
 about their parade ground under the eye and at the call of their 
 superiors, without free agency or a sense of moral responsibility. 
 Moral eflccts in society can only be produced by moral influences. 
 We may drill boys into reading and writing machines ; but this 
 is not education. The almost mechanical operations of reading, 
 writing, and reckoning, are unquestionably most valuable ac- 
 quirements — who can deny or doubt it? — but they are not edu- 
 
 * I asked an intelligent Prussian what could be done if a paient refused to 
 send his chikl to school? He told me he had lately been at the police-office 
 when a man was brought in for not sending his girl to school. She could not 
 read, although advancing to the age to be confirmed. The man said his girl 
 was earning her bread at a manufactory which he named, and he could not 
 maintain her at school. He was asked why he did not send her to the even- 
 ing schools established for such cases, and held after working hours, or to the 
 Sunday schools. He said his wife had a large Aimily of young infants, 
 and his girl had to keep them when she came from her work, while her 
 mother was washing for them and doing other needful family work, which 
 she could not do with a child in her arms. The man was told that lie would 
 be committed to prison if he and his wife did not send their girl to school. 
 
 In such a case, would the school-learning be worth that learning which the 
 girl was receiving at home in household work, or in taking care of children? 
 
172 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 cation ; they are the means only, not the end — the tools, not the 
 work, in the education of man. We are too ready in Britain 
 to consider them as tools which will work of themselves — that 
 if the labouring man is taught to read his Bible, he becomes 
 necessarily a moral, religious man — that to read is to think. This 
 confounding of the means with the end is practically a great error. 
 We see no such effects from the acquisition of much higher 
 branches of school education, and by those far above the social 
 position of the labouring man. Reading and writing are ac- 
 quirements very widely diffused in Paris, in Italy, in Austria, in 
 Prussia, in Sweden ; but the people are not moral, nor religious, 
 nor enUghtened, nor free, because they possess the means: they 
 are not of educated mind in any true sense. If the ultimate object 
 of all education and knowledge be to raise man to the feeling of 
 his own moral worth, to a sense of his responsibility to his Creator 
 and to his conscience for every act, to the dignity of a reflecting, 
 self-guiding, virtuous, religious member of society, then the Prus- 
 sian educational system is a failure. It is only a training from 
 childhood in the conventional discipline and submission of mind 
 which the state exacts from its subjects. It is not a training or 
 education which has raised, but which has lowered, the human 
 character. This system of interference and intrusion into the inmost 
 domestic relations of the people, this educational drill of every 
 family by state means and machinery, supersedes parental tuition. 
 It is a fact not to be denied that the Prussian population is at this 
 day when the fruits of this educational system may be appreciated 
 in the generation of the adults, in a remarkably demoralized con- 
 dition in those branches of moral conduct which cannot be taught 
 in schools, and are not taught by the parents, because parental 
 tuition is broken in upon by governmental interference in Prussia, 
 its efficacy and weight annulled, and the natural dependence of 
 the child upon the words and wisdom of its parent— the delicate 
 threads by which the infant's mind, as its body, draws nutriment 
 from its parent — is ruptured. They know little of human nature 
 who know not that more of moral education may be conveyed in 
 a glance of a mother's eye, than in a whole course of reading and 
 writing under educational sergeants in primary schools and gym- 
 nasia. Of all the virtues, that which the domestic family education 
 of both the sexes most obviously influences — that which marks more 
 clearly than any other the moral condition of a society, the home 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 173 
 
 State of moral and religious principles, the efficiency of those prin- 
 ciples in it, and the amount of that moral restraint upon passions 
 and impulses, which it is the object of education and knowledge 
 to attam — is undoubtedly female chastity. Will any traveller, 
 will any Prussian, say that this index-virtue of the moral condi- 
 tion of a people is not lower in Prussia than in almost any part of 
 Europe ?* It is no uncommon event in the family of a respectable 
 tradesman in Berlin to find upon his breakfast table a little baby, 
 of which, whoever may be the father, he has no doubt at all about 
 the maternal grandfather. Such accidents are so common in the 
 class in which they are least common with us — the middle class 
 removed from ignorance or indigence — that they are regarded but 
 as accidents, as youthful indiscretions, not as digraces afrecting,as 
 with us, the respectability and happiness of all the kith and kin 
 for a generation. This educational drill of ail the children of 
 the community to one system, in schools in which the parent has 
 no control or election of what is taught, or by whom, or how, is a 
 very suitable prelude to the education that follows it — the barrack 
 life of all the Prussian youth during three years of the most pre- 
 cious period of human life for forming the moral habits and cha- 
 racter of the man as a future member of society. The unsettled 
 military life for three years of every Prussian on his entrance into 
 the world as a man, the idleness, want of forethought, and frivolity 
 inseparable from his condition during this period, his half military, 
 half civilian state, neither one nor the other, during all the rest of 
 his life, his condition of pupilage under his military or civil func- 
 tionaries, in every act or movement during his existence, from his 
 primary school service (schulpflichtigkeit) to his being enrolled in 
 old age as a landsturm man, are in realily the steps of his educa- 
 tion. Are these the steps to any of the true objects of education; 
 
 * In 1837 the number of females' in the Prussian population between tlie 
 beginning of their 16th year and the end of their 45th year — that is, within 
 child-bearing age, — was 2,983,146; the number of illegitimate children bom 
 in the same year was 39,501, so that 1 in every 75 of the whole of the 
 females of an age to bear cliildren, had been the mother of an illegitimate 
 child. 
 
 Prince Pukler Muskau states in one of his late publications (Siidostliclier 
 Bildersaal, 3 Theil. 1841), that the character of the Prussians for honesty 
 stands far lower than that of any other of the German populations; but ho 
 adduces no statistical data for this opinion. As a Prussian, he would scarcely 
 come to such a conclusion if it were not generally believed in Cennany. 
 
174 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 to the attainment of any high feeling of individual moral worth 
 and dignity ? This educational system is in reality, from the 
 cradle to the grave, nothing but a deception, a delusion put upon 
 the noblest principle of human nature — the desire for intellectual 
 development— a deception practised for the paltry poUtical end of 
 rearing the individual to be part and parcel of an artificial and 
 despotic system of government, of training him to be either its 
 instrument or its slave, according to his social station. 
 
 The British government has accomplished a much wiser and 
 more effective educational measure — the only measure, perhaps, 
 which, without giving umbrage to some political or clerical body 
 or other, could have been adopted for the general education of the 
 people— by the reduction of the postage on letters. This has 
 brought the use and advantage of education home to the common 
 man, for it no longer costs him a day's wages to communicate 
 with his family. This great moral improvement in the condition 
 of the lower class extends the influences of advice, admonition, 
 and family affection among them. The postage was, in reality, 
 a tax upon these moral influences. The people will educate 
 themselves in a single generation, for the sake of the advantages 
 this great measure has bestowed on education. A state-machinery 
 of schools and school-masters spread over the country on the Prus- 
 sian system, would probably have cost more than the sacrifice of 
 revenue by the reduction of postage, and, owing to the clashing 
 of religious parties, would never have been so effective in extend- 
 ing education. The means in fact of education — a neighbour to 
 teach reading and writing — were not wanting, were to be found 
 in every parish, and the want of schools was a far smaller obstacle 
 to the diff"usion of education than the want of any desire of the 
 people themselves for education. The labouring class saw no 
 advantage or benefit from it. This obstacle is overcome without 
 interference with the religious opinions of any class or sect ; and 
 it will be found that already the business of the schoolmaster in 
 society is providing for itself, like that of the miller or the black- 
 smith, without any aid from church or state. The supply will 
 follow the demand in education, as in every other human want ; 
 and the demand will be efl'ective in producing supply, just in pro- 
 portion to the value and use of the article in ordinary life. This 
 measure will be the great historical distinction of the reign of 
 Victoria I. Every mother in the kingdom who has children 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 175 
 
 earning their bread at a distance, lays her head upon her pillow 
 at night with a feeling of gratitude for this blessing. It is the 
 great and enviable distinction of the late liberal n:iinistry, that they 
 carried this measure boldly into effect without cripphng its moral 
 influence by reduction of a part only of this tax on the communi- 
 cations of the people. 
 
 Selbtsgefuhl is a superb word which the German language 
 possesses, to describe the sense of one's own moral dignity as a 
 man ; but the feeling or sentiment it expresses is wanting in a 
 remarkable degree where you expect to find it strongest, — among 
 the German youth, the nationally educated youth. Did it ever 
 happen to a. traveller taking a walk in the neighbourhood of Ox- 
 ford, Cambridge, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Saint 
 Andrews, or of any of the universities in the United States, to be 
 accosted by a stout, able-bodied, well-enough-dressed student 
 begging, with cap in hand, for money from the passengers on the 
 high road ? Ten thousand to one no man alive ever witnessed 
 such debasement of mind among the youth of those countries, 
 educated or not educated. The lad would sell his clothes, work, 
 enlist, starve, drown, hang, but beg he would not. In Germany, 
 within half a mile of the University of Bonn, on a Sunday evening 
 when all the town was abroad walking, I have seen a student in 
 tolerably good clothes, his tobacco-pipe in his mouth, begging 
 with his hat off" on the public road, running after passengers and 
 carriages, soliciting charity, and looking very sulky when refused; 
 and the young man in full health, and with clothes on his back 
 that would sell for enough to keep him for a week. This is no 
 uncommon occurrence on the German roads. Every traveller 
 on the roads around Heidelberg, Bonn, and the other university 
 towns of Germany, must have frequently and daily witnessed this 
 debasement of mind among the youth. This want of sensibility 
 to shame, or public opinion, or to personal moral dignity, is a 
 defect of character produced entirely by the system of government 
 interference in all education and all human action. It is an ex- 
 ample of its moral working on society. It is not from moral 
 worth, character, or conduct in their private relations, but from 
 government, from educational, military, or civil functionaries, that 
 the studying class have, in every stage of life, to seek advance- 
 ment. The generous feelings, impulses, and motives of youth, 
 
176 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 by which all means of living in any of the liberal professions, or 
 even in the ordinary branches of industry, are to be obtained only 
 by government license, appointment, and favour,* not by moral 
 worth, merit, and exertion gaining the public estimation. Morally 
 they are slaves of enslaved minds. Compulsory education, com- 
 pulsory religion, compulsory military service, and the finger of 
 government interfering in all action and opinion, and leaving 
 nothing to free will and uncontrolled individual judgment, produce 
 youths well educated, as it is called, because they can read, write, 
 and sing, well dressed, well drilled, and able bodied ; and whose 
 selbstgefuhl, whose moral sense has not been educated, raised, 
 and cultivated, even to the extent of making them feel debased or 
 degraded at running, cap in hand, begging at the side of carriages 
 on the highway. 
 
 This want of self-respect in the German character, produced by 
 the educational and social system, and the undue importance in 
 the German mind, of rank, office, and conventional distinction, 
 and the undue weight of these in the social economy of Germany, 
 are strongly marked by the profusiont of orders, stars, crosses, 
 ribbons, and empty titles, with which the people, both of civil 
 and military station, adorn and gratify themselves. Every third 
 man you meet in the streets has a label in his button-hole, 
 telling all the world, "lam a knight, look at me." No very 
 young man among the continental military can have ever heard 
 a bullet whistle in the field ; so that even by this class no very 
 profound respect for the ribbon at the button-hole can be claimed, 
 and none at all by the ordinary civil classes who trick themselves 
 out with it en militaire. The feeling of personal worth — the 
 pride, it may be — seems unknown to them, which leads the Bri- 
 tish nobleman, gentleman of high station, or military officer, who 
 
 * In 1834; for every 100 church or school situations to be filled up in the 
 Prussian dominions, there were 262 candidates qualified by studies at the 
 universities; for every 100 juridical situations, 256 candidates; for every 100 
 medical, 196 candidates. 
 
 t The difference of national character between the English and continental 
 people on this point is illustrated by the circumstance that in 1834 the mem- 
 bers of a single continental order — the French order of the legion of honour — 
 amounted to 49,620 persons, and in the same year the five British orders 
 numbered only 906 membei-s, and of these the greater number were persons 
 of that social distinction from birth, rank, or office, that the decoration of an 
 order was but an adjunct of little importance. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 177 
 
 may have been honoured with a British or foreign order, to wear 
 it only on particular parade occasions. He feels that he is some- 
 thing without the external testimonial of it : the German takes 
 the emblem for the thing itself The English gentleman would 
 think it quite as inconsistent with his personal dignity to walk 
 about on ordinary occasions, in the ordinary circles of society, 
 with his stars, crosses, and ribbons plastered on his breast, as 
 with the gazette of the actions in which he had won his distinc- 
 tions plastered on his back. The German, again, ties his bit of 
 red ribbon even to the button-hole of his dressing-gown ; the 
 merchant goes to his counting-house, the apothecary to the bar- 
 ber's shop to be shaved, the professor to his lecture room, in 
 crosses and ribbons, as if they were going to the levee of the 
 sovereign. The upper classes of society in all countries are said 
 to be very much alike, and to show few of the peculiar distinctive 
 differences which mark the national character in the middle and 
 lower classes of each country. This is a mistake. The English 
 gentleman, from the highest rank to the very lowest that assumes 
 the appellation, is distinguished from the continental gentleman 
 by this peculiar trait of character — his dependence on himself for 
 his social position, his self-esteem, call it pride, or call it a high- 
 minded feeling of his own worth. There he stands, valuing 
 himself upon something within himself, and not upon any out- 
 ward testimonials of it conferred by others. This feeling goes 
 very deep into society in England. 
 
 It is often objected to us by foreigners, that we pay the same, 
 or even greater respect and deference to wealth, than they pay 
 to the external honours conferred on merit by the sovereign : that 
 wealth with us, as a social distinction, takes the place even of 
 moral merits, and "what is a man worth" means how many 
 pounds sterling he has, without any reference to his merits, real 
 or conventional, to his birth, education, morals, manners, or other 
 distinctions; that if he is poor, he is nothing in our society; if 
 rich, he is everything. This too is a mistake, a wrong conclusion 
 from right premises. Wealth has all that pre-eminence in social 
 distinction with us, which the foreign traveller observes ; and even 
 more than he observes, censures, and is witty over. But what 
 is wealth? It is a proof, a token undeniable of great industry, 
 great energy, great talent in his sphere, great social activity and 
 utility in the possessor, or in his predecessor who acquired it. It 
 
178 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 is the indubitable proof, generally speaking, of great and success- 
 ful exertion of prudence, skill, mental power applied to material 
 interests, and of extensive social action ; and what ought to be 
 honoured and esteemed, and held in the highest estimation in an 
 enlightened society, if not the visible proof of these social vir- 
 tues in the owner or his predecessors? The deference paid to 
 mere wealth honestly acquired, its pre-eminence as a social dis- 
 tinction, stands upon far more philosophical grounds than the 
 social distinction of mere ancestry, or of mere function, or of mere 
 title, or of the empty honours conferred by a sovereign. Wealth 
 is an independent social power, and is the equivalent in the mate- 
 rial world to genius and talent in the intellectual. The Roths- 
 childs, the Barings, and these great millionaires are in the world 
 of pounds, shillings, and pence, what the Shakspeares, Goethes, 
 Schillers, are in the world of ideas ; and their social action and 
 influence, their wielding of a vast social power in the working of 
 which the fortunes, the comfort, the bread of millions are involved, 
 require a grasp of mind, and are entitled to a social distinction, 
 beyond the comprehension of the mustachioed German baron, 
 who, issuing from some petty metropolis, finds to his utter asto- 
 nishment that mere wealth commands greater respect in this 
 working world of realities than his sixteen ancestors, his Ueuten- 
 ant's commission, his chamberlain's key embroidered on his coat 
 flap, and his half a dozen orders at his button holes. The com- 
 mon sense of all countries gives this social distinction to wealth, 
 above any other distinction that is not purely moral or intellectual. 
 The principle is as clearly felt in Russia as in America; and 
 where public opinion is in free action, as in England, it super- 
 sedes the principle of mere conventional distinctions so far, that 
 the latter without the former — nobility, titles, functions, orders, 
 without wealth — are of no social weight. This common, almost 
 instinctive judgment of all men under all varieties of government, 
 according this pre-eminence of social distinction to mere wealth, 
 proves that this judgment is right, that it is founded on some 
 natural, just, and useful social principle, which cannot be philo- 
 sophized away ; that wealth, mere wealth, is a more natural and 
 just ground of social distinction, than any conventional ground 
 from mere birth, mere court favour, mere title, or mere rank. It 
 arises from the people, and is conferred by the people ; and all 
 other conventional distinctions arise from, and are conferred by 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 179 
 
 the will of the court or sovereign. The encroachment of the 
 former upon the latter is a barometer showing the real progress 
 of a community towards a just estimation of social worth and 
 action, and towards a higher moral condition. Where every third 
 man is lounging about as in Prussia, and generally o;i the Conti- 
 nent, with his orders of merit of some kind or other— and many 
 whose general merits would apparently be nothing the worse of 
 the addition of a little industry to earn a new coat to stick their 
 honours upon — the people, be their forms of government what 
 they may, are but in a low social and industrial condition— are 
 ages behind us in their social economy, and in their true social 
 education as free agents and members of the community. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF PRUSSIA CONTINUED.— ON 
 ITS EFFECTS ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.— ON 
 THE PRUSSIAN CHURCH. 
 
 The educational system of Prussia has been raised to such an 
 influence on the arrangements of other governments for the edu- 
 cation of the people, and from the writings of Cousins, and other 
 distinguished poUtical philosophers, has been viewed in every 
 country with such favour by men of all varieties of opinion in 
 religion and politics, that it will be necessary to consider fully its 
 operation on the moral and physical condition of the Prussian 
 subjects, on their religious and social state. The state of religion 
 under this educational system claims the first place. 
 
 The great proof of the deteriorating working of the Prussian 
 educational system upon the public mind is, that the public mind 
 lay torpid and unmoved when the religious establishments of the 
 Protestant church, the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, were 
 abolished by royal edict, and a third thing — a new Prussian 
 church neither Lutheran nor Calvinistic — was set up, and im- 
 posed by the edict of civil power upon the Protestant population. 
 The abolition of the religious observances and modes of public 
 worship in which they had been bred, was quietly submitted to 
 by an educated population of eight millions of Protestants, as a 
 matter of police, not of conscience, as a matter quite as much 
 within the legitimate right and power of their government, as a 
 change in their custom-house laws — so low has this educational 
 system reduced the religious and moral sense in Prussia, and the 
 feeling of individual right to freedom of conviction — and except 
 from a few villages in Silesia which refused to abandon the Lu- 
 theran liturgy and observances, scarcely a murmur was heard 
 from this educated population at a measure not only destructive 
 to the Protestant religion, but the most arbitrary, and insulting to 
 freedom of mind and conscience that has occurred in modern 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. l8l 
 
 history. If eight millions of people, people with arms in their 
 hands, are brought by this educational system to regard with 
 indifference the interference of government with all that free men 
 deem sacred in life, with family education, religion, conscience, 
 free agency, and opinion in religious belief— to be the passive 
 slaves of a government in which they are not represented — to be 
 nothing but machines to be managed by the hands of a host of 
 public functionaries— then let us educate our own families in our 
 own way in Britain, or not educate them at all, rather than adopt 
 a system of national education for teaching reading and writing, 
 so deteriorating to the higher objects of education — the cultivation 
 of moral and religious sentiment, and independence of mind among 
 the people. 
 
 The history of the new Prussian church, will be one of the 
 most important chapters to posterity, and is now the most im- 
 portant to the Protestant interest in the history of this age. The 
 subject is but little known among us ; and, although it is too grave 
 and important for its place, cannot be passed over here without 
 giving at some length the facts and observations regarding it 
 which the traveller has gathered. To some these will be dull 
 reading ; to others, to not a few in the present religiously excited 
 state of the public mind in Britain, they will be of deep interest. 
 The Prussian population, in 1S37, consisted, according to the 
 official report of Von Hoffman, director of the statistical bureau, 
 of 14,098,125 souls, of whom 
 
 8,604,748 were of the United Evangelical or new Prussian Church. 
 
 5,294,003 were of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 1,300 were of the Greek Church. 
 14,495 were Mennonites or Moravians. 
 183,579 were Jews, of whom 102.917 had civil rights as Prussian sub- 
 jects. 
 
 14,098,12.5 
 
 Of the eight and a half millions of the former Protestant, now 
 Evangelical Prussian church, the proportions of those who were 
 Luthern and Calvinistic are not known, as, after the amalgama- 
 tion of the two, in IS 1 7, into one church by royal edict, the dis- 
 tinction was considered as abolished in all official acts. 
 
 It appears from the proclamation of his late majesty, of Sep- 
 tember 27, 1817, addressed to these eight and a half millions of 
 his Protestant subjects, that the amalgamation of the Lutheran 
 
182 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and Calvinistic churches into one Prussian church had been a 
 favourite idea of the royal family for some generations. The 
 political object, probably, was to raise Prussia to the same posi- 
 tion with regard to Protestant Germany in which Austria stands 
 with regard to Catholic Germany — to make the Prussian house 
 the civil head and protector of Protestantism. This proclamation 
 or announcement of the royal will to unite the two branches of 
 the Protestant church into one is of date September 27, 1817, and 
 in words as follows : — " My illustrious ancestors, the Elector John 
 Sigismund, the Elector George William, the great Elector and 
 King Frederic I., and King Frederic William IL, laboured with 
 anxious and pious care, as the history of their lives and govern- 
 ment shows, to unite the two divided Protestant churches, the 
 Lutheran and the Reformed (Calvinistic), into one evangelic 
 Christian church in their land. Honouring their memory and 
 salutary intentions, I willingly join in this purpose, and pray that 
 a work pleasing to God, which in their days, met with insur- 
 mountable obstacles from an unhappy sectarian spirit, may, under 
 the influence of a better spirit which sets aside the non-essential, 
 and holds fast by the essential in Christianity in which both con- 
 fessions of faith agree, be accomplished in my states, to the honour 
 of God and the welfare of the Christian church, at the approaching 
 centenary commemoration of the Reformation. Such a truly reli- 
 gious union of the two Protestant churches, separated as they are 
 only by external differences, accords with the great end of Chris- 
 tianity, fulfils the first intentions of the reformers, is in the spirit 
 of Protestantism, promotes the public worship, is advantageous 
 to domestic piety, and will be the spring of many useful improve- 
 ments in schools and churches, which are now prevented by dif 
 ferences of faith. To this wholesome, long-wished-for, and often 
 vainly attempted union, in which the Reformed (Calvinistic) church 
 will not have to go over to the Lutheran, nor the Lutheran to the 
 Reformed, but both will form one new-created, evangelical Chris- 
 tian church in the spirit of their holy Founder, no obstacle now 
 exists in the nature of things, provided both these parties earn- 
 esdy, and in true Christian spirit, desire it ; and on the approach- 
 ing occasion of returning thanks to Divine Providence for the 
 unspeakable blessing of the Reformation, show that they truly 
 honour the memory of its great founder by carrying on his im- 
 mortal work. But much as I wish that the Reformed and 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 183 
 
 Lutheran churches in my dominions may partake with me in 
 these well-considered views, I respect their rights and liberty, and 
 am far from pressing them, on this occasion, to adopt and estab- 
 lish it. This union can only be of real value if neither persua- 
 sion nor indifference induce its acceptance, but a real and free 
 conviction ; and if its roots and existence be not planted in the 
 inward heart, and not merely in outward forms. As 1 myself 
 intend in this spirit to commemorate the centenary fast day in 
 celebration of the Reformation, in a union of the two congrega- 
 tions (hitherto called the Reformed and the Lutheran congrega- 
 tions of the garrison and court attendants at Potsdam) into one 
 evangelical Christian congregation, and to partake with it of the 
 holy sacrament of the Lord's supper, so I trust this my own 
 example will operate beneficially on all the Protestant congrega- 
 tions in my dominions, and will be generally followed in spirit 
 and in truth. I leave it to the wisdom of the consistories, and 
 the pious zeal of the clergy and their synods, to determine the 
 outward concurring forms of this union, convinced that the con- 
 gregations will in true Christian spirit willingly follow them, and 
 that wheresoever the view is directed to what is the essential, and 
 to the great holy subject itself, the forms will be easily adjusted, 
 and the externals will of themselves proceed from the internals, 
 simple, dignified, and true. May the promised period arrive 
 when all shall form one flock under one shepherd, with one 
 spirit, one love, one hope !" 
 
 The previous attempts at an union of the two churches alluded 
 to in this proclamation were, probably, the following. In 1615, 
 John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburgh, who had left the 
 Lutheran for the Reformed Church, held a religious conference 
 between the two churches to accommodate their differences. But 
 these were " the good old times," which our Puseyites and high 
 church party would wish to bring back. The Lutheran clergy 
 were too intolerant to listen to the sister church. " Catholic 
 rather than Calvinist," was then, as no^, the field-cry ; and it 
 was the common fashion to give dogs the name of Calvin. In 
 1631, Sigismund's successor, George' William, sent theologians to 
 a religious conference between the churches held at Lcipsic, with 
 the same intentions and the same success. His son, Frederic 
 William, also brought together a conference which, in 16(i2-63, 
 sat for several months, and produced nothing. His son, King 
 
184 NOTES OP A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Frederic II., in 1703 and 1707, attempted it also in vain. In 1736, 
 his son Frederic William took it up zealously, and proposed to 
 drop the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, which is the great 
 stumbling-block to the genuine Lutheran, if the Lutheran church 
 Avould give up those ceremonials of the Popish church offensive 
 to Calvinistic eyes and ears, — the altar, the wafer at the sacra- 
 ment, the high mass robes, the chanting the collect, &c. Many 
 Lutheran congregations were not averse to such an union ; but 
 in the two following reigns other objects and interests occupied 
 the attention of government ; and the congregations of each church 
 adhered to the usages and principles, now hallowed by time, of 
 their respective branches of Protestantism. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that under Frederic the Great, indiffer- 
 ence about rehgion of any form spread widely in Prussia. Infi- 
 delity was the fashion of the times in literature. Germany had 
 no literature of her own at that period, and even the German 
 language was held in such contempt that in noblemen's families 
 in Germany, not sixty years ago, the children were not allowed 
 to hear German, for fear of spoiUng their French idiom. Every 
 thing was French, or an attempt at it ; and with Voltaire and 
 Frederic himself at the head of all that was literary and intellec- 
 tual, the tendency was certainly not towards religion. It is a 
 natural effect of great calamities on nations, as on individuals, that 
 they either make the mind grossly irreligious, or grossly supersti- 
 tious. War, the greatest of all calamities, always leaves behind 
 one or the other of these'extremes. The seven year' war, followed 
 by a period of dissipation and irreligion in all the little Frenchi- 
 fied German courts, produced, in general, irreligious action even 
 very deep down in society. The progress of the French Revo- 
 lution had no tendency, from first to last, to religionize the minds 
 of the German population ; and when the third centenary com- 
 memoration, in 1817, of the reformation approached, the Prussian 
 people were in a state of stolid indifference, apparently, on reli- 
 gious matters. The religious feelings of the congregations of 
 both churches were cooled down to zero, or at least to the amal- 
 gamation-point. The monarch himself, it appears from this pro- 
 clamation, did not consider his court attendants and garrison at 
 Potsdam entitled to have any religious scruple, or freedom of 
 will, about taking the sacrament in any way the king pleased. 
 These congregations were commanded. On the 31st of October, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 185 
 
 1817, the sacrament was administered to them, and to his majesty, 
 according to the new union-ritual. A king's wishes are com- 
 ni'ands, and strong commands, when his own example is laid 
 down as the rule to be followed. Out of about S950 congrega- 
 tions of the Protestant faith in Prussia, 7750 were reported to 
 have joined the union, and adopted the new ritual. The public 
 mind was in reality quite prepared for the step, if government 
 thought the step worth the taking. Accustomed to obey without 
 murmur or remonstrance, ignorant even of the intentions of their 
 own government until they appear as fixed edictal laws like mili- 
 tary orders, the people have no opportunity of thinking, much 
 less of petitioning, or reclaiming, or making public opinion known 
 upon any proposed public measures, A people in this state is 
 ready for any step, in external ceremonial observance at least, 
 that may be commanded. 
 
 On the 30th June, 1817, an order from the minister of home 
 affairs abolished the names of Lutheran and Reformed (Calvin- 
 istic) churches, and also the historically significant and distinctive 
 name of Protestant church, and enjoined and commanded the 
 general use of the name Evangelical church only. Being fitted 
 with a church, and their church with a name, the few who cared 
 for such things began to consider wherein consists the difference 
 between this new Prussian church and the churches of Luther 
 and Calvin. These two are not merely separated, as the royal 
 proclamation says, by external differences from each other, but 
 by doctrinal and essential difl'erences. Calvinism, as it exists in 
 Scotland, or in Switzerland, is far more widely separated both in 
 doctrine and church observances, from Lutheranism, as it exists 
 in Denmark or other purely Lutheran countries, than Lutheran- 
 ism itself is from the Roman Catholic church. In what does this 
 new Prussian church differ, or in what does it agree with either 
 of those two main branches of the Protestant religion ? 
 
 It was soon discovered that the Berlin synod, who, abolishing 
 Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Protestantism, even to the very 
 names, had framed this third thing to pleasure the royal will, 
 had proceeded upon no doctrinal principles whatsoever, but upon 
 a mere difference in the external observances of public worship ; 
 and by an unworthy equivoque, unworthy of Christian ministers, 
 or of men sitting upon public affairs of religious import, liad 
 framed those external observances so that, with a safe conscience, 
 13 
 
186 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 — that is, as religious conscience goes in countries without mental 
 freedom, — any man, Lutheran or Caivinist, might partake of the 
 sacrament of the Lord's snpper in this new Prussian evangehcal 
 church, without being less a Lutheran or less a Calvinist than he 
 was before. This may be very clever, but is scarcely honest. 
 The following explanation will show the nature of this church 
 trick. 
 
 The difference between the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches 
 consists essentially in their different doctrines on the sacrament of 
 the Lord's supper, and on predestination. These are the two main 
 points, with regard to which the one church cannot go over to the 
 other. The old orthodox Lutheranism teaches, relative to the 
 sacrament, " there is a real substantial presence, participation, and 
 enjoyment of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, which, 
 by means of an incomprehensible, so called, sacramental union 
 with bread and wine, is so connected with it that the partaker, 
 while he receives the elements, partakes also of the real body of 
 Christ ivith and under bread and wine, wliich, however, is not 
 an impanation ; that is to say, is not so to be understood as if the 
 body of Christ was locally enclosed in the bread, or was connected 
 with it out of the sacramental participation. The participation of 
 the body and blood of Christ takes place not merely in a spiritual 
 manner by faith, but by the mouth ; but also not in a gross way, 
 as if the body of Jesus was crushed by the teeth, and digested like 
 other food ; but it is a true, although supernatural sacramental 
 eating of the body of Christ, which cannot be explained and com- 
 prehended, but is to be taken up merely by faith, and subjection 
 of reason under obedience to Christ." This is the original Luthe- 
 ran doctrine, as laid down in the Concordia Formularis of instruc- 
 tion on the sacrament. The Puseyite of the English church may 
 perhaps understand it : the Calvinist can only wish him joy of his 
 intellect, and honestly confess that it is to him unintelligible. The 
 Lutheran church, however, had practically abandoned the extreme 
 of doctrine on this subject. Some of the greatest of her orthodox 
 theologians, as Zacharias and Storr, had long ago repudiated the 
 gross idea of a manducatio carnis, and had gone over from this 
 doctrine which borders on sheer nonsense, to Calvin's theory of a 
 presentia operativa, and held it to be, practically, a matter of in- 
 difference as to the working of the Lord's supper on the human 
 mind, whether it was received as a fleshly, or a spiritual presence 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 187 
 
 of Christ through a mysterious working of the H0I7 Ghost in the 
 sacramental elements ; and it was generally admitted that, as to 
 practical effect or meaning, Zwingli's milder view of the Lord's 
 supper as commemorative only of the original scriptural event, 
 was preferable to any other theory. The whole Lutheran church 
 had thus, in modern times, a tendency to some modification or 
 other of Calvinistic doctrine on this subject. The great Calvinistic 
 dogma, on the other hand, of predestination, and election from 
 all eternity of those to be saved, was practically receded from by 
 the German Calvinist, and the position of the two churches with 
 regard to this doctrine was reversed. Here the Calvinistic church 
 had openly abandoned this doctrine in the extremx^ extent which 
 went to deny man's free will, and the efficacy of his own moral 
 and religious efforts or merits. The Formula consensus Helvetica, 
 and the Resolutions of the Synod of Dort, are the only symbolical 
 writings of the Calvinistic church on the Continent which retain 
 the doctrine of predestination in all its Calvinistic rigidity. The 
 other German confessions of faith softened and modified it from 
 time to time : and, at last the Heidelburg Catechism omitted it 
 altogether, and the Anhalt Confession directly contradicts it. In 
 this actual state of the public mind in the two great branches of 
 the Protestant church, — with difficulties on each side practically 
 receded from, the Berlin synod had really a clear field for the 
 amalgamation of the two churches, had they set about it honestly. 
 The doctrine of predestination was not pressing, being connected 
 with no religious act or observance of the churches in which it 
 was originally maintained or denied : that of the Lord's supper, 
 again, was pressing, because the sovereign had announced his 
 intention of taking that sacrament on the 31st of October, in com- 
 memoration of the third centenary of the Reformation, in a new 
 way that was to unite the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches into 
 one new church, form, and doctrine.* Instead of meeting the 
 
 * II is curious in history to find, sometimes, extremes meeting; to find ar- 
 bitrary autocracy in Prussia, and democratic government in the French repub- 
 lic, adopting the same measure for the same object, and by the same means ; 
 viz., amalgamation of the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, for the concen- 
 tration of civil authority over the congregations through tlieir religion, and by 
 means of a consistory of the clergy of both churches. Under tlie date 2] Ven- 
 tose. An. 10 de la Republique, citoyen Vanricura, sous-prefet of the Arrondisse- 
 ment of Simmern, in the department of the Rhine and Moselle, makes a report 
 
188 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 difficulty obviously arising from the two distinct doctrines honestly 
 and boldly, the synod opened a Jesuitical side-door through which 
 the slender consciences at least, if not the robust, of both Lutherans 
 and Calvinists, could slip in and go to the table, and slip out, and 
 each take the sacrament, and please His Majesty, without offence 
 to his own church doctrines. The synod amalgamated the forms, 
 and left the substance, the doctrine, to shift for itself. In the con- 
 secration of the elements in the Lutheran, and in the Calvinistic 
 church, it is distinctly announced to the communicant in what 
 sense it is presented to him — in the one, it is as the body and blood 
 — in the other it is as the symbols of the body and blood. The 
 synod of Berlin evaded the dilemma, by not consecrating the 
 elements at all, either in the one or the other sense, but presenting 
 them to the communicant with the historical averment, " Christ 
 said, This is my body," &c. " Christ said, This is my blood," &c. 
 Now that Christ said so is not doubted ; but the question is, in 
 what sense did Christ say so ? in the Lutheran or in the Calvin- 
 istic sense ? By a quirk, unworthy of the importance of the act, 
 the Lutheran or the Calvinist might receive the sacrament in this 
 new church, and each give the meaning he pleases, or that which 
 is taught in his own church, to it. Nay, the Jew, or the Maho- 
 metan, might very safely take the elements as here presented, 
 without compromising his own faith, for they are only presented 
 historically, and require no religious belief, no belief but in the 
 historical fact, that on a certain occasion Christ said. This is my 
 body — This is my blood;— a fact,;?er se, not doubtful, nor ques- 
 tioned. This was no union of the Calvinistic and Lutheran 
 
 to the prefet upon the union of the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches; and a 
 consistory of ministers of both churches recommends the adoption of a com- 
 mon ritual and an union, using almost the same phrases as the Prussian 
 monarch; viz., that they differ only in the accessories and not in the essential. 
 The German editor of this document (to be found in Number 5 of Denk- 
 schriften und Brefe zur Characteristic der Welt und Literatur, Berlin, 1841) 
 slyly observes, " that the principal difference between this attempt and those 
 made in later times to unite the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches is, that the 
 union was left.by the French government to be effected entirely by the clergy 
 themselves, without the slightest influence to be used with the congregations 
 to adopt it uirless by their own desire." The report of the sous-prefet, in re- 
 commending the measure, proposes that it should be left entirely to time, and 
 the free will of the people ; and considers the Protestants of both churches not 
 ripe for such an amalgamation generally. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 189 
 
 churches, bat a hocus pocus* trick played at the altar, by wliicli 
 eacli might do the same religious act with totally difl'erent mean- 
 ings. The difference between the two may practically and in 
 religious effect on the human mind be of no importance, and the 
 question itself be unintelligible on the Lutheran side ; but this is a 
 knavish way of getting rid of the difficulty, and the union is but 
 a deception as to doctrine or meaning. It is only a union of a 
 form which both churches may use, the form having no reference 
 at all to their distinctive doctrines, or to any doctrine of its own. 
 There was religious sentiment enough in some corners of Prussia 
 to object to this fiction ; but the new church with its no meaning 
 would have been generally adopted as a very good cloak under 
 wliich a man might wear what religious opinions he pleased, and 
 still be clad like his neighbours— and in this view it was considered 
 both a clever and useful church trick — if the unfortunate rage of 
 the Prussian government to make all things uniform, to centralize, 
 and, for the facility of command, to uniformize all things, had not 
 pushed matters too rapidly. A new church Agenda, which should 
 give perfect uniformity to the service of the new Prussian church, 
 was composed, by order of his majesty, in 1822, by the former 
 Lutheran and Calvinistic divines, under the auspices of Dr. Eylert 
 and Dr. Neander. When this new form of worship, however, 
 came to be introduced, it met with unexpected and universal op- 
 position from the congregations. In many districts of a kingdom 
 made up of patches from other countries, it was alleged that the 
 rights of the Protestant faith confirmed by the laws of the land, 
 allowed the Protestant congregations themselves to form and settle 
 the external forms of their worship, and it is probable that they 
 really had such rights reserved, when turned over, as in Germany 
 was not unfrequently the case, from a Lutheran to a Calvinistic, 
 or to a Catholic master, from political objects. Another great 
 party, the liberal, began to think that however liberal the new 
 Prussian church appeared in its doctrine, or want of doctrine, the 
 Agenda prescribing forms of prayer to be adopted, and alone 
 tolerated, was an attempt to impose new shackles on the human 
 mind, (o turn religion into a support of despotism, and to train the 
 Prussian mind, as the Russian mind is trained, into a religious 
 
 * Hocus Pocus is said to be derived from llie mockery of the common 
 people, at the Reformation, of the Catliolic words of consecration of the .sacra- 
 mental elements — hoc est corpus — tnmsubstautiatiun allending the words. 
 
190 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 \''eneration for, and almost worship of, the supreme autocratic 
 head of the state.* The monarch was impatient of opposition 
 and delay, and forgetting that by his proclamation of 1817 he 
 wants the union to be brought about " neither by persuasion, nor 
 indifference, but by inward conviction," the new form of service 
 v/as introduced with armed force, all objections to it were crushed 
 as treasonable, and on some poor villages in Silesia which obsti- 
 nately refused to exchange the old Lutheran service for the new, 
 troops were quartered on the people to be supported at their ex- 
 pense — that is to live in free quarters as if they were enemies in 
 the land, until the people conformed. The people were ruined, 
 and a few of these poor martyrs, about six hundred in number, 
 calling themselves old Lutherans, found their way by Hamburgh 
 and Hull to America — the last of the religious martyrs, it is to be 
 hoped, whom the persecution of a despot will drive to her forests. 
 Ten years after the establishment of the new Prussian church, 
 Bishop Eylert of Potsdam published a defence and explanation 
 of its principle and working—Ueber den Werth, und die Wirkung 
 des evangelische Kirche in den Koniglich Prussischen Staaten 
 bestimmten Liturgie und Agenda, Potsdam, 1830. According to 
 the reverend author's view, the merits of this new liturgy (he was 
 one of the composers of it) consists mainly in this merely historical 
 presentation of the sacramental elements of the Lord's supper ; 
 that is, in its being so presented that each denomination of Chris- 
 tians may take it, and apply his own meaning to it — page 37, 38. 
 The reverend bishop forgets that, so taken, it is no sacrament at 
 all; it is only a reference to an historical fact, not to any religious 
 signification of that fact, such as Catholics, Lutherans, and Cal- 
 vinists attached to it, however widely they may differ from each 
 
 * The following passage from a tract published in 1835, in Berlin, '■'• Send- 
 schreiben wieder die falschen Propheten," and consequently published with 
 the approbation of the censorship, as religious doctrine receiving its z»jpnma/w?-, 
 gives countenance to the supposition that it was a state object to convert reli- 
 gion into a political support of the monarchical principle. " Do ye believe in 
 God? then must ye believe in Christ.' Do ye beheve in Christ? then must ye 
 believe in the king. He is our head on earth, and rules by the order of God. 
 The king has appeared in the flesh in our native land." The censorship has 
 clearly approved of this idea of the incarnation of the divinity in the royal 
 person as suitable religious doctrine for the people ; for no work or passage 
 can be offered to the public without the approbation of the college of censor- 
 ship, g 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 191 
 
 Other as to what that signification is, or ought to be. On his prin- 
 ciple, Jew, Gentile, or Mahometan, miglit receive the sacrament 
 from him, and remain Jew, Gentile, or Mahometan : for it is only- 
 presented to him as figuring an historical fact — not at all doubted, 
 and not at all connected with any peculiar doctrine attached to that 
 fact. This courtly divinity may suit the meridian of Potsdam, but 
 is not Christian divinity. The bishop's defence of, or rather his 
 apology for, his new liturgy, and Agenda, rests upon the following 
 twelve grounds, stated in the work above referred to : — 
 
 1. It is purely biblical in its contents. 
 
 2. Consistent with the instruction of our evangelical church 
 (which must mean consistent with itself, it being the liturgy of 
 what is called the evangelical church, viz., the united Lutheran 
 and Calvinistic churches). 
 
 3. Binding, but not contracting on the mind. 
 
 4. Old church-like in its language and forms. 
 
 5. Awakens and nourishes piety. 
 
 6. Preserves the meaning of the church (viz., of the Protestant 
 church). 
 
 7. Is the operative means of union of the two churches (Lu- 
 theran and Calvinistic). 
 
 8. Is the means of a farther and more sure progress to improve- 
 ment. 
 
 9. Is suited to the times. 
 
 10. Is the firm bond of a church union, and as such the best 
 foundation of a church constitution. 
 
 11. It is purely national. 
 
 12. Is edifying in its origin (viz., from the royal pleasure). 
 
 Of these twelve grounds adduced, and argued upon by the 
 reverend bishop for the adoption and defence of his new liturgy, 
 not one can be called an honestly religious ground. The last six 
 are purely political, not Christian grounds. The first six are theo- 
 logico-political, not doctrinal or scriptural grounds. The expedi- 
 ency for church or state, the adaptation of scriptural phraseology 
 or sentiments to aid that expediency, form no doctrinal or religious 
 grounds for introducing, and imposing by state enactments, a new 
 form of church service, a new mode of public worship, without 
 the consent of the public. Giving even to Bishop Eylert more than 
 he is perhaps willing to take— giving him the admission that the 
 Lutheran doctrine on the sacrament is inconsistent with common 
 
192 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 sense, and the Calvinistic doctrine on predestination equally so — 
 it was incumbent on him to prove that he had discovered in scrip- 
 ture a doctrine which reconciled both, not merely a quirk that 
 avoided both : and that he had found in scripture, or in the doc- 
 trinal writings of the two great founders of the two branches of 
 the Protestant church, a right given to a king and synod, or to a 
 state and church, or to a government of any kind, to intermeddle 
 with the religious belief, observances, doctrines, or even errors of 
 Christian Protestants at all — to impose upon them by state or 
 church power any doctrines, forms, or observances, however good, 
 not assented to by them, not agreeable to their religious convictions. 
 The Lutheran and Calvinistic doctrines, and forms of public wor- 
 ship or church services, such as they are, rational or not rational, 
 liave become types, fixed landmarks in Protestantism, by which 
 Protestant Christians in every land direct their course. Before 
 new landmarks are set up, it is incumbent to prove not only that 
 they are scripturally better, but that those who set them up are en- 
 titled to do so, and entitled to enforce the assent of the Protestant 
 community to them by the aid of the secular arm. In the con- 
 troversy which this new liturgy, thus enforced on the Calvinistic 
 and Lutheran congregations in Prussia, gave rise to. Bishops 
 Eylert and Neander, the ecclesiastical sponsors of this bantling of 
 a Prussian church, are on the horns of a dilemma. If, as Bishop 
 Eylert says, the difference is not essential between his liturgy and 
 the liturgies used in the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, why 
 frame it, why enforce it by the hand of the civil power ? Why 
 tear asunder the bands of peace and harmony in which Protestant 
 Christians were living ? Why impoverish, by quartering troops on 
 them, the recusant villagers of Silesia who in their gross and 
 honest ignorance clung to the religious forms and observances of 
 their forefathers? Why drive them to the wilds of America, pil- 
 grims of the nineteenth century seeking a refuge from religious 
 persecution in her forests ? And from whence ? from the most 
 educated land in Europe, from Prussia ! Why put down and 
 prohibit the exercise of religious worship except within churches, 
 by enactment of 9th March, 1S34— the most anti-christian and 
 tyrannical law ever passed in modern times in any country laying 
 claims to civilization, religion, and the blessings of education. 
 
 But if the difference between the new and the old churches be 
 essential, why do Bishops Eylert and Neander assume that they 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 193 
 
 are the Luther and Calvin of the age, and are even invested with 
 greater power than tlie original reformers ; as without communi- 
 cations or conferences, which the first reformers had, with other 
 Protestant ecclesiastics, or councils of both churches in other 
 lands, they assume the power of cramming their own nostrums 
 down the throat of the whole Protestant church ? Do the reverend 
 bishops declare that it is only for Prussia they promulgate their 
 liturgy ? Their opponents ask if the Protestant church was esta- 
 blished for Prussia only ? If Luther and Calvin preached their 
 doctrines only for Prussia? If Prussia be not a branch, and a 
 principal one, of the general European Protestant church, which 
 these two courtly divines have severed by the hand of the civil 
 power, and on political, not doctrinal grounds, from the parent 
 stem of which it formed a part ? Do these bishops maintain that 
 the Prussian government is entitled to prescribe what religious 
 observances and doctrines it pleases to its own subjects? Then, 
 say their opponents, freedom of religious belief, upon which the 
 Protestant church is founded, is gone. Christianity is safer, and 
 freedom of opinion better protected from the arbitrary hand of 
 the civil power, by having its basis, its point cfappui, out of the 
 reach and beyond the territory of an irresponsible government 
 supreme both in civil and religious affairs — safer, in a word, at 
 Rome than at Potsdam. In an answer and declaration of the 
 magistrates of the city of Berlin, dated 13th July, 1S24, to an 
 official letter of the minister for home affairs, requiring them, as 
 patrons of the city churches, to introduce the new liturgy— a very 
 remarkable document for its independent and well-expressed 
 arguments against the power assumed by the state to impose a 
 liturgy on the subjects — it is observed, " If, notwithstanding the 
 silence of positive law or usage, this liturgical right of the sove- 
 reign is to be held one of the inherent rights of sovereignty, the 
 sovereign must be entitled to the same right of imposing a li- 
 turgy or other church observances on all his subjects equally — 
 on the Catholics as well as on the Protestants. But this is decid- 
 edly not the case with the Catholic population, and the Protestants 
 will be induced rather to go over to the Culfwlic faith, than to 
 be exposed to a constant inquietude of religious conscience by the 
 ever-changing forms of religious worship, imposed according to 
 the pleasure and personal views of each succeeding sovereign. 
 The same liturgical right must be inherent also in Catholic as well 
 as in Protestant sovereigns. How is the Protestant religion to 
 
194 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 subsist at all in Catholic countries in which there are very many 
 Protestant congregations, if the Catholic sovereign has this inher- 
 ent right over tlieir religious observances?" 
 
 The principle that the civil government, or state, or church and 
 state united, of a country is entitled to regulate its religious belief, 
 has more of intellectual thraldom in it than the power of the 
 popish church ever exercised in the darkest ages; for it had no 
 civil power joined to its rehgious power. It only worked through 
 the agency of the civil power of each country. The church of 
 Rome was an independent, distinct, and often an opposing power 
 in every country to the civil power, a circumstance in the social 
 economy of the middle ages, to which, perhaps, Europe is in- 
 debted for her civilization and freedom — for not being in the 
 state of barbarism and slavery of the East, and of every country, 
 ancient and modern, in which the religious and civil power have 
 been united in one government. Civil liberty is closely connected 
 with religious liberty — with the church being independent of the 
 state, although not exactly in the way the Scotch clergy claim 
 for the church, a church power independent of the civil power. 
 The question being agitated on the Continent as well as at home, 
 deserves consideration. 
 
 In Germany the seven Catholic sovereigns have 12,074,700 
 Catholic subjects, and 2,541,000 Protestant subjects. The twenty- 
 nine Protestant sovereigns, including the four free cities, have 
 12,113,000 Protestant subjects, and 4,966,000 Catholic. Of these 
 populations in Germany those which have their point of spiritual 
 government without their states and independent of them, — as 
 the Catholics have at Rome, — enjoy certainly more spiritual in- 
 dependence, are less exposed to the intermeddling of the hand of 
 civil power with their religious concerns, than the Protestant 
 populations, which, since the Reformation, have had church and 
 state united in one government, and in which each autocratic 
 sovereign is de facto a home-pope. The church affairs of Prus- 
 sia in this half century, those of Saxony, Bavaria, and of the 
 smaller principalities such as Anhalt Cothen, in all of which the 
 state has assumed and exercised power inconsistently with the 
 principles, doctrines, observances, or privileges of the Protestant 
 religion, clearly show that the Protestant church on the Continent, 
 as a power, has become merely an administrative body of clerical 
 functionaries acting under the orders of the civil power or state. 
 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 195 
 
 The many able and pious men of the laity as well as clergy in 
 Scotland, who contend that this subserviency of the church to the 
 state is not a sound and safe position for the Christian Protest- 
 ant rehgion, are in the right practically as well as theoretically. 
 The power of a state over the religious concerns of its subjects 
 is proved by all history, ancient and modern, to be so adverse to 
 the development of civil liberty, that it may be called the right 
 arm of despotism. It is this power which enslaves the Russian 
 and the Mahometan populations. It is adverse to the Protestant 
 religion, not merely from the freaks or schemes of autocratic 
 monarchs endeavouring, as in Prussia, to convert religion into a 
 state machine, an evil which a constitutional government may 
 prevent, but by an evil which no form of government can pre- 
 vent—by reducing the moral weight of the clergy of a country 
 to that of state-paid functionaries. If the traveller fairly exam- 
 ines the religious and moral influence of the established clergy 
 in Protestant countries, in Sweden, Denmark, England and Scot- 
 land, Prussia, Sv/itzerland, he will find it diminished exactly in 
 proportion to the power of the state over the religious concerns 
 of the people, and at its minimum in those despotic states, such 
 as Denmark and Prussia, in which the clergy act merely as func- 
 tionaries put in by the state to perform certain duties according to 
 certain forms. The union of church and state in the way in which 
 it has settled itself in all Protestant countries, — viz., that of the 
 civil power being supreme, and the church power merely adminis- 
 trative, or at the utmost, deliberative, but not at all legislative and 
 executive in church affairs — appears not to have been the inten- 
 tion of the first reformers. A church power in Protestant coun- 
 tries independent of the state or civil magistrate in all ecclesiastical 
 afl'airs, as the Catholic church is by its subjection to the Roman 
 pontiff only, was undoubtedly the prevailing idea in the Reformed 
 church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and this inde- 
 pendence of the church power was not ideal only, but, as every 
 kirk session or parish record in Protestant countries shows, was 
 exerted in the seventeenth century over acts in private life, which 
 if illegal belonged only to the cognizance of the civil magistrate. 
 Time, however, has proved that, under every form of govern- 
 ment — in Holland, in Switzerland, in the Hans-towns with their 
 various modifications of democracy, in Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, 
 with monarchy or aristocracy as the ruling clement in their social 
 
196 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 economy, in Britain with a mixed constitution — no such state 
 within a state, as a church power independent of the civil power, 
 can exist witliout a derangement of all the movements of society. 
 The independent action of an ecclesiastical power over spiritual 
 affairs which cannot be distinctly divided from temporal inter- 
 ests by any definition, as they run into each other imperceptibly, 
 is abandoned, even in theory, in all Protestant countries except 
 Scotland : and those who support the theory in Scotland are puz- 
 zled when called upon to apply it to practice, and to distinguish 
 what is purely spiritual in any given case, that does not also 
 touch those civil rights and temporal interests which are avowedly 
 out of church jurisdiction. They are nevertheless in the right who 
 maintain this theory. The supremacy of the civil power over 
 the religious concerns of the people is clearly inconsistent with a 
 sound and pure administration of the Christian religion in Pro- 
 testant countries. Now, there is but one remedy for this over- 
 whelming evil which has been growing to a head since the Re- 
 formation. It is to vest the church power in Protestant countries 
 neither in the civil power or government of the country, nor in 
 an ecclesiastical power independent of the civil power or govern- 
 ment, which would be a state within the state incompatible with 
 social movement, but in the source of all social power — in the 
 people. It is in the voluntary system, in which neither state 
 power or church power can interfere with the religious convic- 
 tions of men, that Protestant Christianity must ultimately find its 
 true and permanent asylum. 
 
 It will not escape the reader that all these church questions 
 abroad are modifications of the same non-intrusion question which 
 agitates Scotland, and of the church extension and high church 
 power questions which begin to agitate England : all are modifi- 
 cations of the same unsettled question, whether the state or 
 church, singly or jointly, should or should not have a power over 
 the religious doctrines and observances ofthe individuals composing 
 the social body. The church assumes now, as it did in the darkest 
 ages, that such a power over the religious conscience should be 
 lodged somewhere, and the only question it permits is, whether 
 this power should be lodged in a body called the church, or in a 
 body called the state. That this power should be lodged in a 
 body called the people, that is, should be abolished altogether as 
 an establishment in society vested with power — and no Christian 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 197 
 
 doctrine, observance, or ceremony, have any exclusive rights, 
 powers, or privileges in society more than any other Christian 
 doctrine, observance, or ceremony, the preference being one which 
 should rest on individual Christian conviction alone, not upon 
 positive laws of a church, or state and church government — is a 
 truth which is only beginning to dawn upon Europe from across 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 In this clerical epidemic, this cholera sncerdolalis which has 
 spread over the European churches, it is a singular historical 
 coincidence, that at the very same moment, the Catholic, the 
 Calvinistic, and the English clergy are agitating for a church 
 power independent of the civil power, and arguing the point 
 (which is still more singular) upon precisely the same grounds. 
 " The headship of Christ in his church," as propounded by the 
 many able Scotch ministers who claim an independent power for 
 the Scotch Kirk from the authority of the civil power, is stated in 
 almost the same words and arguments by Dr. Von Schutz, Uche7' 
 Kirchen Slants rechl in der P^^eussischen Rhein Provinz, Wurz- 
 burg, 1841, and by a host of other Catholic polemical pamphlet 
 writers, who claim the same independence of the civil power for 
 the Roman Catholic establishment in Prussia. It would be a task 
 bordering on the ludicrous, yet suggestive of just ideas of the 
 nature of church power, to bring together the exactly similar 
 reasoning, the identical scriptural references and expressions used 
 by popish priests and presbyterian ministers, for proving the inde- 
 pendence of the power of the church of the civil power, or state, 
 for their respective church establishments. An apostolic succes- 
 sion to power, derived from the headship of our Saviour over his 
 church, is equally the foundation upon which the Papist, the 
 Puseyite, and the Presbyterian builds at the present day the 
 church's independence of the civil power. The popisli priests 
 seem to have a stronger position in their argument than the En- 
 glish or Scotch clergy, because the apostolic succession in the 
 person of each pope is. a received dogma in their faith, from 
 which there is no dissent among them; and the spiritual power 
 of the pope, and the matters over which it extends — the jus 
 majestaticum circa sacra — are settled and acknowledged points 
 in the laws of all Catholic countries. The popish clergy also in 
 Germany stand upon the liberal and popular groimds, that when 
 the territorial possession of a district is, from political considera- 
 
198 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 tions, made over from one potentate to another, — from a Catholic 
 to a Protestant, or vice versd, which was the case with the pro- 
 vinces of the Rhine, Belgium, &c., — it is a monstrous proposition 
 that the religion, laws, habits, and whole social existence of the 
 people thus transferred, must be changed and accommodated 
 forthwith to those of the new masters put upon them ; that from 
 Protestants they must become Catholics, or the reverse — from the 
 code Napoleon, must adopt the feudal law. The popish priests 
 stand upon the defence of acknowledged spiritual rights, which, 
 if taken away by a royal edict without any concurrence of the 
 people to it through a constitutional representation, and a law or 
 act to which the people are parties, would lay open all rights, as 
 well as those claimed by the clergy, to the arbitrary interference 
 of the civil power. Independent altogether of superstition or 
 church influence, the Catholic clergy have here a support from 
 this connection between their cause and the cause of liberal con- 
 stitutional government, as opposed to a government of arbitrary 
 edicts and irresponsible functionaries. It is the popular side, and 
 the government will either have to give way, or to submit its 
 propositions to a constitutional legislature. Between submission 
 to the pope in all the questions with the Catholic church, and a 
 representative constitution sanctioning by the voice of the people 
 themselves the supremacy of the state in those questions, no third 
 way is open for the Prussian government. It seems a decree of 
 fate in social economy, that representative government, parlia- 
 ments, shall spring up in every age from collisions between the 
 civil and ecclesiastical powers. In their struggle for a supremacy 
 of authority in regulating the human mind in its religious con- 
 victions, the power drops from both, and is restored to its proper 
 owner — the people themselves. The church questions in Prussia 
 were of the late monarch's own raising. He wilfully lighted a 
 candle to burn his own fingers. The different churches are sup- 
 ported by the people, because their cause is opposed to an arbi- 
 trary irresponsible government regulating by its edicts the most 
 sacred interests of men. The Scotch and English churches stand 
 upon no such popular grounds, for their claim is, that society 
 should take a retrograde step, and re-establish a church power 
 over the religious concerns of men which, from the advance of 
 society in good government and intelligence, is already half 
 abolished in constitutional governments, by being brought under 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 199 
 
 the legislative power of the state, and must finally be abrogated 
 altogether for the sake of religion itself, by the adoption of the 
 voluntary church system, and the abandonment both by church 
 and state of all power over the religious concerns of men, as a 
 power which is merely a remnant of dark and barbarous times. 
 The stones are too hot on which Wishart, Servetus, and Latimer 
 were burnt at the stake, for Papist, Puseyite, or Calvinist to build 
 a modern church power upon. 
 
 The untravelled reader may not understand fully this question 
 of the liturgy, without some explanation respecting the liturgies 
 of the Lutheran church on the Continent. The Lutheran church 
 never had one unchangeable liturgy, ritual, or form of public 
 Avorship, like that of the English church. Luther himself, al- 
 though he favoured set forms of prayers " to aid the weaker 
 shepherds in their pastoral duties," was so far from giving them 
 the importance given to such forms by the Church of England, 
 that in his Order or Regulation of Public Worship of the year 
 1526, he says in his powerful but simple language, — as a writer 
 and thinker, Lutlier was the Cobbett or O'Connell of his age — 
 « Will any congregation not willingly follow others in these out- 
 ward things ? what need is there to burthen their consciences by- 
 orders of councils which soon come to be laid down as law, and 
 ensnare either their consciences or their souls ? If the one church 
 follow the other from free will, or if each follow its own custom 
 and usage, it matters not, so that an unity of spirit in belief and 
 in word be preserved. The diversity in earthly and external 
 things does no harm." Luther always maintained this Christian 
 and evangelical freedom. It was the basis of his own Reforma- 
 tion. Again, he says, in his explanation and preaching on the 
 Gospel of Saint John, — " Wordly powers, princes, lords, and 
 la!wyers, may make laws, give out rights and orders respecting 
 houses and yards, villages and corn fields, wine, and land, and 
 people, and all that is upon the earth that is subject to man ; but 
 in matters of belief, in what belongs to the soul, to deal as with 
 outward bodily things, such as our oxen, and houses, and yards 
 — no! that is not to be suffered." Again he says, "I tell you 
 again, neither pope, nor bishop, nor any man, has a right to put 
 a single syllable upon a Christian man, unless it be done with 
 his own free consent; and what is otherwise done, is done in the 
 spirit of tyranny." The Lutheran church on the Continent has 
 
200 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 always adhered to the spirit and letter of Luther's doctrine on 
 this subject. Every province, and almost every congregation, 
 has always had some peculiarity of its own in the forms of prayer 
 and church observances — that is to say, in its liturgy and agenda 
 — but all keeping strictly within the Lutheran doctrine and spirit. 
 Between 1523 and 1555, there were no fewer than 132 liturgies, 
 church services, or agenda in the Lutheran church, all approved 
 of, and sanctioned by the civil authorities of the land, and all 
 strictly Lutheran, although differing in the- order, forms, obser- 
 vances, or words. The Calvinistic church from the days of 
 Calvin himself, had also its set forms as well as its extemporary 
 prayer. The practical, eflect in the Lutheran church was that 
 the sermon and the preacher's prayer at opening, and again at 
 closing it, were always considered, as in the Calvinistic church, 
 the main part of the service, and the liturgy rather as a prepara- 
 tory solemnizing of the mind for it. This view seems also to be 
 retained by the English Independents who follow the forms of 
 the Church of England service. Now a memorial of twelve 
 ministers of Berlin,* (October 25th, 1825,) against the force put 
 upon their religious convictions by the new liturgy, states as their 
 objections to it and to the agenda promulgated with it, that this 
 freedom of religious action within the bounds of the doctrine and 
 spirit of Lutheranism, as established by Luther himself, is abro- 
 gated. They are bound, they say, like the priests of the Romish 
 or Anglican church, to a literal delivery of certain forms of prayer, 
 not suited to many of their congregations — in short, to a mass. 
 They say, that independently of the errors or discrepancies with 
 Lutheran doctrine that may be found in the new liturgy, it is 
 erected into a new independent service, which the liturgy never 
 was before in the Lutheran church, distinct and separated alto- 
 gether from the sermon. This mass is made the sum and sub- 
 stance, and the sermon following it only an adjunct. This import- 
 ance given to the mere ceremonial, they say, tends to catholicize 
 the' minds of the people, to make the mere attendance on ceremo- 
 nial form the most important religious duty in their minds. The 
 ministers of the new church are prohibited in the agenda from 
 occupying more than one hour in the whole service, and the 
 
 * Bedenken von zwolf evangelischen Predigern in Berlin', so wie vom Ber- 
 liner Magistrat als Patron verschiedener Kirchen-gemeinden, iiber die Ein- 
 fuehrung der neuen Kirclien Agende. Leipsig, 1826. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 201 
 
 liturgy is to occupy one-half hour. The sermon consequently can 
 scarcely have more than twenty or twenty-five minutes, which is 
 totally insufficient, they assert, for conveying Christian instruction. 
 They are also prohibited by the new agenda from using any 
 introductory or concluding prayer to the sermon — the most im- 
 portant and effective parts of the old service, both' in the Lutheran 
 and Calvinistic church. The new service is, in short, two dis- 
 tinct services — orie a formal mass, the other a sermon without 
 the aid of prayer allowed to the preacher. They complain also 
 that in this liturgy no part is allotted to the congregation. It con- 
 tains about fourteen responses to be made by the choristers, who 
 sing from a seat behind or near the altar, but the congregation 
 has no more part in the new service than in a Roman Catholic 
 high mass. 
 
 The following is the order of the service in the new Prussian 
 church. There is an altar railed in, and covered with an altar 
 cloth. Two 'lighted wax candles and a crucifix stand upon the 
 altar, and behind and around it are pictures of saints, and holy 
 subjects, as in a Roman Catholic church. The only difference 
 observable is, that the priest at the altar is in a plain black gown, 
 instead of the embroidered robes in which the Catholic priest offi- 
 ciates. He reads the new liturgy standing with his back against 
 the altar, and facing the people. The amen to each prayer is 
 finely quavered out by the choristers behind the altar, and the - 
 « Halleluia," the " Holy, holy, holy," the " Glory to God in the 
 highest," &c., are delivered with great musical effect, as might be 
 expected in so musical a land. But, as justly objected to by the 
 twelve ministers in their protest against this new service, the con- 
 gregation have no part in all this, — are not made partakers, as in 
 the former and in the English liturgies, in the act of' public wor- 
 ship. They are but passive listeners, as to an opera. 
 
 So little has it been intended that the congregation should take 
 a part in this new service, that no books of the liturgy equivalent 
 to the English Common Prayer-book are in their hands. The 
 liturgy is for the clergymen only, and is not even to be got at the 
 booksellers' shops. The only book of public worship in the hands 
 of the congregation is the Gesang buch. This is a sort of Hynni- 
 book in doggerel verse, which supersedes the Psalms of David 
 and the paraphrases of portions of Scripture used in our church 
 services. It is printed as prose, but each clause of a sentence is a 
 14 
 
202 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 line rhyming to another clause. It is divided into sections and 
 sentences, which are numbered; and the numbers being stuck up 
 in conspicuous parts of the church, the congregation on entering 
 sees what is to be sung without the minister or clerk giving out 
 the place and verse. The whole part that the congregation has 
 to take in the public worship by the new service is to sing or 
 chaunt a portion of this Gesang buch with the accompaniment of 
 the organ, before the minister comes to the altar to read the liturgy, 
 and again in the interval between the liturgy and the sermon. This 
 Gesang buch is not a collection of versions or paraphrases of any 
 particular passages of the Old or New Testament,nor have its hymns 
 the slightest reference to Scripture or any biblical allusion or phrase- 
 ology. It is no doubt distilled from the Scriptures, but it carefully 
 avoids giving any flavour of its origin. A Prussian congregation 
 has as litde to do with the Bible as with the Koran, in the new 
 church service, except that in the course of the liturgy a lesson of 
 the day, as in the English service, is read from the New Testament: 
 But as the whole liturgy, lesson and all, occupies but half an hour, 
 and the congregation have neither Prayer-books nor Bibles in their 
 hands, and have nothing but this Gesang buch, expressing no doubt 
 religious sentiment, but with no reference to Scripture, it is evident 
 that the intent has been to constitute this new service into some- 
 thing like the Roman Catholic ceremonial mass, and to discourage 
 the use of the Bible among the common people. The people have 
 nothing but this Gesang buch as necessary in their public worship, 
 and a meagre, childish composition it is — altogether unworthy of 
 being the manual of devotion and of the public worship of edu- 
 cated Christians. It is not to be denied that our Scotch version 
 of the Psalms of David in metre is, if considered as poetical or 
 metrical composition, but poor and rude ; yet it has, from anti- 
 quity, use, and its close adherence to its original, a merit which a 
 finer or more poetical version would probably want — it is better 
 adapted to the ear and to the intelligence of the common man. 
 It is often also worthy of its text, and, with all its poverty and 
 quaint simplicity of metre, the poetry and feeling of the original 
 psalm often shine through. But in this substitute for the Psalms 
 of David in the new Prussian church, there is no scriptural basis 
 whatsoever : it is a maudlin collection of sentiments, — pious, no 
 doubt, but nowise scriptural ; and suitable rather for an infant 
 school than for a congregation of grown-up Christians. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 203 
 
 Tlie German language is now so generally studied, that a spe- 
 cimen of the Gesang buch will enable most readers to judge for 
 themselves of this Prussian substitute for the Psalms of David. 
 By giving its exact English synonyme below eacli German word, 
 the English reader even may be able to form some idea of its 
 style and merits: — 
 
 XXXIV. 1. Jesus wir erscheinen hier* deine Sussigkeit zu schmecken I^ 
 Jesus we appear here Ihy sweetness to taste ! 
 deine Gnad erflehen wir'^ Herz und Ohren zu erwecken :'' dass wir deine 
 thy grace solicit ' we heart and ears to awaken : that we thy 
 Himmelslehren^' uns zum Trost mit Freuden horen.^^ 
 heaven-teaching us to comfort with joy may hear. 
 
 2. Oehie deines Dieners Mund, gieb ihm d6ines Geistes Gaben, dass er 
 Open thy servant's mouth, give him thy Spirit's gifts, that he 
 
 mag aus Herzens-grund, mit des Wortes Kraft uns laben, und dass uns 
 may out of heart-ground, with the word's power us refresh, and that us 
 die Himmels-speise stark auf unser Pilger-reise. 
 
 the lieaven-food may strengthen on our pilgrim-journey. 
 
 3. Dir dem Vater und dem Geist soil das Herz geheiligt werden, hilf 
 To thee the Father and the Spirit shall the heart dedicated be, help 
 
 nur dass wir allermeist uns erheben von der Erden, um mit innigen 
 only that we most especially us raise from the earth, for with inward 
 Verlangen deine Gaben zu empfangen. 
 desire thy gifts to receive. 
 
 Although printed in the original as prose, the words 4 and 12, 
 8 and 17, 21 and 27, in the first verse, rhyme together ; and in the 
 same way in the other two verses of this hymn, each clause is a 
 metrical line. Here is another taken by chance as a specimen : — 
 
 CCVII. 1. Wir danken dir Herr Jesu Christ^ das du fur uns gestorbeu 
 We thank thee Lord Jesus Christ that thou for us died 
 bist'2 und unserer Sunden schwerer Last"' am Kreuz auf dich genommen 
 hast, and of our sins the heavy load, on the cross upon thyself taken 
 hast.23 
 Last. 
 
 2. Sohn Gottes und des Menschen Sohn, verherrliched nun nacli 
 Son of God and of man son, glorified now after 
 
 Schniach und Hohn, erlijs uns von dem ewigen Tod, und trost uns in 
 contempt and scorn, deliver us from the eternal death, and comfort us in 
 den letsten Noth. 
 the last necessity. 
 
 3. reich uns deine starke Hand in unserem Kreuz und Prufungs- 
 O reach to us thy strong hand, in our cross and trial situa- 
 
 sland, damit anch wir geduldig seyn; uns trosten deine Kreuzens- 
 tion, that thereby also we patient be; us comfort thy sufl'erings on 
 
 pein. 
 the cross. 
 
204 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 4. Zu dir stelit unsre Zuversiclit du werdest uns veiiassen nicht, mit 
 To thee stands our confidence, thou wilt us leave not, with 
 deiner Gnade bei uns stehen bis wir zu deinem Reich eingehen. 
 ■ thy grace by us stand until we to thy kingdom go in. 
 
 In this, the words 6 and 12, and 17 and 23, in tlie first ver^e, 
 end metrical lines, and make a sort of doggerel rhyme, and the 
 same takes place in the other three verses. The first of these two 
 hytnns, or whatever they may be called, stands mider the rubric 
 — '' Of Christian worship of God ;" the second, number 207, 
 under that of — "Of the sufferings and death of Jesus:" and of 49 
 such hymns, or sections of rhyming prose, under this head in the 
 Gesang buch, not one makes any nearer allusion to, or gives any 
 more knowledge of" the sufferings and death of Jesus'' than this 
 specimen. The sentiments of this composition are no doubt un- 
 objectionable ; but such nursery hymns or rhymes are infinitely 
 below the intellectual pitch of our uneducated common people, 
 and appear at once lamentable and ludicrous, when we consider 
 that such is the only manual of public worship in the hands of 
 the most highly and generally educated people in Europe — this 
 the equivalent in their public worship for the Book of Common 
 Prayer of the English people, and the Bible and Psalms of David 
 of the Scotch. 
 
 The new Prussian church service approaches certainly in its 
 forms much nearer to the Lutheran than to the Calvinistic church ; 
 and even the twelve Lutheran ministers of Berlin who protest 
 against its tendency seem to have found no very great discrep- 
 ancy with the old liturgy. The Calvinistic church is much more 
 hardly dealt with by its subjection to a religious service of mere 
 form. The greatest opposition, however, to the new church has 
 arisen from the Lutherans. This is inherent in all religious dis- 
 sentions — the slighter the difference the greater the discordance 
 and acrimony. It is inherent in human nature. Where differ- 
 ences are really inconsiderable, the violence done to our free moral 
 agency by enforcing a conformity is the more revolting to the 
 human mind. The will that controls our freedom is not disguised 
 under any plea of importance in the object to be attained. 
 
 The recourse to armed force, to the dismissal of functionaries 
 suspected of favouring the old ritual, to all the usual modes of 
 compulsion in arbitrary governments to enforce conformity, had 
 the usual consequences of religious persecution — the calling forth 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 205 
 
 new and unexpected zeal and opposition, A new sect of Old 
 Lutherans, as they called themselves, sprang up ; that is to say, 
 the Lutherans who were at first in a state of great indifference 
 about the new church, were roused by the persecution for en- 
 forcing a conformity in trifling observances, and fell back with 
 new-born zeal upon the old original doctrines and church ob- 
 servances of Lutheranism. Their congregations, which had been 
 reckoned by the court-clergy as belonging to and embodied with 
 the new Prussian church without asking their consent, repndiated 
 such a junction. There was a considerable teaction towards 
 "the good old times" of narrow, almost papistical observance of 
 forms and usages as all-important in religion. The Puseyite was 
 abroad in Prussia, as in England; and with the advantage in 
 Prussia, that he had persecution aiding his cause, while our go- 
 vernment, unluckily for zealots, lets them sleep themselves out 
 in peace and neglect. 
 
 The Prussian government might have been pleased with this 
 retrograde step to the spirit of the 16th century; for in bringing 
 forward its new church, the avowed object was to raise a bul- 
 wark against the modern spirit of religious freedom, and to re- 
 store "the good old times." But this revival could not be tole- 
 rated, because it was an independent step of these Old Lutherans, 
 and here government must originate every movement of the peo- 
 ple. The government was consequently in the false position of 
 acting in the spirit of this very party she was persecuting. 
 
 In estimating the state of religion in Protestant Prussia, the 
 practical tendency of the new service pointed out by the twelve 
 ministers and by the magistracy of Berlin in their memorials against 
 it, must be examined. The new service, as stated by them, cer- 
 tainly does consist of two distinct, and in principle totally differ- 
 ent and conflicting services. The one is a mass requiring a 
 passive acceptance of the formal ceremonial prayer of the priest, 
 without any mental effort of the congregation, and with as little 
 devotional exercise or participation on their part as in the popish 
 church; the other service is a sermon addressed altogether to the 
 mind of the congregation, standing consequently upon a principle 
 at variance altogether with that on which the other part of the 
 service is founded. In the afternoon there is no service at the 
 altar, no liturgical prayers as in the Church of England ; but there 
 is a section of the Gcsang buch sung, the Lord's Prayer, a sermon, 
 
206 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the Lord's Prayer again, and the blessing, and another portion 
 of the Gesang buch sung, which constitute the evening service. 
 This radical division in the church service appears to have formed 
 a similar division in the religious state of the people. You see 
 some going to church to hear the liturgy, and going out when it 
 is finished as having gone through all that is essential in religious 
 duties : others again are going in when the liturgy is over, or go 
 to the evening service only, as the sermon, and not the ceremonial, 
 is to them the essential. The junction of the two distinct prin- 
 ciples in one service is as incongruous as it would be to bind the 
 New Testament and Dr. Strauss's Life of Jesus in one volume. 
 Rationalism is very generally preached after a church service 
 requiring passive inertness of mind, and repose upon ceremonial 
 forms of prayer as much as in the Church of Rome. 
 
 The forced amalgamation of the Lutheran and Calvinistic 
 churches into this third thing, neither Lutheran nor Calvinistic, 
 and the abolition of the very name of the Protestant church in 
 Prussia, is undoubtedly the most gratuitous, unhappy, and sense- 
 less act of irresponsible despotism ever exercised over and sub- 
 mitted to by a Christian people in civilized times. There is much 
 in a name. With the abolition of the name of the Protestant 
 religion, this government has effected what emperors and popes 
 could not do — has nearly destroyed the Protestant religion itself 
 in Germany, and with it almost all religion. The ancient liturgy 
 of the Lutheran, the freely out-poured prayer of the Calvinist, 
 being both silenced in the land, the mind of the great mass of the 
 people had nothing Christian to hold by, nothing in religion ve- 
 nerated as doctrines or practices of worship from former times, 
 from respected associations with the sufferings or deeds of their 
 forefathers. Infidelity, Deism, Straussism, and all the other forms 
 and shapes which unbelief in Christianity can assume in the spe- 
 culative, dreaming German mind, have had free play. Protest- 
 antism as a church, and even as a name, being abolished in Prus- 
 sia, Christianity was left for its defences to the antiquated bulwark 
 of the Roman Catholic faith. The middle ground between gross 
 superstition and gross infidelity, on which the two Protestant 
 churches were planted, was seized for state purposes to build 
 this new Prussian church upon. The spread in the same age, 
 of Catholicism on one liand, and of infidelity on the other — the 
 Catholic priest making converts on one side of the street, and Dr. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 207 
 
 Strauss on the other — shows a religious condition of the German 
 people, which the traveller finds as unaccountable as it is unde- 
 niable, until he traces it as a natural consequence of this act of his 
 late Prussian majesty, which cast loose at once all the ties which 
 had held the public mind fast for three centuries to one or other 
 of the two Protestant churches. 
 
 In the two distinct services tacked together in this new Prussian 
 church, that which addresses itself to the mind of the congrega- 
 tion, the sermon, is by no means left in free action. It is not only 
 shorn of its introductory and concluding prayers appropriate to 
 the subject preached, and which the twelve ministers consider 
 the most valuable privilege of their former Lutheran church 
 from its beneficial effect on their congregations, and it is not only 
 confined in time, by church rule given out by the state, to half 
 an hour, but the text on which alone the ministers throughout 
 all the kingdom are allowed to preach, is appointed on all fast 
 days, or particular church days, by government — that is to say, it 
 is given out to the ministers by the consistory of each province, 
 of which consistory the head and president is the high president 
 of the province, the equivalent functionary to the prefet com- 
 manding in civil, military and ecclesiastical affairs, according to 
 his orders from the general government. The consistory, synod, 
 superintendents, and other ecclesiastical powers are administrative 
 only on the Continent ; not deliberative, far less co-ordinate with 
 the civil power in their functions. They only have in Prussia to 
 give out, and distribute on such occasions, the Text ordered by the 
 government. On ordinary Sundays the text is taken generally 
 from the lesson of the day, or portion of Scripture read in the 
 course of the liturgy — at least I always found it so, both in the 
 morning and evening sermon. If it be a church rule, however, 
 or only the consideration of the preacher that his congregation in 
 general have no IJibles with them to refer to, and this portion 
 being the last they have heard may be fresh in their memories, is 
 uncertain. I ascribed it to the discretion of the preachers. 
 
 As to the doctrines preached, the new Prussian church is un- 
 derstood to be divided — as its servicers — into two distinct parties ; 
 those who preach in the spirit of rationalism, and those who preach 
 in the spirit of pietism. The Germans enrich their rich language 
 by terms which express every modification of intellectual action. 
 Pietism is not piety. It rather expresses mysticism, — the re- 
 
208 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ceiving of the incomprehensible, as the popish and old Lutheran 
 churches do, as matter of religious belief. Our Puseyites would 
 be pietists in the German classification. Rationalism, again, is 
 by no means infidelity, or free-thinking. This is only the extreme; 
 as gross superstition and idolatry are the extreme of pietism. 
 Rationalism in the pulpit seems applied to those who reject the 
 value, importance, and efficacy of mere external ceremonies of reli- 
 gious worship, and address themselves to the understanding, not 
 to the blind feeling, or imagination. Our Scotch clergy would be 
 all reckoned rationalists. The new Prussian church is founded 
 on pietist principle,— on blind submission of the mind to forms of 
 worship, and observances of ceremonials, prescribed by the state 
 through its clerical functionaries ; and the new service is a mass, 
 as far as regards the mind. The late king, the present, it is said, 
 and, of course, all officers and functionaries about the court, are ' 
 pietists. The public mind in general seems to have taken an 
 opposite direction, and to have a tendency to rationalism in its 
 extreme— that is, not merely to understanding what it is required 
 to believe, and to undervaluing mere ceremonial religion, but to 
 treating all religion with levity, indifference, or disbelief. Infi- 
 delity and superstition are not incompatible. There is evidently 
 a strong disposition to mysticism, to superstitious veneration of 
 forms and ceremonies,, along with a great disregard of religious 
 conduct, knowledge, or sentiment, in the Prussian people of the 
 new Prussian church. 
 
 The dispute of the Prussian government with the Roman Ca- 
 tholic church arises from, and is a corollary of, the unwise inter- 
 ference of the late king with the Protestant churches. The dis- 
 pute is not understood in England. Of a population of fourteen 
 millions in the Prussian dominions, five millions and a quarter, 
 or about three-eighths of the whole, are Catholics. In mixed 
 marriages formerly, in Prussia, the Catholic clergy interfered no 
 more with the question, in what religion the parents should bring 
 up the children, than they do now in Britain, America, or Swit- 
 zerland, The matter was regulated by the discretion of the 
 parents, and practically the male children usually followed the 
 church of the father, and females that of the mother. MiXed 
 marriages, also, in the middle or lower ranks of life were less 
 common when Protestantism, in one or other of its branches, 
 hedged in families, as it were, from familiar intercourse with those 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 209 
 
 not of their own religion; but when the Protestant rehgion was 
 formally aboUshed in Prussia, and mixed marriages became fre- 
 quent, the Popish clergy were not so much in the wrong in say- 
 ing if these children are not brought up Catholics, they will be of 
 no religion or form of Christian faith whatever ; and the state of 
 religion among that part of the German population which had 
 been Protestant, the rapid increase of Deism, Straussism, infi- 
 delity, indifference, fully justified this apprehension. The Catho- 
 lic population, as might be expected, espouse warmly the side of 
 their clergy; and a great proportion of the rest of the people, be- 
 come indifferent to religion, look upon the claim of the Catholic 
 church in mixed marriages with favour. It is not a question of 
 the right of parents to bring up and educate their children accord- 
 ing to their own judgment. The feeling of all individual right 
 and civil independence is weakened, and that parental right in 
 particular is infringed upon, and all parents are more of less de- 
 prived of it by the Prussian educational system. It is a question, 
 in reality, between a despotic government and the Catholic church, 
 which shall have the mastery and control in bringing up the 
 children of mixed marriages ; and the Catholics, the parents, and 
 the liberal party very generally espouse the side of the Popish 
 church, as less of an interference with people as moral beings and 
 free agents, irf their private family arrangements, than the con- 
 trol of the Prussian state. It is one thing, they say, to have the 
 clergyman stepping into your house to advise, exhort, entreat, 
 force you by every moral influence, to educate your children ac- 
 cording to his views of what is right; it is another to have the 
 public functionary intruding into your family management, fining 
 you for your child's absence from school, if the educational func- 
 tionaries think he should have been there, and judging of your 
 conduct, motives, and arrangements, as head of your own family. 
 This natural feeling of opposition to the most arbitrary moral 
 despotism ever imposed on a civilized people, the interference of 
 the educational system of Prussia with paternal judgment and 
 free-agency in family management,— an interference far more 
 demoralizing to the human mind than the ignorance of the arts 
 of reading and writing, — strengthens the side of the Catholic 
 clergy with a portion of the liberal interest. Catholicism is, in 
 fact, the only barrier at present in Prussia against a general and 
 debasing despotism of the state over mind and action. 
 
210 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 The Catholic population of Prussia has, besides, its separate 
 grievances to complain of. The primary or other low schools 
 may have Catholic schoolmasters where the majority of the in- 
 habitants are Catholic ; but where they are mixed, and less than 
 a majority, although very numerous, and the Catholic population 
 is much mixed in that way in some districts, they must send their 
 children to be taught by schoolmasters of a different faith ; and 
 for higher education, they complain that no proportionable or 
 suitable provision is made. Two universities, Bonn and Breslau, 
 are mixed universities, in which Catholic professors and students 
 are on an equal footing with Protestants. But this is considered 
 no adequate provision for the higher education of the upper 
 classes of five millions of people, of whom 1,750,000 inhabiting 
 the Rhenish provinces are the most industrious, enterprising, and 
 wealthy of the subjects of Prussia, They complain, too, that 
 Catholicsr are not impartially dealt with in advancement to the 
 higher functions under government; that scarcely a Catholic 
 colonel of a regiment can be found in the military establishment 
 of the country, or as the chief of a department or bureau in the 
 civil. This seems no unreasonable complaint, considering that 
 the Catliolic population of Prussia exceeds the whole population 
 of some Protestant kingdoms, — of Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, 
 Hanover, Saxony, or Wirtemburg ; but this very Sxclusion from 
 office, if true, is perhaps the cause, in a great measure, of the 
 superior industry and advance in trade and manufacture of the 
 Rhenish provinces. 
 
 A more justly felt, and to Catholic feelings more revolting 
 grievance, is, that the youth studying for the priesthood in the Ca- 
 tholic church are subject,iike other young men, to serve for three 
 years (commutable by special favour to one year) in a regiment 
 of the line ; and the only exemption in their favour is, that they 
 may be allowed to postpone the commencing their military ser- 
 vice until their twenty-fifth year; and then, if they have actually 
 become members of the priesthood, and have taken sub-deacon's 
 orders, they are exempt altogether : but all depending upon the 
 good finding of a commission of Protestant military functionaries. 
 The clerical student in our Protestant church follows a course 
 of study, and of life, which fits him for every social duty, as much 
 as or more than other men ; and if military or other social duty 
 is required by the state, no good reason can be shown why he 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 211 
 
 should be exempt more than other citizens, if he have no clerical, 
 duties, or status in the church. But the Catholic priest must be 
 bred from infancy to his vocation, like a little girl to the duties of 
 her sex, — must be bred like a female to abstinence, chastity, 
 purity, self-denial of all appetites and indulgences, and kept, like 
 the well-brought-up female, in ignorance of the vice and mental 
 contamination familiar to men. To put a man so bred into the 
 ranks of a regiment, and to live in barracks and guard-rooms for 
 three years, or one year, or even one day, is demoralizing the 
 individual, and tainting the purity of mind required for his pecu- 
 liar social position as a popish priest devoted to a life of celibacy; 
 and whether that position be right or wrong on religious, social, 
 or moral grounds, it is tyranny in a government to disregard 
 what its subjects do regard. These are but trifles ; but that such 
 trifles are complained of by more than a third of the whole popu- 
 lation of the country, shows that Prussia carries a Catholic Ireland 
 in her bosom. It shows, too, that governments which seek to 
 extend their powers beyond the legitimate objects for which 
 government is established in human society,— the protection of 
 person and property, and the regulation of the material interests 
 of men for the general good, — and to embrace within their autho- 
 rity the religious, moral, and intellectual action of the human mind . 
 by state establishments, and state interference in religious educa. 
 tion and free agency, stand upon dangerous ground, and exist only 
 by the patience of the people. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NOTES ON THE PRUSSIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM CONTINUED.— ITS 
 ^ EFFECTS ON THE SOCIAL AND MORAL CONDITION AND CHARACTER OF 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The voice of history in praise or reproach of kings is not heard 
 amidst the whispers of courtiers, or the hurra of armies. Her 
 note comes to the ear of posterity from the cottage and the foot- 
 path of tlie common man. The upper and educated classes in 
 Prussia live upon the industry of the people entirely, by the ap- 
 pointments under the government, either as military officers, civil 
 functionaries, clerical or educational officials ; or if they derive 
 their living direct from the people, and not from the hand of 
 government, still they derive the privilege to exercise this means 
 of living, be it in the law, in riiedicine, in trade, or any branch of 
 industry, from the constituted authorities. These classes are loud 
 enough in their adulation of the government of the late monarch, 
 and of the social economy of Prussia, — of its military system, its 
 educational system, its functionary system, and of all that emanates 
 from the higher powers. No wonder. They are strangers to 
 individual free agency in society, and they hold their appointments 
 and means of living, and look for their bread, or that of their 
 children, from the hand of government. Their voice alone is 
 heard in the literary world on Prussian education, religion, social 
 economy and affairs : and their voice is one shout of praise. But 
 the future historian of this age, judging from purer sources, from 
 facts and principles, will regard the Prussian social economy estab- 
 lished by the late monarch as an attempt, now that the power of 
 the sword and of brute force in civilized communities is gone, to 
 raise up an equally despotic, irresponsible power of government, 
 by enslaving the habits, mind, and moral agency of the people 
 through an educational, military, and religious training, and a 
 system of perpetual surveillance of functionaries over every indi- 
 vidual from his cradle to his grave. The attempt will probably 
 fail, because it involves inconsistencies. It is a struggle of contra- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 213 
 
 dictions. A rigid censorship of tlie press, and a general education 
 of the people ; a religious population, and an interference of go- 
 vernment with, and a subversion by its edicts of, the religious 
 observances, forms, and prayers of a church for which their fore- 
 fathers had shed their blood in the battle-field ; a moral people, and 
 an intermeddling of the hand of government in the free action of 
 man as a moral agent, in the sanctity of family duty and manage- 
 ment, and during the most precious period of human life for forming 
 the moral habits and character, — a barrack-room education for all 
 classes; a wealthy and happy people, and a ruinous yearly demand 
 upon that time and labour out of which alone national wealth and 
 well-being can grow, for the sake of an idle and unfounded display 
 at reviews and parades of a military strength not efficient, in 
 reality, from the nature of its materials, for military purposes; — 
 these are incompatibilities which even Prussian discipline cannot 
 make to march together. The reign of the late monarch will be re- 
 garded as an attempt to hold fast by autocratic irresponsible power; 
 but to shift the ground which supported it from sheer military force 
 to a power founded somewhat like the Chinese, the Mahometan, 
 or the Russian, upon the education, habits, and religion of the 
 people, — all of which were to be Prussian, under the guidance of 
 government, and subservient to its support. He will be judged 
 of by posterity as a well-meaning, but weak man, tenacious of 
 what he deemed power (as all weak men are), and which (as is 
 often the case) was in reality not power ; who forfeited his word 
 to his people to give them a constitution, and who had a people 
 as abject as he was autocratic. He came out of severe trial and 
 adversity untaught by it, forgetful of the struggle made for him 
 by his subjects upon his promise of giving them a representative 
 constitution ; and he has bequeathed to his successors a social 
 economy of his own construction, full of inconsistencies and false 
 principles. There are men even in England, and they abound on 
 the Continent, who deem it a social, almost a moral duty, to see 
 nothing wrong in the doings of kings, to laud every act and every 
 character clothed in royal authority. Our middle classes do not 
 partake in this indiscriminating love for the purple. The distance 
 of social position, like the distance of time, enables them — and they 
 constitute the great body of our intelligent thinking public — to form 
 an historical judgment of the men and events of their own times. 
 They'judge now, as posterity will judge hereafter. They will 
 
214 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 judge that the late Prussian monarch, — the lauded, the almost 
 worshipped by our aristocracy and clergy, as the best, the wisest, 
 the most conservative, the most anti-revolutionary monarch of our 
 age, — has overturned the Protestant religion, and shaken Chris- 
 tianity itself, by his ultra-conservative zeal to establish the basis 
 of his autocracy on the religion of the people. What would those 
 lords, and squires, and clergy say, if a king and irresponsible 
 cabinet among us were to put down the Churches of England and 
 Scotland, and to impose on the people by royal edict a selection 
 of Mrs. Barbauld's prayers and hymns, instead of the time- 
 honoured liturgy of the former church, and the spirit-awakening 
 effusions of the latter ? This is precisely what has been done in 
 Prussia. Mrs, Barbauld's nursery prayers and hymns are, as 
 devotional compositions, quite as near to the excellence of the 
 admirable old liturgy, or to the Psalms of David, as the compo- 
 sitions of Dr. Eylert and Dr. Neander, although aided, it is said, 
 by the royal pen itself in some of the prayers, and of the doggerel 
 ditties of the Gesang-buch. The Kurie Eleaison, and other 
 operatic quaverings in the new service, are, it is said, borrowed 
 from the Greek church, the late king having, when on a visit to 
 Russia, been much pleased with those parts of the Greek service. 
 
 The one point for political philosophy is, that this act is the act 
 of the pattern king of the Continental governments, whose reign 
 is held up by all the conservative interests on the Continent as a 
 signal and undeniable proof that irresponsible autocratic power 
 vested in the monarch, and all legislation emanating from the royal 
 authority alone, without any constitutional representation of the 
 people in the legislature, are compatible with the utmost good 
 government, the utmost physical, moral, and religious well-being 
 of society. 
 
 The other great point is, that this is the people whose educa- 
 tional system, spirit, and institutions are held up as a model by the 
 liberal, the pious, the benevolent of other countries, who are 
 anxious for the diffusion of education ; but who mistake the means 
 for the end, the almost mechanical arts of reading and writing for 
 the moral elevation of character which education should produce. 
 
 The page of history does not supply another example so striking 
 as this of the deteriorating influence of arbitrary, irresponsible 
 power, both on the ruler and the ruled. It cannot be doubted 
 that the late monarch was an amiable, well-meaning 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 215 
 
 by all who approached him. The more the historian gives on this 
 side, the more he must take on the other. The mere possession 
 in modern society of this irresponsible, unchecked, autocratic power 
 in legislation, brings this good and popular sovereign into the luien- 
 viable historical fame of having overturned religion in Germany, 
 and of having established a social, moral, and religious vassalage 
 over his people. History will have her day of judgment, and 
 will judge public men by their public acts. She will hear the cry 
 of the victims, said to have been 2966 individuals, suffering for 
 their religions or political opinions, and pardoned on the death of 
 this good and amiable sovereign by an act of amnesty of his suc- 
 cessor. History will ask, what where the crimes of these persons 
 (whatever their numbers may have really been, a secret probably 
 only known to government)? What rebellions, what treasons, 
 what tumults occurred in this reign ? Or were they the victims 
 of their free expression of opinions, — torn from their families and 
 homes, imprisoned, condemned, banished, because they presumed 
 to, remind their sovereign of the natural and constitutional rights 
 of the people, and of the royal promise to restore those natural 
 rights to a representation in the legislature; a promise given in the 
 hour of need, and broken in the hour of prosperity ? Or was it 
 their crime that they conscientiously opposed an arbitrary and un- 
 necessary change in the Protestant religion as handed down to them 
 by their forefathers? History will have her day of judgment; 
 nor will her judgment of the sovereign be biassed by the private 
 virtues or amiable qualities of the man ; nor by the adulation of 
 a people trained to crouch before their master, and lick the hand 
 that smites. The abject submission of mind to all authority, the 
 suspension of judgment on public acts, and the adulation of all 
 royal personages, are natural effects on the ruled of the unmixed, 
 irresponsible, autocratic power in the ruler. The popularity of 
 the ruler in such a condition of society is founded on his private 
 personal character, not on his public acts; and the fine terms of 
 beloved, adored, patriotic, beneficent, applied to the monarch, are 
 words of form by which the judgment of history will not be 
 swayed. 
 
 But, in stating the evil of this reign, the good should not be 
 overlooked. It broke the oppressive feudal vassalage of the 
 peasantry under the nobles, and has raised their condition physic- 
 ally and morally. If a heavy military burden be laid upon the 
 
216 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 people, — if they have, in effect, only changed masters, and their 
 time, labour, and free action in industry be now as much absorbed 
 by the state and its functionaries as formerly by their local feudal 
 lords, still the yoke is easy which all bear the weight of equally. 
 Let it not be forgotten, too, that the freedom of mind in intellectual, 
 political, and even religious action, and the freedom of person 
 and property in industrial action, are not felt as essential wants 
 in a state of society in which the people have no intellectual or 
 industrial activity. A few of the upper and cultivated glasses 
 only are in a social condition to feel restrictions, such, for instance, 
 as those on the press, which all men, in our social condition, would 
 fly from or rise against, as insupportable oppression. The good 
 of the late king's reign,— the emancipation of the peasantry, — 
 the promise, at least, of a representative constitution, — the removal 
 of many old restrictions on trade, — and the introducing of many 
 useful establishments, belong undoubtedly to the monarch himself 
 — to the good-hearted, benevolent, well-meaning king. The evil 
 of his reign, — the perpetual drain on the time and labour of the 
 people for military service,— the attempt to make education, reli- 
 gion, and all social movement subservient to the support of a go- 
 vernment system, — the centralization in the hands of functiona- 
 ries of all affairs of society, — and the interference of government 
 with matters which are beyond the legitimate objects of govern- 
 ment in any free enlightened state of society, may be ascribed to 
 the influence of men around the throne, disinterested, perhaps, 
 and sincere, but not en4ightened, or advancing with the age ; bred 
 in function, and seeing the interests of the people through a false 
 medium. With enlightened men, as Stein and Hardenberg, for 
 his ministers, the late king was an enlightened ruler ; with bigots 
 about him, he was a bigot ; with functionaries, a functionarist. 
 There is no inconsistency between the first part of his reign and 
 the last: he was evidently a good, well-meaning, weak man, led 
 this way and that by each successive band of functionaries he 
 employed. The whole shows impressively the working of irre- 
 sponsible power on the minds of the ruler and the ruled. 
 
 The intermeddling with the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, 
 and the unhappy attempt — unhappy for the Protestant religion 
 in every country — to set up a third intermediate church, may be 
 traced to the love of concentrated power over all things inherent 
 in the functionarism which guides the Prussian state, combined 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER, 217 
 
 with the system adopted in all the governments of the Continent, 
 — of governing on juste milieu principle, of avoiding any decided 
 mode of action, and of always taking some third conrse between 
 two. Ancillon, who had been private tutor to the late king, and 
 who died prime minister in 1S35, published a work in 1S2S, upon 
 Vermittelung der Extreme — Mediation between Extremes. In 
 a number»of essays on moral, political, and literary subjects, he 
 lays down the extreme opinions upon each side — as, for instance, 
 on the classical and romantic schools of literature ; and deduces 
 from the absurdity of each extreme the truth of the old saying — 
 "in medio tutissimus ibis." There is a saying, however, quite 
 as old, and much more generally true — " there are but two waj'-s 
 of doing a thing, the right and the wrong." It is the policy, or 
 reasoning of weak minds that seeks a middle way between. In 
 religion, in morals, in politics, as in mathematics, n. juste 7nilieic 
 is a nonentity. Morally, and intellectually, there is no middle 
 point between true and false, right and wrong; and practically, 
 no attainment between hit and miss. There is no neutral ground 
 in religion, none in morals, and none in sound politics. When 
 governments attempt to extend their power beyond the legitimate 
 object for which government is established in society, and would 
 embrace the intellectual, moral, and religious concerns, as well 
 as the material interests of their subjects, they are obliged to 
 adopt a middle course between the extreme of power they would 
 usurp, and the innate principle in the human mind of resistance 
 to power over intellectual action. This middle course, founded on 
 no principle but the evasion of applying principle to action, has 
 been the line of policy of Continental statesmen during this half 
 century. We have seen the principle applied at home, and sig- 
 nally fail in the hands of able men, and in a popular cause — in the 
 whole management and results of the Parliamentary Reform Bill 
 in the hands of the late Whig ministry. The common ^ense of 
 the people would accept of no trimming between right and wrong 
 in a great measure. If the measure and its principle were right, 
 they ought to have been followed out, and not sacrificed to any 
 secondary or partial interests. The concession to Tory party 
 power, — the attempt to find a middle point between right and 
 wrong, to settle the constitution ui)on a fog bank, neither land 
 nor water,— the attempt at a juste miliet(, in short, between 
 15 
 
218 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 reform and no reform, disgusted the nation, ruined tiie liberal 
 ministry, and for a moment has injured the cause itself. 
 
 In Prussia we see the same results from governing on juste 
 milieu principle in an opposite direction of policy ; in attempting 
 to govern in matters beyond the legitimate limits of government 
 — in the religion of the people. That government exists in so- 
 ciety for the people, not the people for the government, is ad- 
 mitted in our social economy, but not in the social economy of 
 the Continent. It is practically the reverse in Prussia ; yet here 
 the juste milieu principle, applied to uniting the two Protestant 
 churches into one for governmental support, has failed when 
 applied to the human mind; it has upset the Protestant religion 
 in Germany — has opened the door to popery and to infidelity, as 
 the only two asylums from arbitrary interference with independ- 
 ent religious opinion, and has at last run up those who still adhere 
 to the Protestant faith to a state of excitement and fanaticism — 
 to the extravagant doctrines and feelings of the age of the first 
 reformers. 
 
 It is said the new sovereign sees this false position, ai^d intends 
 to try back, and to abolish this mongrel Prussian church. But 
 this is but conjecture, for in this highly educated land the people 
 are only made acquainted with the intentions of their own govern- 
 ment through foreign newspapers. In consequence of some para- 
 graph in the Augsburg Algemeine Zeitung — a Bavarian news- 
 paper, in which the intentions of the Prussian government are 
 sometimes made known — a change in the present church is sup- 
 posed to be in ' contemplation ; and pamphlets on both sides, by 
 Prussian subjects, are printed abroad, at Hamburg, or Leipsic, 
 and smuggled in for the information of the comitry.* 
 
 This is the state of instruction upon their own religious aifairs, 
 and this the means of information and discussion on their own 
 most important interests, among a people boasting of being the 
 most generally and highly educated in Europe, — whose educa- 
 tional institutions, indeed, we are told by our divines, philosophers, 
 and politicians, are a model for all other civilized countries, and 
 the most efficient ever devised for the intellectual development, 
 and the religious and moral advancement of society. 
 
 Owing to the censorship of the press, and the consequent want 
 
 * For instance, Die in Preussen beabsichtigte Aufhebung der Kirchligen 
 Union. &c., von einem alt Preussen. Printed at Hamburg, 1841. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 219 
 
 of interest in, as well as of information upon, the affairs of the 
 country, the people in Prussia seldom talk home news or politics, 
 and arc as ignorant as in Turkey of what is doing by their own 
 government. Foreign newspapers — those of Leipsic, Hamburg, 
 Frankfort, or Augsburg— give them the first intelligence on their 
 own affairs. The persecution of the poor villagers in Silesia who 
 adhered to the Lutheran church, was, of course, not a matter to 
 be hinted at in Prussian newspapers ; and the circumstances would 
 perhaps never have been known beyond the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the sufferers, if the Prussian government could have im- 
 posed silence on others, as well as on its own subjects. As the 
 latest, if not the last, of religious persecutions in Europe in civilized 
 times, some minuteness in thedetailof the circumstances of it may 
 be satisfactory, or will, at least, show how, in highly educated 
 countries, persecution is carried on. 
 
 The amalgamation of the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, 
 and the introduction of the new liturgy and church service, or 
 agenda, met with a passive resistance everywhere. In vain royal 
 edicts assured the people that no change in their religious belief, 
 and no restraint on the freedom of conscience, were involved in 
 the new service. The ministers in Silesia considered the attempt 
 itself to assimilate the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches danger- 
 ous to the pure Lutheran doctrine, and openly declared that no 
 earthly power had a right to interfere with freedom of religion 
 and conscience. The parish of Hermannsdorf, under its minister 
 the pastor Berger, and the parish of Hoenigern, consisting of ten 
 villages, under its pastor Kellner, refused obedience to the order 
 of the consistory to introduce the new service, and continued to 
 use the old liturgy and service, and to receive the sacrament ac- 
 cording to the old Lutheran formulary — it is the body and blood 
 of Christ. The people flocked from far and near to these genuine 
 old Lutheran preachers. The consistory of Breslau ordered pastor 
 Bergerto administer the sacrament alternately according to the new 
 and the old service. He refused any such compromise of con- 
 science, any such juste milieu in his religious persuasion and 
 duty, and was consequently suspended. In the great parish of 
 Hoenigern, pastor Kellner adopted measures for a more powerful 
 opposition. Before the arrival of the commissioners of the con- 
 sistory, he surrendered the church keys, and church property, into 
 the hands of 40 elders chosen from the congregation, who received 
 
220 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the commission with their minister at their head, singing psahns, 
 and who gave a decided No to the question if they would receive 
 the new Uturgy and agenda. The commissioners were not ad- 
 mitted into the church ; and when they pronounced a sentence of 
 suspension against Kellner, he protested against their authority as 
 not representing the true Lutheran church by law established in 
 the land. Kellner and his elders were arrested and imprisoned at 
 Breslau ; but when the minister appointed as his successor came 
 to perform the church service according to the new agenda, he 
 found the church doors nailed, and a crowd of people obstructing 
 the entrance. On the 20th December, 1834, a body of 400 in- 
 fantry, 50 hussars, and 50 cuirassiers, marched from Breslau to 
 this recusant parish of Hoenigern. The civil and clerical authori- 
 ties again tried in vain to induce the people to accept the new ser- 
 vice. Their elders and pastor had been twelve weeks in prison, 
 but they continued obstinate ; and, at last, on Christmas eve, the 
 military took possession of the church, forced open the door by a 
 petard, and dispersed the people by a charge of cavalry, in which 
 some twenty persons were wounded. The interim minister was 
 thus intruded into the church, and the new service was performed 
 on Christmas day, but it was to a congregation of soldiers only; 
 for not one parishioner was to be seen in the church. It was 
 necessary to resort to other measures to obtain a real congregation 
 for the new service and the stormed parish church. The military 
 were stationed in the villages of the parish, and each recusant 
 house-holder was punished by having ten or twelve soldiers quar- 
 tered on him. The soldiers themselves were to exhort their land- 
 lords to go to the church, that they might be relieved from the 
 ruinous quartering of men upon them, and those who would not 
 conform were exposed to gross ill-usage. These are the peasants, 
 who, ruined by this persecution, sought a refuge in America. 
 
 The diffusion of education may be great in Prussia ; but its 
 influences have certainly not yet reached the governing class in 
 the community : for these are scenes, persecutions, and principles 
 of royal power, more like the history of the religious persecutions 
 in Scotland and England under the Stewart family two hundred 
 years ago, than events not four years old, among the most edu- 
 cated people in Europe, and in which their government itself 
 took the initiative and the gratuitous perpetration. 
 
 If such be the state of intelligence of the educating governing 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 221 
 
 class in Prussia upon the simple point of religious toleration, one 
 looks with curiosity to the state of intelligence upon religion, of 
 this governed, educated people. 
 
 Among all the aberrations from true religion, and often from 
 common sense, of the countless sects our uneducated people are 
 divided into, (including even Johanna Southcote's followers, the 
 Mormorites, Socialists, and the thousand others which appear 
 and disappear amidst our freedom of all religious opinions,) no 
 aberration from the laws of morality, decency, or admitted social 
 virtue, has ever been able to exist. All will be good and religious 
 in their way ; and it is only in their way and ideas of being reli- 
 gious, not in their way and ideas of being good, that they ditler. 
 Left to act and think for themselves, the people may take differ- 
 ent speculative doctrines in religion ; but in the practical doctrines 
 which have a reference to real life, the public mind with us is 
 well-educated, and takes invariably the one moral doctrine appli- 
 cable to social affairs. In Prussia, the people, not accustomed to 
 act or think for themselves, are like children escaping from 
 school, and rush into speculations in religion, politics and morals, 
 altogether absurd in the estimation of the more highly-educated 
 public mind of this country, accustomed to apply principle to 
 action as free agents in all social movement. In this way one 
 must account for the singular fact, that the only positively immo- 
 ral religious sect of the present times in the Christian world, arose, 
 and has spread itself in the most educated part of the most edu- 
 cated country in Europe— in and about Konigsberg, the capital 
 of the province of Old Prussia. The Muckers are a sect who 
 combine lewdness with religion. The name. Mucker, is said to 
 be derived from a local or sporting term, indicating the rutting 
 season of hares. The conventicles of this sect are frequented by 
 men and women in a state of nudity ; and to excite the animal 
 passion but to restrain its indulgence, is said to constitute their 
 religious exercise. Many of the highest ngbility of the province, 
 and two of the established clergy of the city, besides citizens, 
 artificers, and ladies, old and young, belong to this sect ; and two 
 young ladies are stated to have died from the consequences ot 
 excessive libidinous excitement. It is no secret association ol 
 profligacy shunning the light. It is a sect, according to the decla- 
 rations of Von Tippelskirch, and of several persons of conside- 
 ration in Konigsberg who had been followers of it themselves, 
 
222 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 existing very extensively under the leadership of the established 
 ministers of the Gospel, Ebel and Diestel, of a Count Von Kaniz, 
 
 of a lady Von S , and of other noble persons, and of several 
 
 of the citizen class ; and it appears that a great part of the nobility 
 of the province belong to it. The notice of the government was 
 first attracted to its existence by a complaint to the consistory, 
 of a Count Von Fink, who had been a zealous member of the 
 sect, that the minister Ebel, one of the pastors of the city, and 
 who is one of its leaders, had attempted to seduce his wife under 
 the pretext of procreating a Messias. The consistory appointed 
 two commissioners to examine, and report to government upon 
 this business. The system and theory of this dreadful combina- 
 tion of vice with religion are of course very properly suppressed. 
 All that can be gathered from the AUgemeinen Kirchenzeitung 
 of 1836, and the historical writings of that year, is that this horri- 
 ble sect was spread so widely that the official people were them- 
 selves slow in the investigation of the matter, and that the count- 
 ess who had disclosed the practices of the sect was in danger from 
 their fury, and had to be protected by the police — that a very 
 strict hierarchy existed in the sect, that it was divided in three 
 classes, and that the apprenticeship in the first class must be accom- 
 plished before the reception into the second class : and that the 
 strictest trials were required for being admitted into the third 
 class, of which the members were called by a name of honour — 
 that the doctrine and practice of the Muckers were a mixture of 
 mysticism and gnosticism, of fanaticism and lust; and that the 
 heroes and heroines who had sustained the trials of their conti- 
 nence, or power over the flesh, were rewarded with the seraphim 
 k^s, with which the most abominable excesses were connected. 
 The government wisely suppressed the examinations and pro- 
 ceedings, although copies of some of the first official reports and 
 depositions had got into circulation among the curious, and the 
 case was transferred from the local courts of the province to Ber- 
 lin for further consideration in 1837, but nothing since has been 
 made known to the public on the subject. The sect itself appears 
 by Dr. Bretschneider's account of it, to have been so generally 
 diffused, that he says, "It cannot be believed that the public 
 functionaries were in ignorance of its existence, but that they 
 were afraid to do their duty from the influence of the many prin- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 223 
 
 cipal people who were involved in it."* In his honest indigna- 
 tion he proposes as the only means of extirpating it, that all reli- 
 gious meetings, all conventicles, missionary societies, religious tract 
 societies, and in short all pious doings of the public among them- 
 selves, should be put down by the state. This remedy is a little 
 too Prussian, dreadful as the enormity is, in a civilized country, of 
 such a sect having existed in this age. It is only in the history of 
 Otaheite that its parallel can be found. 
 
 A great deal of delusion on the subject of national education 
 has arisen from confounding the means with the end — the admira- 
 ble means for diffusing reading, writing, and such acquirements, 
 first adopted on the great scale by the Prussian government, with 
 the end and object of education — the raising the religious, moral, 
 and social character of men as intellectual free agents. It is only 
 by free institutions in society that the moral, religious, and intel- 
 lectual endowments of the human^mind are exercised and edu- 
 cated. The mere operations of reading and writing, nay, the 
 acquisition of knowledge itself, are but the means, not the end. 
 and, if carried even to the utmost perfection, do not necessarily 
 exercise and educate the moral powers of the human mind — the 
 judgment, the self-restraint, the self-government, the application 
 of principle to action and of action to principle in our social rela- 
 tions. We see every day in individuals that the mental powers 
 and the moral and religious principle are in a very low, unculti- 
 vated state, although education, in its ordinary sense, has done its 
 utmost, and reading, writing, languages, accomplishments, and 
 knowledge have been extensively acquired. There is, in reality. 
 a social education of the hmnan mind, more important than its 
 scholastic education, and not at all necessarily coiniected with it. 
 This, the only true national or general education of a people, can 
 only be given where man is a free agent living under social insti- 
 tutions in which he acts for himself, politically and morally, and 
 applies by himself, and not by the order and under guidance of 
 the state or its functionaries, the principles of justice, law, morality, 
 religion, which should guide his conduct as a member of society. 
 This exercise, or education of the human mind, is wanting in the 
 
 * See Dr. Karl Venturini's Neue Historische Schriften, Brunswick, 1839; 
 also Algemeiiie Kirclien/eitun;L', Jahr, 1836, No. 50 ; also Pragmatische Ges- 
 chichte unserer Zeit, das Jahr, 1835: Leipsic, 1837; for what is known to the 
 public respecting the Muckers. x 
 
224 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 social economy of Prussia, in wiiich men are in a state of pupil- 
 age as members of society, and not of free agency. No amount 
 of scholastic education, of reading, writing or information, can 
 make up for this want of moral self-education by the free exer- 
 cise of the individual's judgment in all the social relations of life. 
 It is thus that the existence of this sect of the Muckers among 
 the most highly educated, that is, scholastically educated people 
 in Europe, must be accounted for. Their school acquirements 
 have had no influence on their moral state — or rather have had a 
 pernicious influence on it, as being a part of a social system in 
 which the human mind is dormant, is trained to act without think- 
 ing, and under orders, instead of exerting its own judgment and 
 exercising free -agency and reflection in its own moral, religious, 
 and social affairs. In true moral social education, the Prussian 
 people, from the nature of their government and social economy, 
 necessarily stand lower than the lowest of our own unlettered 
 population. 
 
 In the importance attached to the Prussian arrangements or 
 means for diffusing scholastic education, there is also much delu- 
 sion. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and all other scholastic ac- 
 quirements follow evidently the same law as all other human 
 wants — the demand will produce the supply. Create a demand 
 for such acquirements, for knowledge, for educated labour of any 
 kind, and people will educate themselves up to that demand. The 
 reduction of the postage in Britain has created this demand with 
 us, has given to such acquirements a value almost entirely want- 
 ing before, in the position of the labouring man ; and this mea- 
 sure is bringing out the schoolmaster without the machinery of 
 national arrangements for education. The social value or import- 
 ance of the Prussian , arrangements for diffusing national scho- 
 lastic education has been eviden|;ly overrated ; for now that the 
 whole system has been in the fullest operation in society upon a 
 whole generation, we see morals and religion in a more unsatis- 
 factory state in this very country than in almost any other in the 
 north of Europe ; we see no where a people in a more abject 
 political and civil condition, or with less free agency, in their 
 social economy, A national education which gives a nation 
 neither religion, nor morality, nor civil liberty, nor political liberty, 
 is an education not worth having. 
 
 Truly, much humbug has been played off by literary men — 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 225 
 
 unwittingly, no doubt, for they themselves were sincere dupes — 
 upon the pious and benevolent feelings of the European public, 
 with regard to the excellence of the Prussian educational system. 
 They have only looked at the obvious, almost mechanical, means 
 of diffusing instruction, viz., schools for teaching the people to 
 read and write, and have, in their estimate and recommendation 
 of the means, altogether overlooked the all-important circumstan- 
 ces that, if these means are not in free action, they will not pro- 
 duce the end— the moral and religious improvement of the people 
 — and that the almost mechanical arts of reading and writing 
 may be acquired with as little moral, religious, or even intellect- 
 ual improvement of the human mind, as the mamial and platoon 
 exercise. In their admiration of the wheels and machinery, 
 these literary men have forgotten to look under the table, and see 
 what kind of web all this was producing. Who could suppose, 
 Avhile reading pamphlets, reviews, and literary articles out of num- 
 ber on national education, and on the beautiful system, means, and 
 arrangements adopted by Prussia for educating the people, and 
 while lost in admiration in the educational labyrinth -of country 
 schools and town schools— common schools and high schools— real 
 schools — and classical schools —gymnasia — progymnasia— normal 
 schools — seminariums — universities — who could suppose that 
 with all this education no use of education is allowed — that while 
 reading and writing are enforced upon all, thinking and the com- 
 munication of thoughts are prevented by an arbitrary censorship 
 of the press, sometimes strict, sometimes lax ? Who could sup 
 pose that tiie only visible use to the people of Prussia of all 
 this national education is, in reality, to write out official, civil, or 
 military reports from inferiors to superiors — that it enters in no 
 other way into their social affairs? Who could suppose, at the 
 very period Victor Cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, and so 
 many other eminent literary men of all countries were extolling 
 tlic national education and general acquirement of reading in 
 Prussia, and kindling around them a holy and truly virtuous 
 enthusiasm among the moral and religious — for the diffusion of 
 knowledge in all countries— that the exercise of worship any- 
 where but in a church was pro]iibited and made criminal in Prus- 
 sia by an edictal law dated the 9th March, 1834 ; and that many 
 persons suffering imprisonment, civil disabilities, or other punish- 
 ments for this Prussian crime of worshipping God in their own 
 
226 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 houses, were only liberated and pardoned by the amnesty of 
 August, 1840 ? Who could suppose that while the praises of the 
 educational system of the Prussian government were resounding in 
 our senate and our pulpits, this educating government was driving 
 by religious persecution from her educated land upwards of 600 
 Christians, who went from Silesia to the wilds of America simply 
 to enjoy the privileges of religious freedom, and of communicating 
 at the altar according to the forms and doctrines of Luther or Cal- 
 vin, rather than of his late Majesty ? Who could suppose that 
 while literary men were extolling the high educational state of 
 Prussia, her moral state stood so low that such a sect as the* 
 Muckers could not only exist in the most educated of her pro- 
 vinces, but could flourish openly, and number among its mem- 
 bers, clergy, nobility, and educated and influential people ? These 
 writers had evidently been deceiving themselves and the public; 
 had looked no further than to the means of education ; and had 
 hastily concluded that these means must necessarily be producing 
 the end. If to read, write, cipher, and sing, be education, they 
 are quite right— the Prussian subject is an educated man. If 
 to reason, judge, and act as an independent free agent, in the reli- 
 gious, moral, and social relations of man to his Creator, and to 
 his fellow-men, be that exercise of the mental powers which alone 
 deserves the name of education, then is the Prussian subject a 
 mere drum-boy in education, in the cultivation and use of all that 
 regards the moral and intellectual endowments of man, compared 
 to one of the unlettered popiflation of a free country. The dor- 
 mant state of the public mind on all affairs of public interest, the 
 acquiescence in a total want of political influence or existence, 
 the intellectual dependence upon the government or its function- 
 ary in all the affairs of the community, the abject submission to 
 the want of freedom or free agency in thoughts, words, or acts, 
 the religious thraldom of the people to forms which they despise, 
 the want of influence of religious and social principle in society, 
 justify the conclusion that the moral, religious, and social con- 
 dition of the people was never looked at or estimated by those 
 writers who were so enthusiastic in their praises of the national 
 education of Prussia. The French writers took up the song from 
 the band of Prussian pensioned literati of Berlin, and the English 
 from the French writers ; and so the song has gone round Europe 
 without any one taking the trouble to inquire what this educa- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 227 
 
 tional system was producing ; whether it had elevated, as it 
 should have done if genuine, the moral, religious, and social 
 position and character of the Prussian people as members of 
 civilized society, having religious, moral, civil, and political rights 
 and duties to enjoy and to perform. 
 
 It is to us in England, with our free institutions and individual 
 free-agency in all things, an inconsistency scarcely conceivable, 
 that a government should give the means, nay, enforce the ac- 
 quirement of the means, yet punish and suppress the use and 
 exercise of the means it gives— should enforce education, yet 
 deny the use and exercise of education in the duties of men, as 
 social, moral, religious, thinking, self-acting beings. But this is 
 the consistency of arbitrary, uncontrolled rule, and of the juste 
 milieu principle of government by which it seeks to continue its 
 power. This is the government of functionarism and despotism 
 united, endeavouring to perpetuate itself by turning the education 
 of the people and the means of living of a great body of civil 
 functionaries placed over them, into a machinery for its own sup» 
 port. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DISJOINTED STATE OF PRUSSIA AS ONE NATIONAL BODY.— DIFFERENT 
 LAWS AND ADMINISTRATIONS.— FUNCTIONARISM.— ARISTOCRACY AND 
 FUNCTIONARISM COMPARED. 
 
 The military system of the Prussian government not only im- 
 poverishes and demoralizes the people without creating that kind 
 of military force which from its offensive capability gives a state 
 real political weight in European affairs, but it counteracts its 
 own object, and actually weakens the moral element of the de- 
 fence of the country, in proportion to the perfection to which it 
 carries the physical element — the military organization. As 
 under this system each individual is necessarily confined very 
 much to his own military locality, the free circulation of the mass 
 of the population through the country is impeded, and family ties, 
 ties of acquaintanceship, of petty business, of trades, oT common 
 interests and objects, and a common spirit, can scarcely spread 
 over adjacent provinces, much less over such a widely outstretched 
 land. This military system with its pendant, the civil system, 
 is the only thing common to all. The people of distant provinces 
 have no common interests or objects amalgamating them into one 
 whole — no liberties, laws, constitutional rights common to all, to 
 rally upon. 
 
 " What is it to me if the French are on the Rhine ?" would be 
 the reasonable feeling of every man north of the Oder, when 
 called out for actual service in the field — " if they come to us we 
 will defend ourselves, but what have we to do with those coun- 
 tries ?" The different provinces of the Prussian kingdom are, in 
 fact, not amalgamated by mutual trade and communications, not 
 united by their material interests. They are connected together 
 only in a common bureau at Berlin, but are distinct existences in 
 all that binds men together. The people can scarcely be called 
 one nation. They are centralized but not nationalized. 
 
 But is loyalty, is the devoted attachment of the subject to the 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 229 
 
 adored and beneficent monarch, to go for nothing in this cold- 
 hearted estimate of the connection between a country and its 
 government, and of the impulses which lead a gallant people to 
 fly to arms, and defend with their lives and fortunes the rights of 
 their beloved sovereign? Let him who asks turn up a file of old 
 newspapers, and he will there find his answer. He will there 
 find the same effiisions of enthusiastic loyalty and devotedness 
 from the same towns, provinces, and people— to King Jerom of 
 Westphalia, that are now addressed to his majesty Frederick 
 William IV of Prussia— to King Louis of Holland, that are now 
 addressed to King William of Orange. Change names and dates, 
 and the one would do for the other. It is within the verge of possi- 
 bility that the same pen and the same scribe copied, and the same 
 burgomasters or other official personages presented the same, the 
 identical addresses to both monarchs, containing the same assur- 
 ances of the inviolable attachment, the devoted zeal to the royal 
 house and the beloved sovereign, of the most loyal and faithful 
 of subjects. The age of loyalty expired amidst the laughter of 
 the world, when the Buonaparte brood of kings and princes ex- 
 changed their straw stools in Ajaccio for thrones, and were, treated 
 in their Baratarias with all the honour, adulation, and devoted 
 loyalty, that the "lives and fortunes men" of the day, in Holland 
 and Germany, could muster. There was a moment in this half 
 century, when royalty and aristocracy might have restored them- 
 selves to their ancient social position by an act of great moral 
 justice to society — by reducing to their original nothingness the 
 swarms of counts, princes, dukes, marshals, who had been ele- 
 vated to social distinction by no social, intellectual, or moral 
 worth or merit, but merely by chance, favouritism, or dexterity 
 in unprincipled military achievement, and by restoring to the 
 countries, cities, communities, and individuals, the riches expressed 
 from them by these personages in the shape of contributions, dons, 
 taxes, and which, in reality, were unmilitary booty and illegal 
 rapine. The allied powers overlooked or disdained, in the pride 
 of victory, the opportunity of uniting the monarchical and aris- 
 tocratical principle which they wished to re-establish, with the 
 principle of moral justice. They themselves, by thus contaminat- 
 ing the conventional reverence for the monarchical and aristo- 
 cratic elements of society which they wished to revive, reduced 
 
230 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 that of their material interests. The constitutional states have 
 endeavoured to strengthen this tie by giving the people a voice 
 in the management of their own affairs, a representation in the 
 legislature. Prussia endeavours to manage the material interests 
 of the people without the people, without a constitution; and as 
 loyalty and aristocratical influence in the social body are unde- 
 niably effete as principles of national movement, her govern- 
 ment is connected with her people only by two ties— that of the 
 military army with its officers, and that of the civil army with its 
 functionaries. Compared with Britain or France, the kingdom of 
 Prussia is in a very disjointed state, owing to this entire reliance 
 upon the civil and military power, without any connection be- 
 tween the government and the people in the management of their 
 material interests. The material interests of the people, even 
 among themselves, those of the different provinces of Prussia, 
 are not amalgamated. There are no common interests, common 
 laws, common religion, common voice in the legislation of their 
 common country, uniting all. In that most important perhaps of 
 all the elements of social union in a country — the law and its 
 administration— differences and confusion prevail. The different 
 shreds torn from other countries, of which the kingdom is com- 
 posed, retain, in some degree, each its own laws, forms of judica- 
 ture, religion, and rights, inalienable even by despotic power, un- 
 less with the will and concurrence of the people themselves. The 
 power which alone could, with safety to the government, touch 
 and change these, the power of the people in legislative assembly, 
 will not be conceded by the autocratic government, so that the 
 country remains in a chaotic state, governed as one but not united. 
 In the country west of the Rhine, and also in those provinces 
 east of that river, of which Cologne, Dusseldorf, Elberfeld, Len- 
 ney, Solingen, Coblenz, are the chief towns, the French law and 
 its administration, the Code Napoleon, Code de Commerce, Code 
 de Procedure Civile, Code Crimi7iel, the Justice de Paix, Tri- 
 buneaux de premilre Instance, Sf-c, are all retained, and are so 
 firmly rooted in the affections of the people, that no government 
 could venture to alter them unless by a constitutional act of a 
 representative assembly of the people themselves. On this point 
 these provinces have given manifestations of their sentiments not 
 to be mistaken, when the government has proposed assimilations 
 in the laws or tribunals to those of Prussia. This population 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 231 
 
 living under French law is the very kernel of the Prussian king- 
 dom — a concentrated population of from three to four millions, 
 the most wealthy, commercial, and manufacturing, and the most 
 enlightened upon their rights and wants of any perhaps in Ger- 
 many. In the Province of Posen, again, at the otlier extremity 
 of the kingdom, the French administration by justices de paix^ 
 and by open courts of justice, and open examinations of witnesses, 
 prevails over the general Prussian administration. 
 
 In the provinces which were mediatized, and even in the pro- 
 vinces which had long been under the Prussian sceptre, baronial 
 courts were a species of private property which could not be 
 taken away from the estate of the prince or baron. Government 
 always had the needful superintendence over the patron in his 
 appointing judges from legally qualified persons bred at the 
 universities— as in the appointment of a clergyman by a patron 
 — and also over the judge, in superintending, revising, or revers- 
 ing his judicial proceedings; but such courts have the inhabitants 
 of certain districts thirled to them, in cases civil or criminal, in the 
 first instance ; and forms, expenses, conveniences to suitors, and 
 confidence in justice, are, necessarily, very different in a multi- 
 plicity of diflerent local courts established at different periods, 
 and originally with different usages. Deducting the population 
 of the provinces standing altogether under the Code Napoleon, of 
 the remaining 10,000,000 of people under the Prussian sceptre, 
 3,700,000, or above one-third of the whole population of Prussia, 
 are under private jurisdiction, and 6,300,000 only under the royal 
 governmental courts. Of the royal governmental courts, not 
 including the higher courts of appeal, there are 7,018, and of 
 private courts, 6,134, of which 128 are of the patrimony of princes, 
 standesherrn or high nobility, and of provincial nobility, and 6,006 
 are common baronial courts of patrimony. The judges in these 
 patrimonial local courts appear to be paid either by fees, or by 
 dues from all the* peasantry within the circle of the jurisdiction, 
 or by land mortified in old times for the support of the judge; 
 but appear to be so ill paid, that, like curates of old in Kent, one 
 judge officiates in eight, or even twelve, of these local courts. 
 The total number of judges in the 6,134 private courts is but 523. 
 The greatest number of inhabitants subject to these local patri- 
 monial courts, is in Silesia, where, out of 2,500,000 people, 1,500,- 
 000 are under barony courts. The smallestinumber is in West- 
 
232 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 phalia, where, in a population of 1,300,000 people, only about 
 80,000 are under these patrimonial jurisdictions, the system hav- 
 ing been abolished almost entirely when Westphalia was erected 
 into a distinct kingdom for Jerome Buonaparte. Of royal or 
 regular governmental courts the number in Prussia appears to be 
 7,018, and of judges paid by government 2,325, of whom 1,593 
 are judges in the inferior local courts. The total number of all 
 functionaries living by the administration of law, and appointed 
 by government, appears to be 11,401 persons. It is the first law 
 of functionarism to take care of itself. To reduce to uniformity 
 the administration of law, and the law courts, among a people, 
 appears one of the most needful steps towards an amalgamation 
 of the whole into one nation, and, if strong measures were agoing, 
 one of the most important to which a strong measure could be 
 applied, especially as these patrimonial courts are founded on no 
 principle of advantage or convenience to the people, or of just 
 right of the baronial proprietor. But it would have been a cur- 
 tailment of the living to be gained in function, a reform not to be 
 expected from a government of functionaries. Until this, how- 
 ever, be done, the people of Prussia can scarcely be called one 
 nation. The state wants unity. 
 
 In the provinces, also, clipped out of ancient Poland, which are 
 not inconsiderable, the province of Posen alone, containing nearly 
 one million and a half of inhabitants, a strong anti- Prussian spirit, 
 and not a passive spirit, prevails among all ranks. Since the 
 accession of the present king, the nobility there have refused to 
 accept the constitution of a provincial assembly of the Standes- 
 herrn, or nobles of a certain class, to deliberate upon such provin- 
 cial affairs as the king may order to be laid before them — which 
 is the kind of representative constitution proposed to be substituted 
 in Prussia for that constitutional representation of the people in 
 the legislature promised by the late king— and avowedly upon 
 the principle that they do not choose to be amalgamated with 
 Prussia, and placed upon the same footing as the other provinces 
 of the Prussian dominions. They will stand by their Polish 
 nationality. It is this spirit, and not fanaticism alone, that is at 
 work in this part of the kingdom in supporting the Bishop of 
 Posen and the Catholic clergy in resisting the church measures of 
 government. Independently of the influence of the clergy, the 
 Polish nationality ia increasing to such alarming intensity in this 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 233 
 
 quarter, that obscure state paragraphs have been inserted in the 
 foreign newspapers adn-iitted into Prussia — those of Augsburg, 
 Frankfort, or Leipsic — to prepare the pubhc mind in Prussia for 
 some strong measure to put it down — some attempt similar to the 
 Russian, to abolish by law the Polish language, customs, and 
 national distinctions. It is a curious trait in the working of a 
 censorship of the press, and of pubhc opinion on public affairs, 
 that an autocratic irresponsible government must condescend to 
 cheat its own establishments, and avail itself of the free press of a 
 foreign town to sound the public opinion of its own subjects upon 
 its own intentions. Can such a state of things be permanent? 
 Is sucli a principle of government as this autocratic principle, 
 suitable to the advanced condition of the subjects of Prussia ? Are 
 the relations between the governing and the governed what they 
 ought to be ? The Prussian government wants to nationalize its 
 subjects, and yet puts down the means of obtaining its own object. 
 It wants to rouse a national spirit, yet would have the public 
 mind passive, calm, and unagitated by political discussions of the 
 press, or of public meetings, or by free communications on public 
 affairs. It wants to sail with a fair gale of wind, yet to keep the 
 sea smooth and unruffled by the agitation which unavoidably 
 attends the gale. 
 
 Wc hear much of the dangers and calamities of popular tumults, 
 political agitations, and mobs : but we should consider that these 
 are the outbursts, the vents of the very same spirit that is national 
 spirit on national emergencies. They are the small evils insepa- 
 rable from a great good. A mob is an assemblage of people 
 actuated by a common spirit. It may be a spirit of mischief, of 
 breaking windows, of throwing dead dogs and cats, of hurraing 
 demagogues — still it is the identical spirit which if kindled through 
 a whole nation on great occasions is the national spirit roused for 
 national honour or national defence. Germany has no mobs. 
 Italy has none. Mobs are peculiar to those countries of which 
 the people are nationalized, free, and capable of acting together 
 with a common spirit. A crowd of people gathered together arc 
 not a mob, unless actuated by a common spirit for a common 
 object. Half a dozen schoolboys going out to beat half a dozen 
 boys of another school, are a mob: and the same spirit on a grander 
 occasion, and grander scale, would be public spirit, patriotism, all 
 that Prussia wants to inspire into her inert population. This 
 16 
 
234 ' NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. _ 
 
 susceptibility of being kindled into a common spirit for a common 
 object is wanting in the character of the German people : tliey are 
 trained and educated out of it. It is the policy of their govern- 
 ments to repress it, rather than to keep it alive: the consequence will 
 probably be, on a rupture with France, that a second edition of 
 the first campaigns of the last war will be given again to the world; 
 and with better troops, abler officers, superior machinery of war, 
 and at least equal courage and vigour of the soldiers, Germany 
 will yield to the invincible national spirit of the French. The 
 moral principle will again beat the mechanical in warfare. The 
 false policy of the Prussian government represses the growth of 
 that nationality which would be its surest defence, because it re- 
 quires the sacrifice of an obsolete principle of autocratic govern- 
 ment unsuitable to the times, and to the social state of Prussia 
 itself. 
 
 The traveller inimical to hereditary aristocracy as a privileged 
 state power in a community — not from prejudice, or party feel- 
 ing, but on principle, as an institution adverse to a liberal social 
 economy — will find much to shake his opinions, when he sits 
 down here on the Continent to consider deliberately the power 
 which has succeeded to aristocracy in France, Prussia, and gene- 
 rally in the modern social economy of Europe. Aristocracy, it is 
 evident, had worked itself out, and is effete in every country, 
 even in those in which it has not been formally abolished or under- 
 mined by law. Where it still stands with all its ancient supports, 
 it is evidently going to decay, and has lost its roots in modern 
 society. But the power which has sprung up in its place — the 
 power of functionarism— is by no means satisfactory. It is aris- 
 tocracy without the advantages of aristocracy. The highest func- 
 tionary is not an independent man. He has been bred in a school 
 of implicit, almost military submission of his own opinion to au- 
 thority — has attained power through the path of subjection of his 
 own principles and judgment to those of others above him. He 
 has no independence of mind. Such public men in the higher 
 offices of government as our hereditary aristocracy and gentry on 
 all sides of politics produce— men not to be swayed from- what 
 they hold to be right, and who renounce office rather than con- 
 sistency and independent judgment — are not to be heard of in the 
 functionarism of the Continent. The noble, generally speaking, 
 is an educated man from his social position, and not edticated 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 235 
 
 merely for functionary duties, with the contracted views of office. 
 He is also, generally speaking, independent iu position and cir- 
 cumstances, and the public opinion and judgment of his political 
 conduct is an influence more powerful with him than with the 
 office-bred functionary. He is working for a reward, and under 
 a check from public opinion, which neither the supreme power of 
 the state, nor its subordinate powers above him, or beside him, 
 can give or take away, or compensate for, if it be lost by the 
 course of his political conduct in public aff'airs. The functionary 
 is not only independent of public opinion, but is bred up in a so- 
 cial system which has no reference to it, in which it is set at 
 naught, and in which it can give him no support or reward for 
 the sacrifice of office to principle, or of his own individual mate- 
 rial interests to his political opinions. As a state power, or social 
 body, functionarism compared to aristocracy is much more de- 
 tached from the cause of the people. It is also, as a state power, 
 much more dangerous to the monarch. It is a mistake to con- 
 sider functionarism, as it now exists on the Continent, a machine 
 in the hands of despotic, autocratic sovereigns. It is a machine 
 which governs the government. The history of France, from the 
 hour that the military support of Buonaparte was broken at Mos- 
 cow, shows that the crown itself is altogether in the gift of this 
 new state power. The history of Belgium, of Spain, of Russia, 
 tells the same fact. It is considered by many that here in Prussia, 
 it is functionarism, not royalty, that rules. The body of function- 
 aries are like the body of clergy in the middle ages. The men 
 are of one mind, bred in one school, with one spirit. The mo- 
 narch has but a small number to choose from of men around the 
 throne, qualified to conduct or advise public measures. These 
 are all men bred in the same way — men of the same ideas, mind, 
 and spirit. It is but a change of persons and faces about him, 
 not of principles or system, that the monarch attains by a change 
 of ministers. He is in a position very similar to that of his pre- 
 decessors in the middle ages, when churchmen held all state af- 
 fairs in their hands. Since the decay of hereditary aristocracy, a 
 power remarkably similar to that exercised by the priesthood in 
 the middle ages — a body similarly constituted to the clerical, and 
 in the same relative position to the sovereign and the people — is 
 establishing a thraldom over both. The sovereign and the people 
 have no free political action, or mutual working upon each other, 
 
236 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 through this wall of functionarism that divides them. In the 
 hereditary aristocracy, the monarch had a selection of men bred 
 in all varieties of social position — not as the functionary, or the 
 priest, in only one contracted sphere of action and thinking — and 
 of all varieties of mental power, and, although connected by their 
 material interests as a body with the welfare of the people, united 
 to the personality of the crown by their individual honours, pri- 
 vileges, and social distinctions. The functionaries are only united 
 to each other, and, like the clergy, are a body distinct both from 
 the sovereign and the people, in interests and social relations. 
 The habit of interfering, regulating, commanding in the concerns 
 of the people, gives both to them and the people a feeling of op- 
 posed interests and objects, not of confidence. The functionary 
 in Germany, even in the lowest station, is always treated, and his 
 wife also, with the full ceremonial of his title of office, which 
 shows that his relation to the people is not one of mutual confi- 
 dence. The evil effect on the industry and independence of mind 
 of a people, by such a mass of government employment with 
 social influence and easy living, being offered to the higher, mid- 
 dle, and small capitalist classes, has been already stated ; and also 
 that this is the main obstacle to the development of national in- 
 dustry and wealth, and to that progress in trade and manufacture 
 which the German people are at present dreaming of Free social 
 institutions also, the only foundation of national prosperity, moral 
 free-agency, civil and political liberty, never can grow up under 
 the pressure of this state power drawn from the upper and middle 
 classes, influenced by one spirit, and interested as a body in main- 
 taining the importance, means of Uving and patronage, derived 
 from a multitude of functions established for restraining or entirely 
 superseding free social institutions, free-agency, and civil or poli- 
 tical liberty. Functionarism is perhaps more adverse than aris- 
 tocracy to civil liberty. Will the great social movement of the 
 German people now in progress for their material interests and 
 industrial prosperity be able to shake off this incubus, to break 
 up the systefn of interference, superintendence, and military ar- 
 rangement on the part of government in all social action, upon 
 which functionarism is founded, and by which it lives ? Will the 
 continental sovereigns, acting in the spirit of the German com- 
 mercial league, and in reaUty for their own independence and 
 power, abandon the military system of interference in all things,, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 237 
 
 and of governing by functionaries instead of by the people ? Will 
 they fall back now, as some day they will be obliged to do, for 
 support against the power of functionarism upon the power of 
 the people in a representative constitution ? Or will they attempt 
 to stick up again the dead branches of hereditary aristocracy 
 around the throne ? The future state of society on the Continent 
 turns on the solution which time and circumstances may give to 
 these questions. TTie spirit raised by the German commercial 
 league is hastening on their solution rapidly. One is already 
 solved — the restoration of an hereditary privileged aristocracy in 
 Prussia. 
 
 The Prussian government has, of late years, been aware of the 
 false position in which it stands — admitting no principle but the 
 purely monarchical autocratic principle exercised by its functiona- 
 ries ; and yet encouraging the growth of a state of society, wealth, 
 industry, and national spirit, directly opposed to that principle, 
 and which can only exist where the people partake in their own- 
 government and legislation. The policy of late has evidently 
 been to retrace its steps. The dissolution of the Prussian church, 
 and the return to the old forms and spirit of the two branches of 
 Protestantism, especially to the pietism of the old Lutheran church, 
 is talked of as the wish and tendency of the court ; and it is even 
 whispered, that the abolition of the leiheigenschaft, or feudal 
 servitude of the peasantry, and of the privileges and exclusive 
 rights of the corporate bodies in towns, is talked of in high places 
 as having been a hasty measure. And undoubtedly so it was, if 
 the monarchical autocratic principle was to be retained. At the 
 coronation of his present majesty in August last, in Konigsberg, 
 an attempt was made to begin the restoration of an hereditary 
 class of nobles. It was proposed to elevate some of the wealthi- 
 est of the present nobility to the rimk of princes, and to make the 
 new dignity hereditary in the eldest sons, instead of descending aS 
 the present titles do, to all the children ; and the new nobles were 
 to be bound to entail a certain proportion of their estates upon 
 the successors to their titles. The proposal, however, met with 
 no acceptance. With almost all, the estates were so burdened 
 that it could not be done without injury to their creditors. Others 
 considered it would be an injustice to their other children. Some 
 declined the proffered honours point blank. The diet or provin- 
 cial assembly of the standeshcrrn of Konigsberg for deliberating 
 
238 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 on the provincial affairs laid before them— which is the substitute 
 given for a constitutional government — although assembled for 
 the coronation, and to whose members this offer was made, re- 
 jected it, and even adopted a petition for a representative consti- 
 tution of the people, as promised to them by the late king under 
 date of the 25th May, 1815, to which they referred. The city of 
 Breslau, the third in importance in the kingdom, standing next to 
 Berlin and Konigsberg, adopted a similar petition and reference. 
 Cologne also made a similar move. These are strong indications 
 of the rising spirit of the times — of the split between things as 
 they are and the sentiments of the influential classes of the coun- 
 try. A retrograde movement is evidently impossible ; and it is 
 equally impossible to stand still, with the whole material interests 
 of the people, and their opinions and feelings for political exist- 
 ence in the legislation excited by the spirit of the German com- 
 mercial league, and pushing on the government in a path which 
 •the government is pledged to take, in which its steps are watched 
 by the people, and which necessarily and unavoidably leads to 
 free institutions, a representative constitution, and the abolition of 
 the present sole monarchical, autocratic principle. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 BERLIN.— MANAGEMENT OF THE POOR IN BERLIN.— DETAILS CONCERN- 
 ING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE POOR. 
 
 Berlin has the air of the metropoUs of a kingdom of yester- 
 day. No Gothic churches, narrow streets, fantastic gable ends, 
 no historical stone and lime, no remnants of the picturesque ages, 
 recall the olden time. Voltaire in satin breeches and powdered 
 peruke, Frederic the Great in jackboots and pigtail, and the 
 French classical age of Louis XIV, are the men and times Berlin 
 calls up to the imagination of the traveller. A fine city, however, 
 Berlin is, — very like the age she represents — very fine and very 
 nasty. Berlin is a city of palaces, that is, of huge barrack-like 
 edifices with pillars, statues, and all the regular frippery of the 
 tawdry school of classical French architecture — all in stucco, and 
 frequently out at elbows, discovering the naked brick under the 
 tattered yellow faded covering of plaster. The fixtures which 
 strike the eye in the streets of Berlin are vast fronts of buildings, 
 clurtisy ornaments, clumsy statues, clumsy inscriptions, a profu- 
 sion of gilding, guard-houses, sentry-boxes ; the movables are 
 sentries presenting arms every minute, officers with feathers and 
 orders passing unceasingly, hackney droskies rattling about, and 
 numbers of well-dressed people. The streets are spacious and 
 straight, with broad margins on each side for foot passengers ; 
 and a band of plain flag-stones on these margins makes them 
 much more walkabic than the streets of most continental towns. 
 But these margins are divided from the spacious carriage-way in 
 the middle, by open kennels telling the nose unutterable things. 
 These open kennels are boarded over only at the gateways of the 
 palaces to let the carriages cross them, and must be particularly 
 convenient to the inhabitants, for they are not at all particularly 
 agreeable. Use reconciles people to nuisances which might be 
 easily removed. A sluggish but considerable river, the Spree, 
 
240 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Stagnates through the town, and the money laid out in stucco 
 work and outside decoration of the houses would go far towards 
 covering over their drains, raising the water by engines, and send- 
 ing it in a purifying stream through every street and sewer. If 
 bronze and marble could smell, Bkicher and Bulow, Schwerin 
 and Zeithen, and duck-winged angels, and two-headed eagles in- 
 numerable, would be found on their pedestals holding their noses 
 instead of grasping their swords. It is a curious illustration of 
 the difference between the civilization of the fine arts and that of 
 the useful arts, in their influences on social well-being, that this 
 city, as populous as Glasgow or Manchester, has an Italian opera, 
 two or three theatres, a vast picture gallery, and statue gallery, 
 and museums of all kinds, a musical academy, schools of all de- 
 scriptions, an university with 142 professors, the most distinguished 
 men of science who can be collected in Germany, and is undoubt- 
 edly the capital, the central point of taste in the fine arts, and of 
 mind and intelligence in literature, for a vast proportion of the 
 enlightened and refined of the European population — and yet has 
 not advanced so far in the enjoyments and comforts of life, in the 
 civilization of the useful arts, as to have water conveyed ^n pipes 
 into their city and into their houses. Three hundred thousand 
 people have taste enough to be in die-away ecstasies at the sing- 
 ing of Madame Pasta, or the dancing of Taglioni, and have not 
 taste enough to appreciate or feel the want of a supply of water 
 in their kitchens, sculleries, drains, sewers, water-closets. The 
 civilization of an English village is, after all, more real civiliza- 
 tion than that of Paris or Berlin. 
 
 Berlin, however, has one noble pre-eminence over every city of 
 great population in Europe, perhaps, and certainly over every city 
 in Britain, in the management and care of her poor, and in the 
 efficient arrangements for the relief of the distressed, and the sup- 
 pression of mendicity, carried on by the gratuitous services of the 
 middle class of her citizens. This covers a multitude of nuisances. 
 
 Berlin with a population* of nearly 300,000 souls has no poor- 
 
 * The population returns of Prussia, although made up with much apparent 
 care by her functionaries, are not quite to be depended upon; for it appears 
 that even in the capital, in 1841, a mistake has crept in by the householders 
 including only their own families, but not their casual lodgers, in their returns 
 of the members of their households; and it is said that forty thousand people 
 at least, some say sixty or eighty thousand, have been omitted, who really 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 241 
 
 rates, no beggars, and no visible obtrusive policemen at every 
 twenty paces, as in our great cities, to prevent mendicity. It is 
 the first feature in the social economy of this city that strikes the 
 traveller, and the first subject that claims his inquiries ; for Berlin 
 has very little trade or manufacturing employment for its labouring 
 class ; the land around is a sandy, barren soil unsuitable for any 
 quick rotation of crops, and therefore affording comparatively 
 little employment to labour ; and consequently the destitution and 
 misery must be as great and clamant in Berlin as in Edinburgh 
 or Glasgow ; yet it is not seen. No town is so free from beggary, 
 or the appearances of extreme want and privation. How is this 
 managed ? The inquiry may be useful, and may suggest some- 
 thing applicable to the management of the poor in some of our 
 great towns. Edinburgh, for instance, with about two-thirds of 
 the population, is very similar in its means and resources of living 
 to Berlin. Both cities exist not by any great trade or manufac- 
 tures seated in them, but by the concentration of the business of 
 the country, by the courts of law and head-establishments, and by 
 resident families of fortune. Both cities, too, are the head-quarters 
 of the poor and of those verging towards poverty, from all other 
 parts of the country. Berlin is even more exposed to pauperism 
 not properly her own than Edinburgh or Glasgow, because her 
 garrison is 10,000 men; that of Potsdam, at an hour's distance by 
 railway, is 7,000 ; that of Spandau, at three or four leagues' dis- 
 tance, is very considerable ; and one-third of these men are dis- 
 charged every year. Some of these have no home to return to, 
 and no trade to live by, and no disposition to work and less to 
 re-enlist, and they hang about the capital as servants, helpers, and 
 small-job men, and have acquired, by residence, a claim to sup- 
 port, and, at last, they with their families fall into utter destitution. 
 Yet Edinburgh is overrun with beggars — want and misery are, 
 day and night, abroad in her streets— and her householders com- 
 plain loudly of their poor-rates. Berlin, with as great an amount 
 of poverty, and as great a burden upon her householders to relieve 
 that poverty, contrives, at least, to make the means fCiIfil the end 
 far better than Edinburgh, contrives to avoid the direct imposition 
 of a poor-tax or rate with all its evils, although no doubt the 
 
 dwell in Berlin. — ^This mistake is stated in the newspapers of August, 1841, 
 to have been just discovered in the population returns of Berlin. 
 
242 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 public bears the burden of supporting or succouring those who 
 would perish without that aid, but does so under another name, 
 and contrives to relieve effectually all real distress, and to suppress 
 entirely mendicity. This subject is worth inquiring into. 
 
 The management of the poor in great towns in Prussia was in 
 the hands of government commissioners until 1S21, when it was 
 given over to the municipalities; and these were required to 
 appoint poor directors, each direction to consist of the burgomaster 
 as president, the members of the magistracy, members of the 
 assembly of the town deputies, or town council, and members 
 chosen by each parish. The magistrates and town deputies are 
 changeable each year, being ex officio members, and in Berlin at 
 least they amount to twelve; the others, amounting to twelve also, 
 are permanently elected. The members of the poor direction re- 
 ceive no pay or emolument. The clergy, and the medical men of 
 the city, may be joined to the direction by the directors ; and the 
 chief of the pohce, in cities in which the police is not managed by 
 the magistracy, is ex officio a member. The duty of the poor 
 directors is the general care of the poor in Berlin, and of the poor 
 schools, the orphan house, the workhouse, the infirmary, the 
 hospital for old people, and three smaller hospitals ; and the 
 charge, direction, and superintendence of all the funds and ex- 
 penditure and management of the poor. When the poor direct- 
 ors entered on their office, great confusion in accounts, great want 
 of system, and great mismanagement in relieving the poor, existed. 
 They began with taking one of the police districts in which there 
 was little pauperism, and placing it experimentally under a poor 
 commission. The plan was found to work so well, that between 
 1821 and 1825 they had divided the whole city into fifty-six dis- 
 tricts, each under its poor commission, the commissioners being 
 more or less numerous according to the number of poor usually 
 in their districts, but in general being from five to nine, and each 
 commission having within its own district, if possible, its own 
 physician, surgeon, oculist, and apothecary, whose services are 
 paid, and are not received gratuitously.* The poor commissioners 
 
 * The services of the medical men are paid for monthly, and the medicines 
 also, because the residence of a medical man and an apothecary within each 
 poor district was thought necessary. By accepting grutuitous services, the 
 poor commissioner might have to send his sick poor all over the town for 
 medical assistance, and the poor might be put off with the attendance of a 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 243 
 
 receive no pay or emolument ; but are benevolent persons, and 
 the most respectable in tlieir districts, who, without regard to their 
 religious persuasion, or to their civil occupations, are chosen out 
 of a list presented to them by the poor commissioners of the dis- 
 trict as vacancies happen to occur, by the poor directors, and re- 
 quested to accept the office. Each poor commissioner has a distinct 
 section of his district put under his charge and SLiperintcndence, 
 and the district is so divided that in general each poor commis- 
 sioner has not more than ten or twelve paupers receiving relief to 
 look after. In 183S the number of the poor commissioners was 
 607 in all, and of all classes of citizens. I find a butcher and a 
 master chimney-sweeper among them, and landed proprietors, 
 silk manufacturers, merchants, bakers, distillers, but neither a 
 clergyman nor a lawyer in the whole list. They are considered 
 less suitable for the distribution impartially and economically. 
 At the end of each month, the poor commissioners of each district 
 meet together in a conference, to make a monthly report of all 
 the proceedings in their respective subdivisions, and to settle the 
 business of the month. As the whole efficiency of the system 
 turns upon the poor commissioners, both as to the relief of the 
 distressed, and the just economy to the public, it is necessary to 
 go into a detail of the routine of their duties. 
 
 If a pauper desires relief, he must apply to the president of the 
 poor Commission of the district in which he resides, who receives 
 the application, inquires into the grounds of it, into the situation, 
 family connections, and other circumstances of the applicant; and 
 if it be not so utterly groundless as to be summarily dismissed, 
 refers it to the poor commissioner in whose section of the district 
 the pauper is living. He sends another poor commissioner from 
 another section of the district, to make inquiry also in the neigh- 
 medical apprentice or student, instead of commanding the best assistance. 
 Tlie regular monthly payment, also, makes it an object for medical men be- 
 ginning business to live in the poor districts of the town, which otherwise 
 would be left without medical assistance near. So great is the attention to Uie 
 sick poor, that steam baths, sulphuretted baths, and other artificial baths are 
 administered; and they are even sent to drink mineral waters, and to sea 
 bathing at Swinemunde. The German medical men at present, and their 
 patients, seem to have great faith in the etlicacy of baths prepared artificially, 
 and in sea baths, mineral waters, and such remedies, which perhaps our me- 
 dical men regard as a mere consolatio animi — as medical science itself is defined 
 to be by Scaliger. 
 
244 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 bourhood, and at the last place of residence in the city. These 
 commissioners inquire of the landlord, the neighbours, the last 
 employer ; and in the monthly meeting of the whole commis- 
 sioners of the district, a report of the result of the inquiry is 
 made, and the case decided. In urgent cases, any one of the 
 poor commissioners of the district may, with consent of tlie presi- 
 dent, grant an immediate relief, but this must be reported at 
 the first monthly meeting of the whole. If the pauper has ap- 
 plied for relief, and the president of the poor commission finds 
 that, provided the pauper's statements be correct, it should be 
 granted, he takes an examination book with him in which there 
 are twenty-five printed questions, which the applicant is bound 
 to answer, concerning his age, state of health, capability of work, 
 former trade or occupation, causes of its not supporting him now, 
 number, age, and capability of work of the members of the 
 family, situation of the relations who by law are obliged to sup- 
 port him (in Prussia people are legally obliged to support, if able, 
 their nearest blood relations— the if makes it an inquisitorial and 
 objectionable law), and if there be any children in the family, 
 whether they have been vaccinated, confirmed, sent to school, 
 &c. This examination book is handed to the two commissioners 
 appointed to examine into the case, who have also their printed 
 questions in it, to be replied to by the result of their inquiries 
 concerning the applicant ; and if sickness, or physical inability is 
 stated by the pauper, the physician of the commission writes his 
 testimony also in the book ; and lastly the determination of the 
 district poor commission upon the case, as to granting or denying 
 relief of a permanent kind, is written in this examination book, 
 and carried into effect by the commissioners. This examination 
 book is the groundwork of a standing personal document, or cer- 
 tificate of the case of each individual pauper, or alms-receiver, by 
 which every circumstance relative to his pauperism is known. If 
 he changes his abode, and applies to the president of the new 
 district poor commission for relief, as being a pauper from another 
 district, the examination book is sent for, but the president pro- 
 ceeds entirely as if it were a new case, and only takes the former 
 as subsidiary to the inquiries instituted by their own commis- 
 sioners ; and, as each commission sees with its own eyes, it may 
 happen that the decision of the new district commission may 
 differ from the former. The examination book follows the pan- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 245 
 
 per wherever he goes as pauper, and his case, after repeated ex- 
 aminations, can scarcely be one not entitled to relief. 
 
 In cases of medical assistance being required, the applicant, to 
 save delay, gets a note from the poor commissioner of the sec- 
 tion in which he lives, and takes or sends it to the president to 
 be countersigned, whicli is done after a summary inquiry into the 
 poverty of the sick pauper, and it is a sufficient order to the 
 medical officers of the district for attendance and the necessary 
 medicines. 
 
 The distribution of orders for wood or turf, or money for the 
 purchase of firing, given, 'very often, not to'the single pauper 
 himself, but to his landlord to keep the house regularly warm, is 
 another part of the duty of the poor commission of each district. 
 
 The school attendance of the children of the paupers is a mat- 
 ter also under their special superintendence. 
 
 Every month the members of the district poor commission 
 meet, decisions on the claims are made, the acts of the individual 
 commissioners and president, in ordering, each in his own divi- 
 sion or ward of the district, relief, medicine, free school teaching, 
 &c., are reported, and a protocol is drawn up by the president, 
 accompanied by all the documents, the current account of the 
 disbursements of the month, and the estimate of what is wanted, 
 for the succeedmg month, and handed to the poor directors. The 
 protocol is retained, and the current account returned discharged, 
 to the poor commission, it being ruled and printed in twelve 
 divisions, or columns, so as to be the account of a whole year. 
 To save trouble as much as possible to the poor commissioners, 
 who give their time gratuitously, every thing is printed in forms, 
 and only one account of their disbursements — this monthly ac- 
 count as made up at their monthly meetings — is required. 
 
 As messengers to the poor commissioners, there are twenty-three 
 town sergeants who receive pay, and who, with twelve poor wards, 
 are specially charged with the arrest of beggars, and taking them 
 to the workhouse ; and as they know the actual paupers, and are 
 daily among them, moving about, and doing the messages of the 
 poor commissioners in each division and district, to and from the 
 poor,4his certainty of being known prevents the pauper from beg- 
 ging. In the actual distribution of relief to paupers, this is the 
 only expense. Medical attendance, medicines, bandages for rup- 
 
246 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 tures, spectacles for old people, are disbursements of the fund itself, 
 not of the administration of it. 
 
 The expenditure in one year, 1838, appears to have been — 
 
 Prussian Thalers. £ 
 
 For support of 4,927 persons and families - - - 99,136 = 14,723 
 
 For medical attendance, medicine, food, bandages, and sick 
 expenses, including burials. 25,646 cases of sick poor 
 appear to have been treated, out of which 1,373 persons 
 
 died 41,488= 6,161 
 
 Extraordinary or occasional assistance with money - 32,679 =: 4,853 
 
 Fire-wood, turf, &c., distributed . - - . 10,502 = 1,559 
 
 Support of poor belonging to Berlin in other places - 1,022= 151 
 
 Education of depraved or morally neglected infants in a par- 
 ticular school established for that purpose - - 1,240 = 184 
 
 186,067 = 27,631 
 The House of Correction or Workhouse, Orphan Hospital, 
 and several hospitals for decayed poor, and having funds 
 in part for their support, and also the infirmary - - 180,464 = 26,801 
 
 In all 366,531 = 54,432 
 
 Of this sum applied to the support of the poor, part comes from 
 permanent funds left for the endowment of the hospitals, or from 
 legacies left to the poor, part from government for the house of 
 correction and police, and also as occasional gifts from the king, 
 part from voluntary contributions of the inhabitants and from 
 gifts of benevolent persons, but the greater part of it, in 1838, 
 about 239,000 thalers, or 35,495/. sterling, out of the general chest 
 of the city taxes.* These municipal taxes are extremely heavy. 
 They are levied on the value of the house, and the supposed value 
 or income of the trade carried on by the householder, as estimated 
 by the commissioners for charging it. One householder, in good 
 but not first-rate business as an innkeeper, reckoned his direct 
 taxes at 400 thalers, of which the government taxes on his house 
 and trade would be about 100 thalers ; the rest was all town taxes. 
 This is no doubt a poor-rate in reality, but mixed up and joined 
 with other municipal taxes ; but they consider in Berlin that the 
 moral effect on the poor is very different, and that it is the true 
 way in which a poor-tax should be levied. It comes to the poor 
 
 * 11,223Z. appears to be the sum assessed or estimated, in 1841, for the 
 support of the indoor or workhouse poor in the city of Edinburgh. Berlin, 
 with about one-third more of population, pays above twice as much money 
 for the support of its indoor or woi'khouse poor as Edinburgh, viz., 26,801/. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 247 
 
 as a relief, gift, or donation, not as part of a fund on which they 
 have a just claim as being specially raised for their use, and to 
 which they have a right. The exact numbers of poor cannot be 
 made out from the reports of the poor directors hitherto published, 
 because, as in this for the year 1838, the number receiving continu- 
 ous monthly relief in this one year — 4,927 persons — comprehends 
 heads of families as well as single paupers; and the time of the 
 poor commissioners being altogether gratuitously given, it would 
 be an unreasonable burden upon them to require any returns, 
 such as of numbers in each family, that can be avoided. 
 
 The accounts which the passing traveller can give of the man- 
 agement of the poor in Berlin are calculated and intended rather 
 to excite than to gratify curiosity and inquiry. The subject is 
 necessarily connected with details which would swell into volumes. 
 It is of general interest, however, to give such a sketch of the 
 whole system, as may be a groundwork for those who will direct 
 their inquiries specially to this subject with a view of introducing 
 some of its arrangements that may be suitable into our own social 
 state and pauper management. To the actual etiiciency of the 
 system in the two great points of relieving fully, humanely, and 
 economically, all real distress — and in the suppression of all street 
 begging, and much vice and idleness — the most hasty traveller 
 who inquires at all into the state of the poor, or who even contents 
 himself with his personal observation as a stranger walking about 
 the town, must bear the fullest testimony. The following detached 
 information and hints will assist those interested, in forming an 
 idea of some of the parts of the machinery. 
 
 The whole, according to the sketch given above, consists of a 
 board of poor directors, and of local boards of poor commissioners : 
 the former having the general control, superintendence, and finance 
 under its charge — the latter being in the immediate contact with 
 the poor, dispensing relief, each board in its own circle or division 
 of the city, and each commissioner in his own section or sub- 
 division of that circle only, and under the checks in each case of 
 relief, first, of the president of the local board ; secondly, of the 
 monthly conference of the members of the local board, taking 
 each case into consideration ; and, thirdly, of regular sifting exa- 
 mination, by means of the examination books, into each case, 
 leaving nothing to the vague opinion, or vague inquiry, or indi- 
 vidual feelings of compassion of any one commissioner, however 
 
248 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 correct his personal knowledge may be, but placing every item 
 regarding the pauper's case upon record. It was necessary, how- 
 ever, to the proper working of this machinery to know not merely 
 what relief was afforded to each distressed person by the poor 
 commissioners of his locality, which the monthly account and 
 vouchers handed in from each monthly meeting of the poor com- 
 missioners to the board of directors, and discharged each month 
 as far as regards the disbursements of the commissioners, suffi- 
 ciently show; but it was necessary to have a check upon the 
 parties relieved, that they should not be receiving relief secretly 
 at the same time from other local boards, or from other charitable 
 establishments. The board of directors, therefore, took powers 
 from government, obliging all public charitable institutions, kirk 
 sessions, hospitals, and others to furnish lists of the persons, and 
 amounts of relief upon their fund. They also invited all private 
 charitable societies, and charitable persons or families who have 
 regular poor pensioners upon their bounty, to furnish .similar lists. 
 Out of these, and the examination books, and monthly account 
 and vouchers of each board of local poor commissioners, the 
 board of directors formed a regular head book or ledger, in which 
 each individual pauper has his account for himself, as in a bank- 
 er's books, and from which it can at once be seen whether the 
 poor commissioners of any district are bestowing too much on 
 any individual, or if he is drawing aid from any other charity ; 
 and the president of the local poor commissioners can at once see 
 if a claimant in his district is or has been in receipt of aid from 
 other charities. The charitably disposed also can refer to it, to 
 know if the poor they take an interest in are in real distress, and 
 to what amount they should be relieved. This ledger contains 
 the accounts of the poor of thirty-two different poor boxes, such 
 as church poor-money raised by donations at the church doors, 
 charitable legacies, unions for the poor of particular corporations, 
 &c., as well as of the poor under the poor commissioners of the 
 fifty-six poor divisions of the city. The receipt and disbursement 
 of their own funds remain with these institutions as before, and 
 under their own direction, only they must furnish such lists of the 
 appropriation of it to the poor directors, that the individuals they 
 support, wholly or in part, shall not come upon the public for the 
 whole of their support There seems no jealousy, now that the 
 whole system is in work, between the two. On the contrary, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 249 
 
 many poor, especially aged and infirm persons, arc supported by 
 the charitable institutions as far as their funds go, and the balance 
 made up by the poor directors ; and where there are houses, fuel 
 or other conveniences on a larger scale than required for the 
 number of paupers whom the private funds of the institution can 
 support, it is a saving to the public. Where such aid is given, 
 the economy of the institution, as to salaries, is under the poor 
 directors. 
 
 An establishment of some considerable expense in clerks is 
 unavoidable in such a system of book-keeping in which, in one 
 year (1838) nearly five thousand heads of accounts (4,927) were 
 kept in the single division of persons receiving continuous monthly 
 support. In the same year 25,6-16 cases of sick poor (of whom 
 1373 died, and were interred principally by the public) were 
 treated by the medical men at the public expense-. It appears 
 that the heads of accounts in all, open in one year, amounted to 
 17,267, and of course considerable expense in the administration 
 of such a mass of pen and ink business is unavoidable. But the 
 expense is, next to the efficiency, the great point. The efficiency 
 of the Berlin system is undeniable ; but what is the expense of 
 the administration of it? In a given year (1828), the first I be- 
 lieve in which the whole system being in full play, the details of 
 the expense of the standing establishment were given to the pub- 
 lic in a report by the poor directors (and which not being stated 
 in any of their subsequent reports appear not to have been since 
 essentially altered), the following was the permanent salaried es- 
 tablishment: 
 
 Tliulers. £ 
 
 Tlie chief inspector, and secretary of the board. Salary - 950= 142 
 
 Assistant secretary, who also in the forenoon keeps the 
 protocol of all applications made at the application office, 
 of all petitions which do not enter into the journal, but 
 are referred to the poor commissioners, and also keeps 
 the ledger of the disbursements to the poor out of extra- 
 ordinary funds not entering into the regular receipts or 
 • disbursements— such as presents of fuel, clothing, money 
 for special objects - - - - - 550 = S3 
 
 An accountant, receiving also some remuneration from the 
 boxes of the institution he keeps the accounts of 
 
 Cash keeper and a comptroller, 2; receiving in all 
 
 Register, and journal keepers, 5 - 
 
 Clerks, 7 
 
 17 
 
 300 = 
 
 45 
 
 1,400 = 
 
 208 
 
 1,670 = 
 
 248 
 
 1,290 = 
 
 187 
 
Thalers. 
 
 £ 
 
 6,160 = 
 
 913 
 
 816 = 
 
 124 
 
 120 = 
 
 17 
 
 4,347 = 
 
 645 
 
 790 = 
 
 112 
 
 250 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Brought forward 
 
 Office servants, 3 - 
 
 [These are messengers between the different mem- 
 bers and branches of the poor direction. One also is 
 the housekeeper, and one files the vouchers and docu- 
 ments.] 
 
 A revising commissioner ----- 400 = 59 
 
 A paid poor commissioner-assistant for two suburbs of the 
 city inhabited almost wholly by paupers, and whom on 
 account of their numbers, the ordinary poor commissioners 
 could not attend to without assistance 
 
 Town sergeants, 12 persons . - - 
 
 District messengers, 6 persons . - . 
 
 [These are messengers between the poor commis- 
 sioners in the different districts, and the individual pau- 
 pers, and are paid days' wages. They are not exactly 
 poor officers on salaries, but are persons taken from 
 among the poor, v/ho, at any rate, would require aid for 
 their families.] 
 
 A master poor-watchman or poor-ward - - . 272 = 40 
 
 Poor-wards under him, 12 persons - - - 1.312 = 194 
 
 [These belong properly to the police, as miich as to 
 the poor establishment. They have a uniform, and their 
 duty is to arrest beggars, and bring them, as distressed 
 persons, to the poor commission of the district, the poor 
 director's room, or to the workhouse.] 
 
 The total administration cost yearly, in 1828 - - 14,221 = 2,112 
 
 The poor directors keep an application-room open to the public, 
 at which the assistant secretary attends, and in which a day-book 
 is kept of all applications of the poor for relief, and of appeals 
 from the decisions of any of the district poor commissions, if the 
 pauper thinks he ought to get relief and has been refused ; and 
 at which any petitions or claims they may have to make are 
 drawn out, and any advicte they require given without expense ; 
 and it is also a kind of house of call for work and workmen, if 
 any labourers are wanted for such work as the poor can do. The 
 poor commissioners find here the information they require respect- 
 ing applicants for relief in their districts ; and the benevolent can 
 learn if the objects they are relieving are really necessitous, and 
 to what extent their charity is required.* Among the charitable 
 
 * The following reports of the poor directors are interesting on this subject. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 251 
 
 establishments under charge of the poor directors one seems very 
 interesting— the school for neglected and morally depraved chil- 
 dren. These children are first placed in a lazarette for fourteen 
 days, in one wing of the hospital, to be sure that they are free 
 from infectious disease ; the sick are on the other side, and the 
 children are only admitted to mix with the others when perfectly 
 clean and well ; and their moral defects also in some degree as- 
 certained. Useful trades and women's work are tanght the boys 
 and girls in these institntions. 
 
 It is generally complained of in the Prussian towns, that the 
 abolition of the old corporation system bj' which liberty to set 
 up in any trade or handicraft was restricted by apprenticeships, 
 journeymanships, and freedom of the corporated body of each 
 trade, has filled them with pauperism. The freedom of the city 
 or town as burgess, which in Berlin costs thirty thaJers, is all that 
 is now required to entitle any one to carry on any trade or handi- 
 craft in it ; and young men, as soon as they have completed their 
 three years of military service, set up as masters in the trade they 
 were bred to, marry, and in a few years their families come upon 
 the public for support. It is evidently not the freedom of trade 
 that produces this evil, but the attempt to unite freedom of trade 
 with the Prussian military system. The young men have lost, if 
 they had ever acquired, the expertness and readiness at their 
 work, and the habits of steadiness and industry necessary in 
 every handicraft, by their military service ; and are arrived at 
 the age, after three years' service in the army, when they must 
 settle in life. The two systems cannot work together in society. 
 The Prussian military system also gives no such outlet as our 
 army does to the unsteady class of half-bred tradesmen who 
 want prudence, forethought, or skill, to thrive in their handicrafts. 
 Our land and sea service, colonies, and emigration, relieve the 
 country of a considerable proportion of this class who in Prussia 
 marry, and become, in effect, an increasing fund of pauperism 
 in the community. The Prussian military system is thus work- 
 ing out pauperism in two ways — by impoverishing, and preparing 
 
 Die oofrcntlicho Arinpnpnpa;c in t^cilia dar^psiclll von dor Anncn Dircotioii. 
 ]5eilin, 1828 ; also, Uel)er.sichtclerbei don Armen-Commissionen der Residenz 
 Berlin bestehenden Geschaefts Fuehrunjr, Berlin, 1836; and Jahres Bericht 
 iieber die Armen-Verwaltiing in Berlin pro 1838. 
 
252 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 for pauperism, the working class — and by not absorbing those 
 whose habits, temperament, and conduct tend to bring them to 
 pauperism, and who with us, but for the military service, would 
 be paupers, or engendering pauperism. If England, notwith- 
 standing all her employments and outlets for pauperism, is over- 
 whelmed with it, what will Germany become as a manufactur- 
 ing country, breeding paupers in the same ratio as England, yet 
 without any outlets for them in colonies, standing armies, fleets, 
 or commercial shipping ? The manufacture of pauperism must 
 increase faster than all her other manufactures. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LEIPSIC— BOOK TRADE— ITS EFFECTS ON THE LITERATURE— ON THE 
 CHARACTER— ON THE SOCIAL ECONOMY OF THE GERMANS.- THE GER- 
 MAN THEATRE— ITS INFLUENCE.— THE EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES IN 
 SOCIETY.— THE SCOTCH AND THE GERMANS COMPARED. 
 
 Leipsic, remarkably in contrast with Berlin, is a city of the 
 middle ages — balconies projecting into the streets, old forms and. 
 fashions about the people and their dwellings, — nothing of the 
 Parisian air, nothing of the Frenchified German air about them. 
 Everything is downright German, and plain unsophisticated Ger- 
 man burgess style. This is the capital of the middle class of Ger- 
 many — of the class which has nothing to do with nobility, or with 
 military, or civil service as a way of living, which has not its 
 great money merchants, bankers, contractors of loans, million- 
 aires, like Frankfort; but has its very substantial, and some very 
 wealthy, quiet-living burgesses. The traveller who could get 
 into the domestic society of this town — which even native Ger- 
 mans cannot easily do — would sec, it is said, more of old Ger- 
 many, more of the houses, habits, and modes of living of two 
 centuries ago, than in any other place. A very respectable peo- 
 ple these Leipsicers are, and precisely because they affect to be 
 nothing more. Their book trade is of such importance, that the 
 booksellers, of whom there are reckoned at the fairs about 560, 
 and many of them settled in Leipsic, have a large exchange of 
 their own to transact their business in. It is not, however, the 
 printing and publishing in Leipsic itself, that is the basis of these 
 book fairs, but the barter of publications between booksellers 
 meeting there from different points. The bookseller, pnrhaps. 
 from Kiel on the Baltic, meets and exchanges publications with 
 the bookseller, perhaps, from Zurich, gives so many copies of his 
 publication — a dull sermon possibly — for so many of the other's 
 — an entertaining novel. Each gets an assortment of goods by 
 this traffic, such as he knows will suit his customers, out of a 
 
254 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 publication of which he could not, perhaps, sell a score of copies 
 within his own circle ; but a score sold in every bookselling circle 
 in Germany gets rid of an edition. Suppose the work out and 
 out stupid and unsaleable, still it has its value ; it is exchangeable, 
 should it be only at the value of wrapping-paper, for works less 
 unsaleable, and puts the publisher in possession of a saleable 
 stock and of a variety of works. His profit also not depending 
 altogether upon the merit of the one work he publishes, but upon 
 the assortment for sale he can make out of it by barter, he can 
 afford to publish works of a much lower class as to merit, or sale- 
 able properties, than English publishers. The risk is divided, and 
 also the loss, and not merely divided among all the booksellers 
 who take a part of an edition in exchange for part of their own 
 publications ; but in effect is divided among the publications. The 
 standard work, or the new publication of an author of celebrity, 
 pays the risk or loss of the publisher of the bad, unsaleable work, 
 as by it he is put in possession of the former, of the more saleable 
 goods. The loss, also, compared to that of an English publisher, 
 is trifling, because, although the German press can deliver mag- 
 nificent books, yet the general taste of the public for neat, fine, 
 well-finished productions in printing as in all the useful arts, is 
 not by any means so fully developed as with us, and is satisfied 
 with very inferior paper made of much cheaper materials. The 
 publisher also is saved the very important expense of stitching, 
 boarding, or binding all he publishes, by his own capital, the 
 private buyer generally taking his books in sheets. The bound 
 or made-up books in booksellers' shops are but few, and generally 
 only those of periodical or light literature. The advantage to 
 ' literature of this system into which the book trade has settled is, 
 that hundreds of works see the light, which with us would never 
 get to the printing-house at all. The disadvantage is, that it en- 
 courages a prolixity of style, both in thinking and expression ; 
 two or three ideas are spun out into a volume, and literature is 
 actually overwhelmed and buried under its own fertility and 
 fruits. No human powers could wade through the flood of pub- 
 lication poured out every half year upon every conceivable sub- 
 ject. Selection even, in such an overwhelming mass, is out of the 
 question, unless the catalogue-selection of judging from the repu- 
 tation of the author, that the book may be worth reading. In our 
 small book-world, periodical criticism — our quarterlies and lite- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 255 
 
 rary newspapers — keeps the ordinary reader up to the current 
 stream of literary production ; but who could get through the pile 
 of periodicals published in Germany, and find time to eat, drink, 
 and sleep ? It is as at their table d'hote — the guest tastes this 
 thing, and tastes that, and rises without having made so whole- 
 some and substantial a meal as he would have done from one or 
 two dishes. This superabundance, and the excess of employ- 
 ment to the mind about otlier people's ideas, influences the gene- 
 ral literature of Germany. Men whose talents entitle them to be 
 original in literary production, are but imitative. Their great 
 original authors, Goethe, Schiller, or Richter, or our great authors, 
 Shakspeare, Scott, Byron, give the tunes which the crowd of 
 German writers are whistling through the streets. This imitative 
 turn, and the excess of literary production, influence even the 
 material interests and character of the German people. In poli- 
 tics, in social economy, in religion, and perhaps even in morals 
 and the regulation of conduct, principles and opinions seem to 
 have no time to take root, and to influence the actual doings of 
 men— conviction is bnt loosely connected with action. The lat- 
 ter by no means follows the former, even when not drawn aside 
 by prejudice, passion, or self-interest. All is speculation, not 
 reality. 'Every German seems to have two worlds for himself — a 
 world of idea, and a world of reality; and the former appears to 
 have as little connection with the latter, as the evening of the 
 monarch on the stage with the morning of the actor in his lodg- 
 ings. This division of life into two distinct existences, this living in 
 a world of reveries, this wide separation between ideas and reali- 
 ties, between thoughts and actions, common perhaps to all men 
 of intellectual cultivation, is so widely difl'used in Germany that 
 it sensibly influences its social economy. All evaporates in spe- 
 culation. Books, and theories, atid principles are published and 
 read, and there the matter rests. A new set of books, theories, 
 and principles are published, and overwhelm the first, but all this 
 never goes beyond the world of idea in which half their existence 
 is passed. Improvement, reform, movement of any kind in social 
 business or real life, either for the better or the worse, stand still, 
 because real life is but half their existence. Leave them the 
 other half, their ideal world, to expatiate in — and that cannot be 
 circumscribed by any kind of government — and they quietly put 
 up with restrictions and burdens in real life which in our social 
 
256 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 economy would not be endured. Energy of mind and vigour of 
 action in the real affairs of ordinary life are diluted and weakened 
 by this life of dreamy spec^ulation. We sometimes see individuals 
 among ourselves, novel-reading, romantic youths, forming a little 
 world for themselves from the shelves of the circulating library, 
 and dreaming away life in it. The literature, scholarship, and 
 wide diffusion of the culture of the imaginative faculty in Ger- 
 many, are in this view actually detrimental to the social develop- 
 ment of the German people, to their industry, material interests, 
 and activity in ordinary affairs of a mechanical kind, and to their 
 energy and interestin claiming and exercising civil liberty or free- 
 agency in real life. 
 
 This double existence of the Germans accounts for some pecu- 
 liarities in German literature. German authors, both the philo- 
 sophic and the poetic, address themselves to a public far more 
 intellectual, and more highly cultivated than our reading public. 
 They address themselves, in fact, in their philosophical works, 
 like the ancient Greek philosophers, to schools or bodies of dis- 
 ciples, who must have attained a peculiar and considerable culti- 
 vation of mind to understand them. The philosophy of Kant 
 occupied Schiller, v/e are told in his biography, for three years of 
 intense and exclusive study. In our literature, the most obscure 
 and abstruse of metaphysical or philosophical writers take the 
 public mind in a far lower state, simply cognizant of the meaning 
 of language, and possessed of the ordinary reasoning powers. 
 Locke, Dugald Stewart, Reid, Smith, Hume, require nothing 
 more. Shakspeare, Scott, Byron require nothing more. German 
 literature, even of the imaginative class, requires a highly culti- 
 vated imaginative faculty from the readers.- Goethe's Faust, his 
 Wilhelm Meister, many of Schiller's tragedies, all of Jean Paul 
 Richter's productions, require readers trained, like the readers of 
 Kant or Fichte, in a certain school, and to a certain considerable 
 intellectual culture. Their philosophers and poets do not, hke 
 ours, address themselves to the meanest capacity. The social 
 influence of German literature is, consequently, confined within 
 a narrower circle. It has no influence on the miiid of the lower, 
 or even of the middle classes in active life, who have not the op- 
 portunity or leisure to screw their faculties up to Ihe pitch-note of 
 their great writers. The reading public must devote much time 
 to acquire the knowledge, tone of feeling, and of imagination 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 257 
 
 necessary to follow the writing public. The social economist 
 finds accordingly in Germany'the most extraordinary dullness, 
 inertness of mind, and ignorance, below a certain level, with the 
 most extraordinary intellectual development, learning, and genius 
 at or above it — the most extraordinary intellectual contrast be- 
 tween the professional reading classes and the lower or even 
 middle non-reading classes engaged in the ordinary affairs of life. 
 
 Another peculiarity in German literature arising from the social 
 economy of the country is, that the class of literary composition 
 to which the works of Shakspeare, Cervantes, Scott, Le Sage, 
 Fielding, Goldsmith, belong as pictures of natural action and 
 character, is poorly filled up. Situation and plot, not deUneations 
 of characters and incidents " true to nature," are the points on 
 which the highest efforts of dramatic and poetic genius in German 
 literature are the most happy. It is in the ideal world that the 
 German mind is developed. The action of man upon man, the 
 development of character and individual peculiarity by free social 
 movement, are so restricted and tied down to uniformity by the 
 social economy of Germany, that the author in this class of com- 
 position finds no type of reality around him for the imagination 
 to work upon. It would be difficult to point out any character, 
 speech or passage from the German drama that has become 
 popular literature— understood, felt, brought home to himself by 
 the common man in Germany, in the same way that characters, 
 expressions, verses, sentiments from Shakspeare, Burns, De Foe, 
 Scott, are familiar to all of the slightest education in the same 
 classes in Scotland or England. German literature is perhaps of 
 a far higher cast, but it is not so widely diflused through the mass 
 of the social body as our literature, although the class of people 
 addicting themselves to it as a means of living are more nume- 
 rous than the literary class in Britain ; and German literature is 
 certainly less influential than ours on the public mind and social 
 economy. 
 
 The theatre in Germany, and in all countries which have no 
 civil liberty, no freedom of action independent of government, 
 and no free discussion of public affairs, occupies an important 
 position in its social economy, is reckoned a great educational and 
 social influence, a power not to be entrusted out of the hands of 
 the state. The fictitious incidents of the drama supersede the 
 real incidents and interests of life. In reading: of the organization 
 
258 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of the Prussian government, the simple English reader stares at 
 finding among the ministers of state for home affairs, for military- 
 affairs, for ecclesiastical affairs, a minister of state for theatrical 
 affairs. He can understand that from considerations of police, 
 the theatre may be, as with us, under a censorship, and its super- 
 intendence attached to some office about the court; but that 
 theatres are of such importance as to be held a subject for distinct 
 administration, and one on which considerable suras of the public 
 revenues are regularly expended, appears extraordinary to one 
 coming from our social state, in which dramatic representation is 
 of no social influence whatsoever — in which it is held to be of no 
 moral or educational value — in which theatrical performers of 
 high talent cannot get bread in cities as populous and wealthy as 
 Berlin. The social economist hastens to visit the German theatres, 
 to satisfy himself that there is no mistake about this supposed 
 social influence of the stage — to see the working of this court- 
 machine for education on the public mind — to see the number 
 and quality of the usual kind of audiences, as much as to see the 
 play. 
 
 Germany is reckoned to have 65 theatres, employing about 
 2,147 actors and actresses, about 1,229 singers, male and female, 
 about 448 dancers, and about 1,273 fiddlers and other musicians. 
 About 5,000 people in all are on the theatrical establishments of 
 Germany as the personale, without including tradesmen or others 
 not on the boards. The Hof-theaier, or court theatre, is a neces- 
 sary appendage to every little residence or capital ; and it is un- 
 derstood that the deficit in the expense of a well-appointed theatre 
 in a small population is made up by the state. In Berlin, even 
 with a great and pleasure-seeking population, it is said the theatres 
 cost the country about 15,000/. a year, besides the receipts. At 
 Berlin there are three theatres in constant work, Sunday evenings 
 notexcepted,and an Italian and a French troupe are also in activity 
 part of the year. The houses are of moderate size, elegant, and 
 in scenery, dresses, and especially in the orchestral department, 
 very perfect. The prices of admission are extremely low. In 
 Berlin, for instance, you pay 15 groshen at the German theatre, 
 or 20 at the Italian opera, viz., 1*. 6d. or 2^, for a seat in the par- 
 quet, or front division of the pit of our theatres, with the advan- 
 tage that each sitting is numbered, and the seat folded back, and 
 your ticket bears the number of your seat, so that be the house 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 259 
 
 ever so fall, you get to it without squeezing or crowding :— great 
 inducements these to go to the play. The time and patience of 
 the public, also, as well as their money, are respected by these 
 state players. Owing, no doubt, to their superior discipline, a 
 long five act tragedy — such, for instance, as Schiller's Marie Sleio- 
 art or Cabale und Z/eZ>e,— which with us would keep the audi- 
 ence gaping till half-past eleven, or perhaps till midnight, is per- 
 formed between six and half-past nine. The play-bill tells when 
 the performance ends, as well as when it begins, and even when 
 three pieces are given, half-past nine is the latest hour. These 
 are imquestionably great inducements to a good theatrical attend- 
 ance of the public. But governments cannot force the intellectual 
 movement of a people. They may establish schools, theatres, 
 and churches as educational means, but the using these means 
 must be the impulse of the people themselves. You look in vain 
 for the public in a German theatre. The public is more scarce 
 in it than in our own. You see the travelling strangers, and the 
 young people of the middle class, such as clerks, tradesmen, or 
 students, when any celebrated actor or play appears ; and on 
 opera nights the upper classes: but the people, the real people, 
 the German equivalent, if there be any, to John Bull, you never 
 see. If this lower class ever come to the theatres at all, they sit 
 as quiet as mice in the little hole allotted them. A German theatre 
 is a true picture of the Social state of Germany — princes and 
 functionaries occupying the front boxes — the educated and mid- 
 dle classes looking up to them from the pit below, in breathless 
 awe and admiration, and the people out of sight and hearing of 
 these two masses of the audience. As a social influence acting 
 on the public mind, the German stage is of as little real importance 
 as our own. It has to rear for itself the kind of public to whom 
 it is of any importance. A theatrical corps and expenditure no 
 doubt does raise a public for itself in the towns, and to them the 
 theatre becomes important, perhaps a great deal too important, 
 and too influential in educating the mind of that class to a sort of 
 dreamy, imaginative, inactive life, to an undue value for appear- 
 ance, show, and dress, and to an inaptness to encounter the rough 
 realities of their social position. The social influence of the drama 
 is in this class — and this is the only class it efl'ectually works upon 
 — a positive evil, not a good. 
 
 What are the social institutions which educate a people, which 
 
260 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 form their moral, intellectual, and national character ? In this 
 land of schools and theatres, here where every individual is drilled 
 into reading, writing, and the catechism, and the church, the play- 
 house, and the press, are all under the special management of the 
 governments as influential means for the improvement of the 
 people, in what state is the mind of the people in Germany 
 morally and intellectually? 
 
 To come to any satisfactory conclusion on these questions, we 
 must define what is meant by the people. The continental man 
 generally means by the people the lower ranks of the middle 
 class — the artisans, journeymen, servants, and tradesmen about 
 towns, living more or less by educated labour, and having some 
 degree of taste, leisure, and refinement. We mean by the people 
 the labouring class of a nation, living principally by agricultural 
 work, and in every country constituting the mass of the popula- 
 tion. We milst compare this lower class in Germany Avith the 
 same class among ourselves, and endeavour to find out the differ- 
 ence, and the causes of the difference, in the physical and intel- 
 lectual condition in each country of this lowest class of all in the 
 community. 
 
 It is a peculiar feature in the social condition of our lowest 
 labouring class in Scotland, that none, perhaps, in Europe of the 
 same class have so few physical, and so many intellectual wants 
 and gratifications. Luxury or even comfort in diet, or lodging, 
 is unknown. Oatmeal, milk, potatoes, kail, herrings, and rarely 
 salt meat, are the chief food; a wretched, dark, damp, mud-floored 
 hovel, the usual kind of dwelling ; dirt, disorder, sluttishness, and 
 not too much good temper at the fireside, the ordinary habits of 
 living; yet with these wants and discomforts in their physical 
 condition, which is far below that of the same class abroad, we 
 never miss a book, perhaps a periodical, a sitting in the kirk, a 
 good suit of clothes for Sunday wear, and an argument every day 
 amounting to controversy, almost to quarrel, with some equally 
 argumentacious neighbour upon subjects far above the reach of 
 mind of the common man in other countries, and often carried 
 on with an acuteness, intelligence, and play of mental power, 
 especially in the discussion of abstract philosophical or religious 
 subjects, which the educated classes in other countries scarcely 
 attain, and which are strangely in contrast with the wants in 
 their physical condition. The labouring man's subscriptions in 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 261 
 
 Scotland to his book-club, his newspaper turn, his Bible society, 
 his missionary society, his kirk and minister if he be a seceder, 
 and his neighbourly aid of the distressed, are expenditure upon 
 intellectual and moral gratifications of a higher cast than music- 
 scraping, singing, dancing, play-going, novel-reading, or other 
 diversions of a much higher class of people in Germany. Tiie 
 Scotch labouring man gives yearly considerable contributions to 
 spread civilization and Christianity among people much better off, 
 far more daintily fed, lodged, and clothed, in more physical com- 
 fort, and much farther removed from the wants and hardships of 
 an uncivilized condition, than he is iiimself. This may be foolish, ' 
 but it is noble and ennobling in the character of the lowest class 
 of a people. The half-yearly shilling given in all sincerity of 
 purpose by the cottar-tenant of a turf-built hovel on a barren 
 Scotch muir-land, to aid the missions for converting the South 
 Sea Islanders or the Hindoos, is the noblest-paid money, as far 
 as regards the giver, in the queen's dominions. There is also in 
 the mind of the common man of Scotland an imaginative thread 
 interwoven somehow, and often very queerly, with his hard, dry, 
 precise way of thinking and acting in ordinary affairs, which 
 makes the whole labouring class in Scotland of higher intellectu- 
 ality than the same class in other countries. We often hear, what 
 country but Scotland ever produced a Burns among her peasantry? 
 But the real question of the social economist is, what country but 
 Scotland ever produced a peasantry for whom a Burns could 
 write .'' Burns had a public of his own in his own station in life 
 who could feel and appreciate his poetry, long before he was 
 known to the upper class of Scotch people, and in fact he was 
 never known or appreciated by the upper class. In other coun- 
 tries it is the poetry of the higher educated class that works down 
 to the people ; as the poetry of Ariosto or Tasso, among the Ital- 
 ians; of the Niebelung, of the Saga, of the lays of the Trouba- 
 dours, among the German, Scandinavian, and French people ; or 
 as ballads of Burger, Goethe, and Schiller are said to be now 
 working downwards in Germany, and becoming folks-lieder — 
 the songs and poetry of the people. But where have been 
 poets belonging to the labouring class called into song by their 
 own class? This is more extraordinary than the genius of the 
 individual himself, this genius of the class for whom he com- 
 posed. Is there any spark of this intellectual spirit among the 
 
262 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 common labouring people in_the finer soils and climates of Eu- 
 rope ? or does the little exertion of mind with which all physical 
 wants may be supplied, and many physical enjoyments obtained 
 in abundance, tend to form a heavy, material, unintellectual cha- 
 racter among the labouring class in Germany, which is confirmed 
 by the state of pupilage and non-exertion of mind in which they 
 are educated and kept by their governments; while the mind of 
 the Scotch labouring man is stirred up and in perpetual exercise 
 by the self-dependence, exertion, privation, forethought, moral 
 restraint, and consideration required in his social position, in which 
 • neither climate nor poor-rate, neither natural nor artificial facili- 
 ties of living without thinking, allow him to sink into apathy or 
 mental indolence ? 
 
 But there are other educational influences, of far more import- 
 ant action in forming the intellectual character of a people than 
 schools or theatres, which the German people want, and the 
 British possess. The social economist, who reflects upon our 
 crowded open courts of law in the ordinary course of their busi- 
 ness at Westminister Hall, or at the Court of Session, at the as- 
 sizes or circuits or sherifl'-courts, in short, wherever any kind of 
 judicial business is going on, and upon the eagerness and atten- 
 tion with which the common people follow out the proceedings 
 even in cases of no public interest, will consider the bar, with its 
 public oral pleadings, examinations of witnesses, and reasonings 
 on events, a most important instrument in our national education. 
 Whoever attends to the ordinary run of conversation among our 
 middle and lower classes will think it no exaggeration to say, that 
 the bar is more influential perhaps than the pulpit, in forming the 
 public mind, and in educating and exercising the mental powers 
 of the people. It is a perpetual exercise in applying principle to 
 actions, and actions to principle. This unceasing course of moral 
 and intellectual education, enjoyed by our very lowest class in 
 every locality, is wanting in Germany in general, owing to the 
 different mode of judicial procedure in closed courts, by written 
 pleadings or private hearings of argument, and private examina- 
 tions of facts and witnesses. Law and justice are, perhaps, as 
 well administered in the one way as in the other; but the effects 
 on the public mind, on the moral training of the character, and 
 on the intellectuality and judgment of the common people, are 
 very different. All schools for the people, all S3^stems of national 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 263 
 
 education sink into insignificance, compared to the working of 
 this vast open school for the public mind. We see its influence in 
 the public press. Law cases are found to be the most interesting 
 as well as the most instructive reading for the people, and our 
 newspapers fill their columns with them. This taste has arisen 
 also in France, since France has enjoyed open courts of law ; 
 and it is one of the most striking proofs of the social progress of 
 the French people, that their theatres are deserted, and their 
 courts of law crowded, and that their popular newspapers now 
 report all interesting civil or criminal law cases. 
 
 Another great educational influence wanting in Germany, is 
 the moving moral diorama of human affairs and interests pre- 
 sented to the public mind by our newspaper press. This litera- 
 ture of the common people is unknown in Germany. Foreign 
 newspapers do not furnish food for the mind of the common man. 
 The newspaper public abroad is of a higher, more intellectual, 
 more educated cast, than ours ; but therefore more circumscribed 
 — a public of professional men, functionaries, scholars, men of 
 acquirements far above those of the mass of the people. It is to 
 them, not to the people, that the press, both the literary and the 
 periodical, and the pulpit also, in Germany, address themselves, 
 by far too exclusively ; and the mass of the people, the labourers 
 and peasantry, are lost sight of If we come down in German 
 literature to what is intelligible to this lowest class, we find a 
 great vacuity not filled up by those daily or weekly accounts of 
 the real affairs and local business passing around them, which our 
 country newspapers furnish to the, mind of the common man, and 
 which exercise and educate his intellectual and moral powers. 
 
 The strictness — pharisaical strictness it may be — with which the 
 repose of Sunday is observed in England, and particularly in 
 Scotland — the complete abstinence not merely from work, but 
 from amusement, is unquestionably a powerful educational influ- 
 ence in our social economy. Its religious value'^is not here con- 
 sidered. It may possibly produce as much hypocrisy as piety. 
 But viewing it simply in its influence on the intellectual culture 
 of a people, and comparing its effects with the intellectual culture 
 produced by the round of amusement to which Siuiday is devoted 
 on the Continent, the social economist will not hesitate to say that 
 our strict observance, where it is the voluntary action of the public 
 mind, and not an observance enforced bv kirk sessions and town 
 
264 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 baillies, is of a higher educational tendency, and both indicates 
 and produces a more intellectual character. The common man 
 is thrown by it upon his own mental resources, reflections, and 
 ideas, be they religious or not. He is not a mere recipient of 
 fatigue for six days, and of amusement for one, without thought 
 or mental exertion in the one state more than in the other — 
 which is the Continental man's existence ; but for one day he 
 is in repose, and, without taking religion at all into consideration, 
 is in a state of leisure in which he is thrown back upon reflection, 
 judgment, memory of what he knows or has heard, and upon 
 considering and reasoning upon his own affairs, whether spiritual 
 or temporal. It is a valuable pause from manual labour, which, 
 if filled up by mere amusement, is lost as to intellectual culture. 
 
 The want of religious dissent, and consequently of religious 
 discussion among the people, is also the want of a powerful 
 means of educating, and sharpening by controversy, the intel- 
 lectual faculties of the lower orders of Germany. 
 
 The want also of public or common business, small or great, 
 to discuss, or influence by their opinions or votes, and in which 
 they can act freely, and according to their own will and judg- 
 ment, without superintendence and control, tells fearfully against 
 the development of the human intellect in this lower class in 
 Germany. It is the same cause, only in less intensity of force — 
 viz., the want of exercise and excitement -of the mental powers 
 — which reduces to idiotcy or imbecility the inmate of the silent 
 penitentiary. Here in Germany, the government, and the whole 
 social economy of the country, remove systematically all exercise 
 of mental powers from the people, and reduce the common work- 
 ing German peasantry, the lowest but greatest class in the com- 
 munity, to a lower state or intellectuality than we are acquainted 
 with in Great Britain ; where, even in the most remote and soli- 
 tary situations, there is, owing to the nature of our social economy 
 and institutions, a perpetual stream of exciting and educating 
 influences and circumstances acting on the mind of the common 
 man. Here, this lowest class of the population are, intellectually, 
 but big children who know their letters. They are in a state of 
 extreme inertness of mind. Take one of our uneducated people 
 who can neither write nor read, converse with him, try his good 
 sense, his judgment, his powers of comprehending, deciding, and 
 acting within his sphere, and we find that the education of reali- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 265 
 
 ties in our free social state, through which this ignorant man's 
 mind has passed in the various exciting circumstances which in 
 our social condition daily exercise the faculties of every man in 
 every station, has actually brought him to a higher intellectual 
 and moral state — has made him a more thinking, energetic, right- 
 acting character, than the passive human beings of the same class 
 in Germany, who have had the education of the schools, but 
 without the practical exercise of the mental powers afterwards 
 in their social relations. 
 
 The blessings of shool education let no man undervalue; but in 
 our zeal for the education of the people let us not take the show 
 for the substance, and imagine their education to consist in reading 
 and writing, and not in the exercise and enjoyment of their own 
 mental powers as free agents, acting in their own civil, political, 
 moral, and religious duties as men and members of society. Na- 
 tional schools,and theatres, and all that can be taught or represented 
 by governments on the German system, are but poor substitutes 
 for that education through the real business of life which can only 
 be given to a people by free social institutions. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NOTES ON THE CORN LAW QUESTION— ABROAD AND AT HOME. 
 
 The landed interest and the moneyed, the gentry and the capi- 
 taUsts, have been tilting with each other for twenty years in our 
 literary and parliamentary arena, about the corn law question, for- 
 getting altogether a third interest in the field, the mother of them 
 both, with a vastly more important stake in the issue — the labour- 
 ing interest. How will this greatest of all interests be affected by 
 the abolition of all import duty on corn. 
 
 It is taken for granted by the moneyed interest, and faintly de- 
 nied by the landed, that the condition of the working class will 
 be improved, or at least not deteriorated, by the reduction of the 
 price of bread to the same rate as the Continental price. But this 
 position is by no means satisfactorily investigated, much less 
 proved. A reduction of the wages of labour is generally admitted 
 to be a necessary consequence of a permanent reduction of the 
 cost of the main article of the subsistence of the labouring class. 
 That is, indeed, the main object avowed by all the political econo- 
 mists who advocate the abolition of duties on corn. Their avowed 
 object is to enable our manufacturers to compete in the cost of 
 production with the foreign manufacturers in the foreign market. 
 Their main argument is, that the consequent reduction in the cost 
 of production, that is, in the wages of labour, will set capital free , 
 for new and more extensive employment of labour — will in effect 
 throw one-third or one-half more capital into the labour market, 
 if the reduced price of bread to the labourer works out a propor- 
 tional reduction, to the extentof one-half or one-third, in the price 
 of his labour : and the labourer, it is contended, will not be worse 
 off with, we shall suppose, six shillings per week of wages, and the 
 quartern loaf at four-pence, than with twelve shillings a week, and 
 the quartern loaf at eight-pence — and will in fact be better off, by 
 the difference of one-half of the capital now employed in paying 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 267 
 
 his wages, or rather the tax upon his bread, being set free for pro- 
 duction and new and extended employment for labour. This is 
 the present state of the argument, and of the parties, in this great 
 social question. Let us examine this argument. 
 
 The ordinary average price of bread, potatoes, or whatever may 
 be the ordinary food of the labourer, regulates, it is generally 
 admitted, the ordinary average rate of his wages ; although the 
 demand for labour and its supply in the labour market may for a 
 short time raise it above, or sink it below, the ordiiiary average 
 rate ; the tendency always is for the supply, as in other markets, 
 to come up to the demand, and reduce the value of labour to the 
 ordinary rate fixed by the cost of subsistence. Now in what way- 
 will the labouring interest be benefited by having the ordinary 
 average value of their property — for their labour is their property, 
 and the only property of this interest, as land or capital is the 
 property of the other two interests — permanently reduced ? It is 
 no advantage to them to create more property of the same kind 
 as their own, that is to say, more labour, to come into the labour 
 market in competition with their property. It is an advantage 
 clearly enough to the master-manufacturers who have to buy their 
 property, that is, their labour : but how is it an advantage to them 
 who have to sell it? New and extended employment, new capital 
 set free, to the extent of one-half or one-third, or whatever it may 
 be, for the employment of more labour, can only have the perma- 
 nent effect of producing one-half or one-third more labourers, and 
 joining them to a body already overcharged with numbers — of 
 creating more of an article with which the market is already over- 
 stocked, by way of raising its value. This seems not very sound 
 reasoning in political economy on the part of those who advocate 
 the abolition. The temporary effect can only last for a few weeks, 
 or months, or years ; and then the new demand is met by an 
 equivalent supply in the labour market, and the whole labouring 
 interest suffers a deterioration in the value of their property. 
 But, it is argued, this deterioration is apparent only — is only in 
 the money value of labour, not in its value compared to the cost 
 of subsistence; and if that fall in proportion, if six shillings a week 
 will command as many quartern loaves then as twelve shillings u 
 week will do now, this deterioration is no loss to the labouring 
 class; but, on the contrary, by enriching rtnd multiplying their 
 employers, is indirectly a gain to them. There is a flaw in this 
 
268 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 argument. Although the cost of bread, the main article of the 
 labourer's subsistence, regulates in the long run the ordinary 
 average rate of his wages, man in any state of well-being does 
 not subsist upon bread alone. Now when his wages are regulated 
 by an ordinary average price of eight-pence or a shilhng for a 
 quartern loaf, if he spares two loaves a week in his family consumpt 
 of bread, he has his sixteen-pence or two shillings to expend in 
 meat, milk, tea, sugar, spirits, or whatever he chooses to make the 
 equivalent in his diet for the two loaves ; but if his wages be 
 regulated by an ordinary average price of four-pence for the quar- 
 tern loaf, his saving of two loaves, his eight-pence, will buy no 
 equivalent; for meat will not necessarily fall in proportion to the 
 price of bread, nor milk, cheese, butter — still less will house rent, 
 fuel, or the taxed commodities, beer, coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco. 
 The condition of the labouring man will evidently be deteriorated 
 by lowering the money value of his labour, unless one and all of 
 the objects he habitually consumes be also lowered in proportion 
 and not the one alone upon which his rate of wages more or less 
 depends. It wants the appearance at least of a disinterested spirit 
 of legislation on the part of the moneyed interest, to demand the 
 abolition of all duties upon that one article which is usually con- 
 sidered to regulate the wages of the labouring interest, leaving all 
 the other articles which enter into the consumpt of that interest, 
 and constitute its comforts and well-being, more outof their reach 
 by the consequences of this abolition than they were before. To 
 be consistent, and above all suspicion of seeking a benefit only for 
 one class at the expense of another, the advocates of the abolition 
 of the duties on corn should propose the reduction at the same 
 time of all the taxes which affect the labouring man in his lodging, 
 housekeeping, diet, and civilized tastes and gratifications ; such 
 as the timber duties, glass duties, malt duties, duties on coffee, 
 tea, sugar, tobacco, paper, and a thousand others ; as well as on 
 that one article of which the permanent cheapness will lessen his 
 wages, and consequently his means to purchase and enjoy the 
 others. If it be argued, as some political economists do, that corn 
 permanently cheap will not necessarily lower the price of labour, 
 then is the abolition of the corn laws shorn of the main argument 
 on which it is urged; viz., that by diminishing the price of labour 
 our master-manufacturers will be able to compete in the foreign 
 market with the cheap production of the countries which have no 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 269 
 
 duties on corn. These political economists tell us it is the amount 
 of labour in the labour market, and the greater or smaller demand 
 for it in proportion to the supply, that regulate the value or wages 
 of labour, and not the price of corn. But it is the low or high 
 price of this primary article of food that in the present con- 
 dition of the labouring class regulates the facility or difficulty 
 of marriage among this greatest mass of society ; and a perma- 
 nently low price of corn produces naturally and necessarily that 
 superabundance of labour which reduces its value in the labour 
 market. It is only shifting the load from one shoulder to the 
 other to say that it is the abundance of labour in the labour 
 market that produces a low rate of wages, and not the abun- 
 dance of corn. The abundance of corn produces by natural 
 operation abundance of labour, and the abundance of labour 
 produces a cheap rate of it. The causes are the same, not distinct. 
 It is cheap corn operating on the labour market, at one remove 
 from its effect. The question remains as before — is the low rate 
 or value of labour naturally produced— whether directly and im- 
 mediately, or indirectly and gradually, is not of importance here 
 — by the low rate of corn, of any real advantage to the already 
 existing labouring interest, whose whole property is their labour? 
 It is compatible with the well-being and physical comfort of this 
 great majority of society, without a proportional reduction to the 
 reduction of his wages, of the price of all that the labouring man 
 habitually consumes, as well as of his bread alone ? If the three 
 interests, the landed, the moneyed, and the labouring, were all 
 starting into existence under a social economy or system of go- 
 vernment which had a clean sheet of paper before it, the abolition 
 of a tax so absurd as that on corn, or on any article necessary to 
 a civilized existence, could not meet with a doubt; but to reduce 
 a portion only of the artificial system which blots the sheet, and 
 that only in favour of one interest, leaving the other two more 
 heavily burdened, in consequence, with the evils, real or imagi- 
 nary, of all the rest of tlic artificial system, would not, in itself, and 
 apart from all other considerations, be equitable or wise legislation. 
 It is very possible that such a proportional reduction of all duties 
 and taxes on the objects which enter into the use and consumpt 
 of the labouring interest could not be eflfected without a national 
 bankruptcy, or a stringent tax on property ; but it is not on that 
 account the more just to make the labouring interest the scape-goat 
 for the other two, and to reduce their means of civilized living. 
 
270 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 The moneyed interest would clearly be a gainer by a reduced 
 value of labour. The landed interest would perhaps not on the 
 whole suffer so much as the landlords apprehend. It would be a 
 change in the manner of obtaining their quota of the produce of 
 their land, rather than in the amount. But the labouring interest 
 would clearly be a loser, as all the comforts and enjoyments of 
 life, bread alone excepted, would be more out of their reach than 
 at present. Of bread they would earn no more quartern loaves 
 by a week's work than now, although the loaf would only be half 
 of its present value, and would only exchange for half of Avhat it 
 now does of the other necessaries or comforts of life for which the 
 labourer has to exchange its value. It would, in reality, be an 
 adulteration of the coin in which labour is valued and paid. 
 
 In a question so important, delusion should be carefully re- 
 moved. It is delusion to believe with Mr. Jacob, Dr. Bowring, 
 and other great statistical authorities — however consolatory and 
 comforting the belief may be to the country squires and lairds on 
 the parliamentary committees on the corn laws — that wheat can- 
 not be shipped at Dantzick under 45^., or 35s., or any other price. 
 The delusion arises from applying ideas drawn from our English 
 state of society and agriculture to a social and agricultural econo- 
 my altogether different. It is only in Britain, and a few densely 
 inhabited manufacturing districts on the Continent, that tenants of 
 capital paying money-rents can be said to exist. They are the 
 exception, not the rule, among the husbandry class of Europe. 
 They can only exist where there is a co-existent class of con- 
 sumers within reach for every kind of agricultural produce ; where 
 there is no capital to buy, it is but forced and unnatural work to 
 produce; and where only one kind of agricultural produce— corn 
 — can find a market, and all the succession crops, owing to the 
 small demand in proportion to the supply of meat, butter, cheese, 
 and such secondary farm produce, give no remunerating prices, 
 regular farming on our system cannot exist. Where winter also 
 interrupts all out-door farm work, not as with us, only for a few 
 days occasionally, and rarely for several weeks, but for many 
 successive months of frost and snow, all farming speculations on 
 the great scale, with hired servants on wages, and improved sys- 
 tems of husbandry, are delusive, and are only successful in a very 
 few localities. Farming on the Continent cannot generally be 
 carried on upon the Scotch or English system, in which man and 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 271 
 
 horse every day of the year are reprodactively employed in farm 
 work. The Metayer system is the only mode of letting land that 
 is practicable, generally speaking, in the corn-growing countries 
 which supply the British markets. In this Metayer system the 
 landlord provides the land, houses, utensils, and seed ; the tenant 
 finds the labour ; and the crops are divided between the two 
 parties, after deducting the seed, horse-corn, and bread until the 
 next crop, in proportions according to their respective furnishings 
 towards the production, or according to usage or agreement. 
 From not considering, this agricultural arrangement, which is 
 almost universal on the Continent, Mr. Jacob and other writers on 
 the corn laws have fallen into the delusion that wheat and other 
 grain cannot be shipped from the Continent permanently, or for 
 a series of years, under certain prices, and have given themselves 
 infinite trouble to collect the opinions of consuls and corn-dealers 
 at the different shipping ports, on the minimum prices at which 
 grain could be shipped in their localities. Now, it is quite true 
 that in our British system of agriculture there is a minimum price 
 — the cost of production — below which corn, like any other 
 article of human manufacture, cannot permanently settle. The 
 capital, time, and labour for its reproduction would soon be turned 
 to something else, and the supply would soon right itself, and 
 right the price, as in all other applications of capital to produc- 
 tion. But in the Metayer system— and all the corn of Europe 
 that is exported to us is produced under this system of husbandry 
 — there is no minimum to the price of corn. The capital of 
 reproduction is always present in the shape of corn, and, together 
 with the labour and management, is provided fv)r out of the crop 
 in the first place, and is in no way diminished or afl'ected by the 
 price or quantity of the overplus sent to market. The seed, the 
 husbandman's food, that of his cattle, labourers, and extra la- 
 bourers, if any are employed in prospective operations, are taken 
 off before any of the crop is brought into the shape of rent to 
 the landlord, or profit to the tenant; and whether that surplus 
 which goes for rent and farmer's profit sell for 45?., or 45d. per 
 quarter, in no way affects the means of reproduction next sea- 
 son. If this surplus never sell at all, but, as is said to be often 
 the case, perishes year after year on the banks of the rivers, or in 
 the granaries of Dantzick, from want of demand, the income of 
 the noble, and the profit of his Metayer tenant are, no doiil)t, re- 
 
272 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 duced to the mere use they can make in their households of the 
 products of the land ; but the capital of reproduction next sea- 
 son remains the same as if their surplus had sold for 45s. per 
 quarter, or any other price. This essential difference between 
 the working of the Metayer system of husbandry and our British 
 system, has been altogether overlooked by political economists. 
 Some writers, who have observed the inferior husbandry of the 
 Continent, have imagined that the opening of the British mar- 
 kets to foreign grain would alter this Metayer system, and intro- 
 duce a system of agriculture similar to that of England and 
 Scotland. This, too, is a delusion. It is only one article of 
 agricultural produce — corn — that England buys, or needs ; and 
 returns for capital laid out in farming cannot be made out of one 
 article alone of farm produce — not even in England. It is out 
 of the whole succession of crops in the rotation, the grass crops 
 and green crops as well as corn crops, that farming capital is 
 replaced. An extraordinary demand for one article, as for 
 wheat, can only have the effect of making the farmer scourge 
 his land to produce that one article. Besides, agricultural im- 
 provement consists mainly in the judicious economy of labour. 
 But on the Continent there is no outlet for surplus labour, or for 
 a superfluous agricultural population, in manufacturing districts 
 or colonies. The land must support the people either as labour- 
 ers or paupers ; so that large farms with few hands comparatively 
 living upon the produce, are impracticable abroad, as a general 
 arrangement of the agricultural land. The military system, 
 adopted by all the continental powers since the peace, is also an 
 impediment to such a free circulation of labour from place to 
 place as such an improvement in the system of husbandry would 
 require. 
 
 It is a delusion, also, before touched upon, arising from the ap- 
 plication of ideas drawn from our English social economy to the 
 conthiental social economy, to argue, as many do, and from very 
 correct principles in the abstract of political economy, that the 
 more we take of foreign time and labour involved in their com- 
 modity — corn — the more foreigners will take of our time and 
 labour involved in our commodity— manufactured goods. On the 
 Continent every family, even in towns not inconsiderable, manu- 
 factures for itself — buys little or nothing compared to families of 
 the same class in England. The Metayer family has its own raw 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 273 
 
 material of clothing, viz., flax, hemp, wool, hides, raised by itself; 
 has house-room and time — idle time in winter— to work them up, 
 not indeed into very fine, but into very wearable stuff, by their 
 own and their domestics' work; and no amount of capital thrown 
 into their hands as the price of their corn could change those 
 habits of a population which are almost produced by, or at least 
 very closely connected with, their climate, husbandry, mode of 
 existence, and whole social economy. The whole agricultural 
 population, if not manufacturing in some way — spinning, weaving, 
 making household goods, working in iron, wood, or cloth, for their 
 own use, during the winter months — would be totally idle all the 
 winter half year. It is a saving of time with us to buy all, and 
 make nothing at home. It would be a waste of time on the Con- 
 tinent not to make at home all that can be made. It has been 
 pointed out alreaciy as the main impediment to the success of the 
 German commercial league, that owing to this circumstance in the 
 social economy of Germany the home market, on which alone 
 any great industrial prosperity can be founded, is, and always 
 will be, inconsiderable, and insufficient to keep alive any great 
 development of manufacturing industry. 
 
 The superior importance of the home market for all that the 
 manufacturing industry of Great Britian produces, compared to 
 what the foreign market, including even the colonial, takes off, 
 furnishes one of the strongest arguments against the abolition 
 of the corn laws. It is an argument drawn from the quiver of 
 the moneyed interest itself. If the home market, which depends 
 upon the consumpt of the many, be injured by a deficiency of the 
 means among the many to buy and consume, and a reduction of 
 the wages of labour by a reduction of the cost of subsistence is 
 clearly a reduction of the means to expend in the home market, 
 it is killing the goose that laid the golden eggs to reduce the wages 
 of labour for the sake of the foreign market for our manufactures. 
 Political economists tell us that the export of our industrial pro- 
 ducts, including even the consumpt of our colonies, is by no means 
 of that magnitude that any real interests of our labouring class 
 should be sacrificed for the foreign market ; and that it is not the 
 basis of our manufacturing prosperity. The home consumpt, not 
 the foreign, is undeniably that which the great mass of British 
 manufacturing labour and capital is engaged in supplying. Take 
 away from the home consumers the means to consume — that is. 
 
274 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the high and artificial value of their labour, or rate of wages, 
 produced by the working of the corn laws— and you stop this 
 home market. You cut off the spring from which it is fed. You 
 sacrifice a certain home market for an uncertain foreign market. 
 You sacrifice four-fifths for the chance of augmenting one-fifth. 
 If the one-fifth, the foreign consumpt, could be augmented so as 
 to equal the four-fifths, the home consumpt, it would still be a 
 question of very doubtful policy whether it should be so aug- 
 mented ; whether the means of living of so large a proportion of 
 the productive classes should be made to depend so entirely upon 
 a demand which political circumstances might suddenly cut ofi". 
 It is computed or guessed at, by political economists, that one and 
 a half million of familes, or 8,200,000 individmils, of whom one- 
 half may be taken as grown men, are employed in all the depart- 
 ments of industry that can strictly be called manufacturing ; and 
 that of these one-eleventh part only is employed for the foreign 
 consumer. It is the peculiar advantage and security of our manu- 
 facturing industry and prosperity that it does not altogether de- 
 pend upon the foreign market ; yet the vicissitudes in the condition 
 of those employed in supplying the home market are sufficiendy 
 frequent and grievous. But if, instead of 800,000 or a million of 
 persons employed in manufacturing for the foreign market, we 
 had eight millions depending upon a demand which every petty 
 political misunderstanding among the European powers might 
 obstruct, would this be, morally or politically, an advantageous 
 position ? Would it be wise policy to call into existence a labour- 
 ing population equal to that now supported by the consumpt of 
 their labour in the home market, to be depending entirely upon 
 the still more precarious foreign market ? 
 
 But, say the advocates for the abolition of the corn laws, it is a 
 question of necessity in British legislation, not of choice. If our 
 manufacturing capitalists cannot get cheap labour at home to 
 enable them to compete in the foreign market with the foreign 
 manufacturer, they will remove to foreign countries with their 
 capital, skill and machinery, and will in reality take our home 
 market with them ; for it is from their ever-circulating capital dif- 
 fused through all the social mass, that the means of consumpt in 
 our home market are derived. With all respect for the many 
 eminent political economists who adopt this argument, it appears 
 very similar to that kind of political wisdom which, with more 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 275 
 
 justice than politeness, is caWed—fuc/ffe. Is cheap labour the only- 
 element in cheap production? Arc not clieap and quick com- 
 munications by land and water, fire-power and water-power, 
 ready markets, banking facilities, a vast moneyed body of buyers 
 between the producers and the consumers, quick, diligent habits 
 of work, and an active spirit among the people, a steady consti 
 tutional government, perfect freedom of trade and industry, an 
 impossibility of being disturbed by wars, or military duties, or 
 government interference in the applications of capital and indus- 
 try, as necessary as cheap labour for the beneficial employment of 
 manufacturing capital? Machinery, skill, and capital may no 
 doubt be removed, but not the natural and acquired advantages 
 of Great Britain, without which these are helpless and useless. 
 A few individuals with capital, skill, and government patronage, 
 may, no doubt, make or mar their fortunes on the Continent — as 
 for instance the late Mr. Cockeril's house in Belgium — by estab- 
 lishing iron works, cotton works, or other manufactories ; but the 
 basis of all real manufacturing business, quick, sure, uninterrupted, 
 extensive home consumpt, free circulation, free trade, free industry, 
 buyers to take off every imaginable product of human industry, 
 and for a moderate profit to take upon themselves the chance and 
 delay of finding the ultimate consumers, are all wanting on the 
 Continent. The people are not consumers. Would any sane 
 man transfer his capital from a country with coal fields on the sea- 
 coast, harbours, home markets, banks, and with no natural impedi- 
 ments to industry from the climate either winter or summer, and 
 no artificial impediments from wars or military organization, to 
 establish it in the machinery, buildings, and fixtures, necessary 
 for his manufacture, in countries which have never until now seen 
 twenty years together since the days of the Romans without the 
 visitations and ravages of war in the land, and in which every 
 summer the whole working population, even the hands most 
 necessary in his factory, may be called out to be drilled for weeks 
 together at the whim of the prince ? The people on the Continent 
 are not consumers, nor are they producers. They have not, as 
 work-people, the productiveness of English work-people. The 
 cheapness of their labour is only in appearance. Compared to 
 what it produces, it is in reality dear. The acquired knack, dex- 
 terity, and skill in the operative, arc wanting; and owing to the 
 interruptions from his military service in his regular breeding up 
 
276. NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 to his handicraft, the continental operator must always be at best 
 a half-bred workman, producing generally inferior work, and al- 
 ways work which costs much of his time. There is wanting also, 
 from the slow and uncertain markets, and the habits of a people 
 more inactive and sedentary than the British, the alert, prompt, 
 quick, national habit of working to each other, of laying every- 
 thing for example to the operator's hand that he requires, with the 
 same activity, punctuality, and spirit with which he himself works. 
 Whoever looks into the social economy of an English or Scotch 
 manufacturing district in which the population has become tho- 
 roughly imbued with the spirit of productiveness, will observe that 
 it is not merely the expertness, dispatch, and skill of the operative 
 himself, that are concerned in the prodigious amount of his pro- 
 duction in a given time, but the labourer w'ho wheels coals to his 
 fire, the girl who makes ready his breakfast, the whole population; 
 in short, from the pot-boy who brings his beer, to the banker who 
 keeps his employer's cash, are inspired with the same alert spirit — 
 are in fact working to his hand with the same quickness and punc- 
 tuality that he works with himself. English workmen taken to 
 the Continent always complain that they cannot get on with their 
 work as at home, because of the slow, unpunctual, pipe-in-mouth 
 working habits of those who have to work to their hands; and on 
 whom their own activity and productiveness mainly depend. The 
 low demand for quantity or quaUty of goods produces this low 
 activity or productiveness, and this depends upon natural circum- 
 stances affecting the social economy of the continental people — 
 circumstances connected with climate, soil, fuel, extent of country, 
 communications, food, and way of living, which no economical 
 laws can alter. 
 
 It is certainly not any demonstrated improvement in the condi- 
 tion of our labouring class by the increase of their numbers, and 
 reduction of their wages necessarily following a reduced price of 
 bread, nor is it the magnitude of the amount of employment given 
 by the foreign consumer to our manufacturing industry and capital, 
 nor is it any reasonable fear of the removal to foreign countries 
 of any important proportion of the manufacturing capital and in- 
 dustry of Great Britain, that would lead an unprejudiced man to 
 ' join in the cry for the abolition of the corn laws. On any of these 
 grounds— and no others are usually adduced by the abolitionists 
 — it will be clearly a false step in Political Economy. But Politi- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 277 
 
 cal Economy regards only the wealth of nations, not their social 
 well-being, not the good condition, physically and morally, of the 
 people. In social economy this step will produce in Great Britain 
 a most beneficial revolution, radical, yet unfelt in its operation, 
 because spread over a great number of years, as every great social 
 change ought to be, and carrying with it ultimately such an im- 
 provement, such a regeneration of well-being in the condition of the 
 labouring classes both manufacturing and agricultural, that no un- 
 prejudiced man who examines its tendency and ultimate effects on 
 our social economy to the bottom, will hesitate to join in the cry 
 for the abolition of these corn laws. The social economy of the 
 country will be insensibly improved by this step, in the following 
 way. 
 
 The labour-market of the operative manufacturing population 
 of Great Britain is subject to two distinct kinds of pressure arising 
 from two distinct causes; but iif the reasonings of our political 
 economists and legislators on the causes and remedies of pauper- 
 ism, the two are always slumped together. The one pressure is 
 natural, is caused by the natural tendency of population, in the 
 manufacturing class, as in every other, to increase more rapidly 
 than the means of subsistence; and education, self-restraint, and 
 the tastes and habits of a more elevated standard of living are the 
 only remedies applicable to this tendency. The other pressure is 
 artificial, is caused by a defect in our social economy, by which a 
 perpetual stream is running out of the channel of agricultural 
 labour into the channels of maufacturing labour. The constant 
 tendency of agricultural labour to rush into other branches of 
 industry is very obvious among us, but a re-action we never see. 
 The children of the labourers in husbandry become smiths, car- 
 penters, weavers, or seek a living in the factory; but the children 
 of these factory operatives never betake themselves permanently 
 to husbandry work. The reality of this tendency is not merely 
 proved by observation, or by conclusions drawn from the rapid 
 increase of our towns, and of our manufactiu'ing production, and 
 the deterioration of the condition of the operative manufacturing 
 class ; but from the population returns. The relative proportions 
 of those who live by agricultural labour, and by other labour, 
 have altered so much from one census to another, that is, within 
 ten years, that instead of two-thirds of the population being en- 
 gaged in agricultural, and one-third in manufacturing or other 
 
278 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 labour, the proportion is now said to be almost reversed, and one- 
 third only is engaged in agriculture, and two-thirds in manufac- 
 tures. Without just pinning our faith to the accuracy of the 
 returns on this head, we have enough to establish the fact in our 
 social economy, that besides the natural increase of our manufac- 
 turing class breeding hands within itself, there is a perpetual drain 
 from agricultural labour into manufacturing labour. It is the 
 object of all incorporations, crafts, apprenticeship-laws and regu- 
 lations, and of all clubs, trades-unions, combinations, and associa- 
 tions of operatives, whether within or without the shelter of the 
 mantle of the law, to dam back and keep out this influx of labour 
 into their labour market, which reduces the value of their labour 
 below the means of a civilized subsistence. The husbandry 
 labourers alone are not engaged in this struggle, because no man 
 presses into their labour-market. If the manufacturing labourers 
 could exclude the influx into their body from the agricultural body, 
 their labour-market would never be so over supplied with labour 
 that its value would fall short of the wages necessary to a civil- 
 ized subsistence. This want of the means to hold a civilized 
 subsistence from the earnings of skill and industry, is the plague- 
 spot which taints the whole body of our labouring population, 
 deteriorates their physical and moral condition, and breeds com- 
 binations, discontent, disturbance, misery, destitution, and vice, 
 even in the bosom of peace, and of a prosperous and improving 
 condition of the higher classes. It is an artificial pressure from 
 without, not the working of any natural law, that produces this 
 wretched social system. What then is the cause of this artificial 
 pressure on manufacturing labour? What is it in agricultural 
 labour that makes all who can fly from it press into the labour- 
 market of the manufacturing class ? The agricultural labourer 
 must somehow be in a still worse condition, and still worse paid than ^ 
 the operative in any other kind of labour. But why is he worse off 
 or worse paid ? His fatigue is as great, his hours of toil as long, his 
 skill and dexterity as important as in any ordinary kind of manu- 
 facturing labour. The shoemaker, tailor, smith, weaver, or factory 
 workman of any kind, has not a trade requiring more intelligence, 
 forethought, and skill ; and is intrusted with no such costly instru- 
 ments to work with, as the ploughman or carter working with a 
 team worth often two or three hundred pounds sterling, or more 
 with its tackle. In no branch of manufacture does the employer 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 279 
 
 depend for successful production upon the intelligence, skill, and 
 faithful work of any one single operative, so entirely as the farmer 
 must upon his workmen, upon his ploughman, for instance, or 
 his seedsman. Why is this labour of skill and trust so much 
 underpaid comparatively, that there is a constant pressure from it 
 upon all other branches of industry : and that badly off as other 
 operatives may be, the agricultural operative is still worse off, and 
 seeks employment in the manufacturing labour-market ? To solve 
 this question is a most important problem in the present political 
 and social economy of Great Britain. 
 
 Whatever other elements enter into the wages of labour, one 
 is indubitable. The employer pays wages, in tlie long run, only 
 for the work that makes him a return. He pays no wages for 
 that which does not repay him, cither in profit or pleasure. Now 
 the employer of the agricultural labourer derives neither pleasure 
 nor profit from that portion of his labourer's work which goes to- 
 wards the production of what he pays to the tithe-owner — the 
 tenth sheaf, the tenth lamb, the tenth part, or its equivalent, of all 
 that is produced on his land— and he certainly does not pay 
 wages for that work of which the produce does not go into his 
 own barn or pocket. If he be a tenant, he calculates in his bar- 
 gain for the land with the landlord what proportion of the pro- 
 duce he has to pay to the tithe-owner, and fixes what rent he 
 will give to the landlord accordingly. In the same way, in cal- 
 culating what rate of wages he will give to the labourer, either 
 by the day, or by the year, or by the job, he calculates what the 
 labour will produce to him, and certainly pays no wages for that 
 labour of which the produce goes into another man's pocket. He 
 does not pay his labourers for one-tenth of their time and labour, — 
 or, in other words pays them one-tenth less wages, — because one- 
 tenth of the produce of their time and labour does not benefit him. 
 The English labourer in husbandry works, in reality, every tenth 
 day for nothing ; or, what is the same, receives every day one 
 tenth less, be his wages high or low, than he would be earning, 
 if the whole, instead of nine-tenths only of his time and labour, 
 went to his employer. He really pays one-tenth of his time and 
 labour, and consequently of his wages, in tithe to the tithe-owner, 
 without any recompense. Nay, he pays more. His employer 
 naturally seeks by the diminution of wages — that being the only 
 outlay on which the farmer can economize at pleasure— some 
 
280 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 indemnification for the tenth of his seed, manure, horse-work, and 
 the use of his implements, time, skill, and personal management, 
 all employed, uselessly as far as regards his own profit, in raising 
 the proportion of his crop that goes to the tithe-owner. Th^ 
 burden also falls more or less upon the wages of the agricultural 
 labourer. These are adjustments of interests which the farmer 
 and labourer do not indeed make upon formal calculation, as in 
 the adjustment of rent between the farmer and landlord, in con- 
 sequence of the tithe, but they make themselves as certainly and 
 unerringly as in bargaining for rent, on the natural principle of 
 wages repaying the employer, or not continuing to be paid. 
 Weighty pamphlets have been published on each side of the 
 question, whether tithe be a real burden paid by the tenant, or 
 by the land-owner. It is in reality paid by neither. The land- 
 owner never acquired the tenth of his land with which the church 
 was endowed. The clerical argument that the church has as 
 clear a title to its one-tenth, as the landed proprietor to the other 
 nine-tenths, is unquestionably good, and the church is, indeed, 
 the older proprietor of the two. The flaw in this argument of 
 the churchmen and lawyers lies here : the original proprietors of 
 the land could only give the church what was their own to give 
 — viz., one-tenth, or any other share of the land, but had no right 
 to give, and could not give, what was not their own — viz., one- 
 tenth of the time, labour, capital, and skill applied to the land, of 
 other parties not then in existence. The spontaneous produce of 
 the tenth of a farm was all that the original owners of it could 
 endow the church with ; and on equitable principle, nothing more 
 should have been valued in commutations of tithe, or drawn in 
 tithe payments. The iniquity of the law has, however, laid the 
 whole burden of the tithe in efiect upon the class of agricultural 
 labourers— for out of them their employer, the farmer, gets his 
 indemnification for his own outlay of capital, time, and skill, em- 
 ployed in raising the tithe— and it is this pressure upon the body 
 of agricultural labourers which keeps their condition so far below 
 that of other labourers, and causes an incessant influx from it into 
 the body of manufacturing labourers. Tithe is in reality the 
 mother of poor-rate. When the English landlords complain of 
 their poor-rates, they forget that the object of it, the poor man, 
 has been paying all his life a much heavier rich-rate for them — 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 281 
 
 viz., one-tenth of his time and labour, for the support of a cliiirch 
 establishment to which the landlords and farmers contribute none 
 of their own property; and that he would not be upon the poor- 
 rate, if he had received all his life wages for all that his time and 
 labour produced, instead of working one day in ten for no wages. 
 
 Now this artificial and evil arrangement in our social system, 
 which reduces to misery and to the vices associated with hope- 
 less misery, both the agricultural and manufacturing classes of 
 labourers, will be gradually and imperceptibly remedied, in the 
 long run, by the aboUtion of the corn laws. This will be the 
 true and beneficial efTect of the measure. It will bring about a 
 natural equilibrium between all kinds of labour, by restoring 
 agricultural labour to its just position of having no peculiar tax, 
 such as that of tithe, thrown upon it alone ; and, by removing 
 this pressure, will relieve the manufacturing labour-raarlvet from 
 that forced influx into it which is the true cause of the low phy- 
 sical and moral condition to which the manufacturing operative 
 class is reduced. It is necessary to show how the abolition of the 
 duty on foreign grain will raise the condition of the agricultural 
 labouring class. 
 
 Good farming, improved husbandry, increased production from 
 land, are terms bearing a reference always to soils and climates. 
 The worst and poorest farmer in the finer soils and climates even 
 of Britain, as, for instance, in Essex or Kent, will raise more 
 and better grain from a given area of land, than the best and 
 wealthiest farmer can do in the worst soils and climates, such as 
 in Caithness, Sutherland, or the Lewes. Superior management, 
 skill, economy, and capital, may, indeed, in the nearly equal corn 
 soils, and climate of Britain, admit of a competition, especially in 
 the coarser kinds of grain, between extreme parts of the country; 
 but when the British farmer has to make his profits out of land 
 money-rented, taxed, tithed, poor-rated, and burdened directly or 
 indirectly to a great extreme, in competition with farmers on the 
 Continent with better soils and cliniates, and who arc cither 
 owners, selling their surplus produce, or rather bartering it with- 
 out much regard to profit, or else tenants paying proportions of 
 what they raise from the land as rent, and even as taxes, without 
 reference to the market value of what they pay, it is evident that 
 he must change his system of farming, and must farm as they do, 
 with the least outlay of money — must resort to the same system 
 19 
 
282 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 as that with which he is placed in competition. The farmhig of 
 extensive areas of land with great capital, the manufacture of 
 corn from the soil by the application of hired labour, great skill, 
 intelligence, and expensive management and machinery, as farm- 
 ing is carried on in our most improved agricultural districts, will 
 slowly but inevitably fall to the ground. Husbandry will come 
 round to the Metayer system. The extensive farmer or tenant 
 will become a tacksman subsetting for a portion of the crop, and 
 for labour on the small space he may hold in his own hands, as 
 much as he can of his farm to working husbandmen with work- 
 ing families. This change will raise the condition of the whole 
 class of labourers in husbandry, and they are the most numerous 
 body of the people in every country in a sound state of social 
 arrangement. The working husbandman with his family will 
 be a better tenant than the non-working agriculturist with his 
 skill, hired labour, and capital, because the value of the products 
 will not repay the cost of these, and the capitalist who has to 
 pay and feed labourers, subsist in a suitable way his own family, 
 and replace his own capital with interest and profit, before he 
 has any surplus for rent, can afford to pay no such proportion of 
 the grain or other products of his farm in rent to the land-owner, 
 as the working small tenant who has only to take his own sub- 
 sistence and that of his family, as labourers, out of the products 
 of the land, and divides the surplus with the landlord, as rent 
 and payment of his skill and labour. The condition of the actual 
 labourer on the land will be raised by this change in the agri- 
 cultural system of the country, because tithe will no longer be, 
 as at present, a deduction from the value of his labour, a burden 
 upon his earnings alone. He will be, with respect to tithe, in 
 the position in which the tenant stands now, who pays tithe out 
 of the gross produce of the land as a portion of his rent, and de- 
 ducts it from the amount which would otherwise go to his land- 
 lord. He will also have gradations in his social condition attain- 
 able by his skill and industry. He will be able to rise from trte 
 situation of a single man working for subsistence in a working 
 husbandman's family, to that of a working married husbandman 
 farming land for a rent which the intelligent, well-conducted, 
 working husbandman, however poor, is able to pay, viz., a pro- 
 portion of the crops he raises. 
 
 There will be no pressure upon the manufacturing class of 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 283 
 
 labourers, from the body of agricultural labourers. Both classes 
 will feel equally the relief Nor will the class of landlords suffer, 
 perhaps, by the change. They will draw a much larger propor- 
 tion of the product of the soil as rent — so much larger, that it will 
 probably counterbalance the lower money value of those pro- 
 ducts. If they draw two bolls of grain as corn rent from the 
 same area of land which now pays them only the money price of 
 one boll, the fall of the money price to one-half of the present 
 rate will not injure them. The burden of tithe they cannot justly 
 complain of It will be placed on the proper shoulders — on those 
 who bought the land subject to that biu'den, and who deducted 
 in the price they paid an equivalent consideration for it. The 
 only question — and no doubt it is an all-important one — will be, 
 how far the productiveness of the land of Great Britain may 
 suffer, or be really diminished by this revolution in the agricultu- 
 ral system of the country — this return to a small farm cultivation 
 and rents in kind, which must inevitably follow the abolition of 
 the corn laws. If we listen to the large farmer, the scientific 
 agriculturist, the political economist, good farming must perish 
 with large farms ; the very idea that good farming can exist, un- 
 less on large farms cultivated with great capital, they hold to be 
 absurd. Draining, manuring, economical arrangement, cleaning 
 the land, regular rotations, valuable stock and implements, all 
 belong exclusively to large farms, worked by large capitals, and 
 by hired labour. This reads very well ; but if we raise our eyes 
 from their books to their fields, and coolly compare what we see 
 in the best districts farmed in large farms with what we see in 
 the best districts farmed in small farms, we see, and there is no 
 blinking the fact, better crops on the ground in Flanders, East 
 Friesland, Holstein, in short, on the whole line of the arable land 
 of equal quality of the Continent, from the Sound to Calais, than 
 we see on the line of British coast opposite to this line, and in the 
 same latitudes, from the Firth of Forth all round to Dover. Mi- 
 nute labour on small portions of arable ground give evidently, in 
 equal soils and climate, a superior productiveness, where these 
 small portions belong in property, as in Flanders, Holland, Fries- 
 land, and Ditmarsh in Holstein, to the farmer. It is not pretended 
 by our agricultural writers, that our large farmers even in Ber- 
 wickshire, Roxburghshire, or the Lothians, approach to the gar- 
 den-like cultivation, attention to manures, drainage, and clean 
 
284 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 State of the land, or in productiveness from a small space of soil 
 not originally rich, which distinguish the small farmers of Flan- 
 ders and their system. In the best farmed parish in Scotland or 
 England, more land is wasted in the corners and borders of the 
 fields of large farms, in the roads through them, unnecessarily 
 wide because they are bad, and bad because they are wide, in 
 neglected commons, waste spots, useless belts and clumps of sorry 
 trees, and such unproductive areas, as would maintain the poor 
 of the parish, if they were all laid together and cultivated. But 
 large capital applied to farming is of course only applied to the 
 very best of the soils of a country. It cannot touch the small un- 
 productive spots which require more time and labour to fertilize 
 them than is consistent with a quick return of capital. But 
 although hired time and labour cannot be applied beneficially to 
 such cultivation, the owner's own time and labour may. He is 
 working for no higher returns at first from his land than a bare 
 living. But in the course of generations, fertility and value are 
 produced ; a better living, and even very improved processes of 
 husbandry, are attained. Furrow draining, 'stall feeding all sum- 
 mer, liquid manures, are universal in the husbandry of the small 
 farms of Flanders, Lombardy, Switzerland. Our most improv- 
 ing districts under large farms are but beginning to adopt them. 
 Dairy husbandry even, and the manufacture of the largest cheeses, 
 by the co-operation of many small farmers — the mutual assur- 
 ance of property against fire and hailstorms, by the combina- 
 tion of small farmers — the most scientific and expensive of all 
 agricultural operations in modern times, the manufacture of beet- 
 root sugar, the supply of the European markets with flax and 
 hemp by the husbandry of small farm.ers,— the abundance of 
 legumes, fruits, poultry, in the usual diet even of the lowest 
 classes abroad, and the total want of such variety at the tables 
 even of our middle classes, and this variety and abundance essen- 
 tially connected with the husbandry of small farmers, — all these 
 are features in the system of the occupation of a country by small 
 proprietor-farmers, which must make the inquirer pause before he 
 admits the dogma of our land doctors at home, that large farms 
 worked by hired labour and great capital can alone bring out the 
 greatest productiveness of the soil, and furnish the greatest supply 
 of the necessaries and conveniences of life to the inhabitants of a 
 country. One common error in the usual comparison of the large 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 285 
 
 farm and small farm systems — la grande and la petile culture — 
 is to reckon as increased production from the soil the increased 
 quantity of grain or other products sent to market by the large 
 farmer from the same extent of land. A farm, for instance, of 
 two hundred arable acres in the hands of a single farmer, may 
 send to the market town a larger quantity of grain than if the 
 land were occupied by ten or fifteen farmers with their families. 
 But this, if correct to all the extent assumed by agricultural 
 writers, is not increased production from the soil. It is in political 
 economy only a different distribution of perhaps the same, or 
 even a less amount of produce — it affects only the different pro- 
 portions of a population living in the country by agriculture, or 
 living in the towns by manufactiu'ing industry. The quantity of 
 food of all kinds raised from the soil is not necessarily greater, 
 because a greater proportion of it is consumed by the town popu- 
 lations, and a smaller by the country populations. It may even 
 be a question in social economy, whether the well-being of a peo- 
 ple is promoted by that kind of artificial or forced system which 
 sacrifices the comfort, and condition, or numbers of the agricultural 
 labouring class of a country, to the prosperity and increase of its 
 town or manufacturing populations. It may be a question whether 
 the body engaged in agriculture should be deprived of its middle 
 classes, its small farmers, its yeomanry, by the unnatural and forced 
 value given to land by the combined operations of corn laws and 
 of the exclusive political privileges attached to the possession of 
 landed property. The true conclusion in political economy on 
 the relative productiveness of the grande and petite culture, 
 appears to be that the capital and skill of large farmers attain all 
 over a country no augmentation of the products from soil and 
 climate, which is not equally attainable by the labour, skill, and 
 conjoined means of an intelligent body of small farmers. The 
 traveller who looks without prejudice or preconceived opinion at 
 the state of crops on the Continent wherever the small farming 
 and small proprietary system is predominant, at the abundance 
 and variety of food afforded by it to the xv.s\ of the population, 
 and at the way of living, the cheapness, the physical comforts in 
 diet and lodging of the working classes, and the whole social 
 effect of the occupancy of land in small farms, will come to this 
 conclusion — viz., that the largo farm money-rent system, which 
 is almost entirely confined to Jirilain, is a kind of political estab- 
 
286 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 lishment, the growth of artificial arrangements of society, and 
 fostered by the classes it supports; but is in reality not essential 
 to good husbandry, or to the utmost agricultural productiveness 
 of a country, or the utmost well-being of its inhabitarits. This 
 establishment could not subsist but by protective legislation, and 
 must give way when it comes in competition with agricultural 
 production under the more natural small farm system. Food 
 raised from our own soil will become more abundant, and in 
 greater variety, by the increase of the number of its producers. 
 This is the natural law of all production. The increase of the 
 productive power of human labour applied to the inert material, 
 the soil, will increase its products in some kind of proportion to 
 itself. To diminish producers of food is the way our scientific 
 agriculturists propose in their speculations to increase its quan- 
 tity in a country. They attain thus only an apparent increase by 
 a different and perhaps not very beneficial distribution of it. The 
 quantity actually raised on the great scale, as in a whole country, 
 undoubtedly is greatest on the system of small farms under a 
 garden-like cultivation. The densest populations in Europe are 
 those of Flanders and of Lombardy, and they are subsisted in 
 comfort by land cultivated by small farmers. The experience of 
 half a century in France proves that by the occupation of the 
 country under small working farmers, the land is producing one- 
 third more food, and supporting a population one-third greater 
 than it did when it was possessed in large masses. America also 
 proves that the land in the hands of small working farmers admi- 
 nisters all that a people of similar tastes and habits to our own 
 require, and far more abundantly than our system. " There is 
 much food," says Solomon, " in the tillage of the poor :" — there 
 is much sound political economy to be found in Solomon's Pro- 
 verbs. 
 
 A return to the small farm system, whether it be for good or 
 for evil, must inevitably, although gradually, follow the abolition 
 of the corn laws. Farming in our country must inevitably follow 
 the cheaper modes of production with which it is brought into 
 competition : for it is the law of all production, that cheapness 
 commands both the markets, and the modes of producing. But 
 how will this change affect the great body of money-rented ten- 
 antry, the most respectable of our middle class in the country.^ 
 This requires investigation. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 287 
 
 What is rent ? Political economists tell u^ that rent arises from 
 the difference of production between the best lands in the country 
 and the worst that are under cultivation ; that the best only yield 
 a rent when, from the pressure of population, the secondary 
 lands come to be cultivated also, and then the difference of pro- 
 ductiveness between the best and the second qualities of land 
 affords a rent for the first ; that when the secondary lands become 
 also cultivated, and a third still poorer class of land must be occu- 
 pied, then the secondary yields a rent also — and so on until we 
 come to the land altogether good for nothing— in comparison or 
 competition with which the lands of a quality a little, however 
 little, better will yield something as rent. This, if I mistake not, 
 is Mr. Ricardo's theory of rent : but one can scarcely swear to it, 
 for these theories of rent, money, population, pauperism, and all 
 the other metaphysics of political economy, are very hazy sub- 
 jects. You can never catch a steady view of them : and they 
 raise a mist in the mind, through which things appear in very 
 different shapes, and in very different relations to each other, from 
 the reality. This theory of rent, it appears to me, explains only 
 the cause of the differences of rent, but not what rent is itself. 
 Rent itself, reduced to its simplest primary element, is merely the 
 exchange of one kind of property, or rather of the use of one 
 kind of property, for the use of another kind. It is a simple result 
 of barter, and only connected with comparative fertility of land, 
 by its amount or difference compared to rents Qf other land. 
 Rent itself may be defined. It is the whole produce of the land, 
 minus the hire of the time, labour, and skill which raise that pro- 
 duce. In its simplest shape in society, it is the land-owner who 
 pays a rent to the tenant or cultivator, not the tenant to the land- 
 lord. The owner of a cow is the undoubted owner of all the 
 milk his cow produces, but he is not owner of the dairy maid's 
 time, labour, and skill, to make it into cheese and butter. That 
 is another kind of property, and he must hire it, that is to say, 
 must pay a rent to the dairy maid for the use of it. And what 
 does he pay? He barters a proportion of his property, milk — 
 or its representative, money — for a proportion of her property, 
 time, labour, and skill. This is rent in its simplest shape, whether 
 we speak of a cow, or of an acre of land ; and it is paid to the 
 cultivator, not by him ; and all rent is so paid. It is only in the 
 statement of the account between the parties in that small portion 
 
288 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of the cultivated land of the earth which is money-rented, that 
 it appears as if the tenant paid the land-owner. If the dairy maid 
 was sent to market with the cheese and butter, and on her return 
 paid the money it brought to the owner, deducting the value of 
 her own time, labour, skill, and whatever she had furnished for 
 producing the milk and butter, it would appear as if she was pay- 
 ing him a rent for the cow, whereas she is only paying him the 
 balance of his own produce, and she is the party receiving a hire 
 or rent for her property. It is the same simple operation of bar- 
 ter in all rent, as it exists in its natural shape, all over the world. 
 In the South Sea Islands, in all the Continent of Europe, and even 
 in the best farmed money-rented districts of Scotland, rent exists 
 in this simple shape as a payment by the land-owner (or his sub- 
 stitute, the farmer) to the cultivator, and in the original v/ay of 
 giving him the use of a portion of the land itself, in payment for 
 the use of a portion of his time and labour applied to the remain- 
 der. Every farm has some cottar-tenants, under some name or 
 other, receiving a rent in land for their time and labour. This is 
 the first and simplest shape in which rent exists. The next is 
 where, instead of the use of a portion of the land itself for the 
 use of a portion of the cultivator's time and labour, his whole 
 time and labour are hired for the whole land, and he is paid a 
 proportion of its whole produce in corn, wine, wool, or whatever 
 his labour is applied to. The third is where the cultivator, be- 
 sides his time and labour, brings also skill, capital, seed, cattle, 
 farm-stocking, &c., of his own to the cultivation, and is paid as 
 his rent for these, a proportion so much greater of the produce of 
 the land. This is the Metayer system, upon which almost all the 
 arable land of Europe is, and ever has been, cultivated. The 
 colonus partuarius is mentioned in the earliest ages ; and sheep 
 Hocks, dairy produce, vineyards, orchards, and other branches of 
 husbandry, could only be cultivated successfully by giving the 
 cultivator an interest in the results. If we compare this Metayer 
 system with our money-rent system it will be found to have this 
 great advantage over it,, that the land-owner remains in his true 
 position as owner of the land and all it produces, paying a pro- 
 portion of the produce as rent to the cultivator or tenant, for the 
 use of his capital, skill, time, &c., applied to the production, and 
 he, the lanji-owner, shares, consequently, in the risk of bad seasons 
 and crops as well as the farmer — stands his fair and equal chance 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 289 
 
 of the loss as well as of the gain which the hand of Providence 
 may dispense. This is altogether just in principle. Our artificial 
 money-rent system is not just. The money-rented tenant paying 
 thirty shillings per acre, perhaps, for iiis farm, in Scotland or Eng- 
 land, is in reality an underwriter standing under the double bur- 
 den of the risk of seasons for his landlord's share of what the 
 land produces, as well as for his own. The competition for land 
 to hire, in consequence of the monopoly of the property of land 
 in large estates, and the difficulty, or impossibility, rather, of em- 
 ploying small capitals with safety in any trade or manufacture in 
 which the large capitals compete with, and ruin the small, forces 
 the class of tenants possessing capital out of their natural position 
 as cultivators paid for the use of their means of cultivation, into 
 the position of the land-owners with respect to the risks and losses 
 which equitably, and in a natural instead of a constrained artifi- 
 cial system of land occupancy, would fall proportionably upon 
 the latter. The money-rented tenant is not only an underwriter 
 insuring his land-owner's interest in the produce of the land against 
 the risk of seasons, but he is also an underwriter securing him 
 against the fluctuation of markets, and a corn merchant paying 
 all the expenses of transporting and marketing what, in any just 
 view of the nature of rent, is not his property, but the land- 
 owner's. It is his bargain, no doubt, and it is his own will to 
 accept the lease of his land under such conditions ; but it is not 
 an equitable bargain, nor a man's free will, when an artificial sys- 
 tem has grown up under a protective legislation which leaves him 
 no alternative but to step into all the risks for the land-owner, or 
 let the land and his trade alone together. It is like the bargain 
 and free will of the passengers in a vessel stranded on the Good- 
 win Sands, treating with the Deal boatmen to bring them to land. 
 The corn laws are the protective legislation under which this 
 artificial relation between the land-owner and the cultivator has 
 grown up. When these arc abolished, the relations between 
 land-owner and cultivator will return to a sound and natural state. 
 The land-owner will pay the cultivator the half or whatever pro- 
 portion may be agreed upon, of the produce of the land, for his 
 capital, skill, and labour in producing it, and run his own risks of 
 seasons and markets. The present tenantry will return to the 
 stale from which they fell — that of a yeomanry cultivating their 
 own lands. Their smallest capitals, of two or three thousand 
 
290 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 pounds sterling, will then find small estates for their investment 
 at the moderate price to which the reduced value of the produce 
 of land will bring landed property. The artificial value given by ' 
 protective legislation for the benefit of the land-owners, and by 
 the exclusive privileges or political advantages attached to their 
 kind of property, being taken away, a thousand pounds' worth 
 of land will be as readily found in the market as a thousand 
 pounds' worth of broad-cloth. Land will take the tendency to 
 be distributed again in small estates of yeomanry and gentry 
 living on and farming their own properties, instead of the tend- 
 ency it has long had, to be concentrated m large masses in the 
 hands of great capitalists. The condition of the money-rented 
 tenantry will be improved. They will be relieved from the 
 unjust position of having the risk of markets and crops thrown 
 entirely on them. Many farmers in the Lothians, and they are 
 not the most short-sighted of men, have of late stipulated for a 
 rent payable partly or wholly in grain ; or in so many bolls per 
 acre, valued at the average or fiar prices of the year. This is 
 but a step, a feeling of the way in the dark. The true interpre- 
 tatiorl of this sign of the times is, that the farmer finds that a man 
 tied to the same money-rent, good seasons and bad, is in a false - 
 position, is, in reality, an underwriter and a corn merchant as 
 much as a farmer. A lucky Wednesday at the market cross, or 
 an extra gill with the drover or corn dealer, may often make up 
 for indifferent farming in the money-returns of the land. This 
 dangerous corn trade they are gradually dropping. The next step 
 will be to pay as rent not so many fixed bolls per acre, whether 
 the season produces the crop or not, but a fixed proportion of the 
 crops actually produced, or of the value they sell for in the market. 
 The tendency clearly is to return to the natural principle of rent, 
 as a payment by the land-owner to the cultivator, the land- owner* 
 standing the risks of seasons and markets for his own interest in 
 the produce. The consequences of this change will be, that the 
 tenantry possessing capital will become yeomen-proprietors farm- 
 ing their own estates. The husbandry class immediately below 
 them, the men of industry, skill, and intelligence, but with little 
 or no capital, will become Metayer tenants, and the working la- 
 bourers in husbandry will become small farmers, holding land for 
 their work. 
 
 Important improvements in our social condition are linked to 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 291 
 
 this inevitable change in the state of landed property. It will, in 
 truth, produce a slow and quiet, but complete revolution in our 
 whole social economy — one much needed, very beneficial in its 
 results to the great mass of the community, and which never can 
 come with less evil to any class, or interest, than through the 
 gradual change brought about in the course of years by a regular 
 act of legislation. It is a fact not to be denied, or blinked at, that 
 the upper classes of the landed social body in Britain are too far 
 removed by vast incomes, and conventional privileges and dis- 
 tinctions, from all community of knowledge, business, interests, 
 or feelings, with the middle or lower classes for whom they legis- 
 late. They are in reality a kind of Brahmin caste in the social 
 body at present, educated aloof, and living aloof from the mass 
 of the nation. The landed proprietor is out of his just position. 
 The man with an estate worth fifty, sixty, or eighty thousand 
 pounds, enjoys far higher political privilege and influence, both 
 in the public and in the local affairs of the country, than the mer- 
 chant or manufacturer with an equal capital invested in concerns 
 of far greater importance to the community, and requiring much 
 higher talent for its management. The exclusive weight in society 
 which belonged to landed property when it was almost the only 
 kind of property, continues vested in a class who now are, from 
 their very position in society, necessarily less experienced and 
 versed in the various interests of a modern community than 
 those for whom they act and legislate. Legislators and legis- 
 latees have become two distinct tribes, inhabiting the same land, 
 without common objects, interests, or knowledge. The Reform 
 Bill failed to amend this evil in our social economy, because the 
 Bill was founded on the false principle of continuing the mono- 
 poly of political influence in one kind of property only, and 
 merely attempting to increase the numbers of those partaking in 
 the monopoly. But the abolition of the corn laws will amend 
 the evil. The social influence of all kinds of property will be 
 equalized. Property will not lose its social and political influ- 
 ence, but landed property will have no more than its just and 
 equal share ; and all proprietors who have a stake in the country 
 by any description of property will have a voice in its affairs, 
 through their representatives, proportionable to that stake. The 
 landed proprietor will have to submit to be measured by the 
 standard applied to other proprietors — viz., the value of his pro- 
 
292 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 perty and talents taken together — not by the feudal standard of 
 the measurement of his land as property of a more noble kind 
 than their money-capitals, machinery, or shipping, and entitled 
 exclusively to legislate for these, and to form their representation 
 in the legislature. The landed booby whose talents extend to 
 crowing like a cock will no longer take his seat as of birthright, on 
 the parliamentary benches with a Brougham, a Macaulay, or an 
 O'Connell. This sound and rational distribution of the legislative 
 power, and the equality of rights and advantages of all proprie- 
 tors in proportion to their stake in the country, whether it be 
 as capitalists, land-owners, or labourers, and whether invested in 
 agriculture, manufacture, or commerce, without privilege of or 
 pressure upon one kind of property, or class of people, more 
 than another, will follow naturally a,nd necessarily, although 
 gradually, in our social economy, from the abolition of all protect- 
 ive duties on corn in favour of landed property. It will be a 
 revolution. It may not be perceptible in the generation in 
 which it is effected ; but on looking back from the higher state 
 of well-being to which it will gradually raise all classes, it will be 
 considered a great and beneficial revolution. 
 
 But how will it not be perceptible in the present generation of 
 land-holders ? How will it, in the end, be beneficial to them, and 
 to their property ? 
 
 Before this great alteration in our social economy can be entered 
 upon, it will be necessary, in equity to all interests, to equalize the 
 burdens on, as well as the privileges of, all kinds of property, and 
 all classes of proprietors. The abolition of the corn laws, and of 
 the monopoly of social and political influence attached to land, 
 would be an act of spoliation and injustice, if not accompanied by 
 an equitable adjustment of all the burdens on property. It is true, 
 that land as a species of property, and landed proprietors as a 
 class, enjoy pecuniary advantages by the effect of the duties on 
 foreign grain, cattle, and all other agricultural products, at the 
 expense of the other classes in the community — the moneyed or 
 manufacturing and the labouring classes. It is also true, that 
 landed property enjoys, almost in monopoly, that social and poli- 
 tical influence which in this advanced state of modern society all 
 other kinds of property ought proportionably to partake in. But 
 it is also true, that land and landed proprietors pay to the rest of 
 society, and pay dearly, for these unjust advantages and privileges. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 293 
 
 Landed proprietors and their property would be much better off 
 without them. The support of the poor, of the ecclesiastical and 
 educational establishments of the country, of the police, of the 
 whole materiel for the administration of the affairs of society, the 
 public communications of roads, bridges, streets, the paving, light- 
 ing, watching, the prisons and public buildings of every kind, in 
 short, the whole standing expenses of the social economy of the 
 country, are provided for almost exclusively by rates levied froni 
 this kind of property — from land and houses. The fund-holder, 
 the moneyed, the manufacturing, the labouring interests, contribute 
 from'their kinds of property very little in proportion towards these 
 needful expenses of society — the very poor who have expended 
 youth and manhood in their service, and in adding-to their kind 
 of property, are thrown back in old age to be supported by rates 
 on landed property. It is usually argued that the landed proprietor 
 draws back these payments, levied, undeniably, in no just propor- 
 tion from his kind of property, by the high prices which conven- 
 tional arrangements, such as the heavy import duties on foreign 
 grain, cattle, and all other agricultural products, oblige the other 
 classes of society to pay to him for the products of his land — that 
 he thus draws back, in reality, in high rents what he iays out for 
 the public in high rates. But this is not a sound argument in any 
 view. It is a barbarous kind of adjustment to settle one injustice 
 by another — to make the consumers pay more than they should 
 do for their food, in order to recompense the growers for paying 
 more than they should do for the necessary expenses of society. 
 It is not just to oblige by law the owners of this kind of property 
 to advance these necessary expenses of society for all the other 
 classes and kinds of property in it, even supposing such a virtual 
 repayment does take place by the operation of the corn laws— a 
 repayment which it would be difficult to prove, and which certainly 
 does not take place at all with that great mass of landed property 
 which is subject to the heaviest burdens of all for the other kinds 
 of property in the community — the land carrying houses not agri- 
 cultural crops. But admitting that there is virtually a repayment 
 of tliis outlay by the operation of the corn laws, admitting, too, 
 that the exclusive social and political influence and privileges 
 attached to landed property constitute another repayment in a 
 different way, for the heavier burdens upon this kind of properly, 
 it would manifestly be unjust to do away with these equivalents, 
 
294 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 however grievous and unjust they may be towards the rest of the 
 community, without doing away at the same time with the heavy 
 peculiar burdens for which they are the compensation. An equal- 
 ization of all rates, taxes, payments, and burdens required in our 
 social system, whether levied by the state for its general purposes 
 of government, or by counties, towns, or parishes for their local 
 purposes, imposing them equally upon all kinds of property in 
 society, on funded, trading, manufacturing property, as well as 
 landed property, must necessarily, and in common justice, precede, 
 or go hand in hand with the abolition of the cprn laws. With 
 such an equalization of burdens and privileges, the landed pro- 
 prietor would have no right, and probably no cause, to complain. 
 Poor rates, ceunty rates, and all local or general assessments being 
 levied not as now almost altogether from his kind of property, but 
 also from the property of the capitalist, fund-holder, merchant, 
 manufacturer, and tradesman, according to value and amount, he 
 would be relieved from burdens which in reality make land an 
 honorary rather than a beneficial investment, and take it altogether 
 out of the circle of employment of the working capitals of the 
 country. These classes of proprietors would also be relieved by 
 land becoming a kind of property in which a mass of working 
 capital now forced into trade or manufacture, and ruining itself 
 and all around it, would be beneficially absorbed. Over-produc- 
 tion is undeniably the cause of the commercial and manufacturing 
 distress of the country; but what is the cause of the over-produc- 
 tion ? It is manifestly that the great mass of the property of the 
 country, the land, is shut up from any beneficial use or employ- 
 ment of it as property by the ordinary working capitals— all the 
 capitals, it may be said, under 15,000/,, which the owners must 
 lay out reproductively in order to live — and all this class of capitals 
 is forced into trade and manufacture beyond the demand or con- 
 sumpt of the world. This evil — which with the pressure upon 
 manufacturing labour by agricultural labour, arising from the 
 same cause as this pressure of all working capital upon trade and 
 manufactures— is the radical evil to be cured in our social econ- 
 omy ; and is only to be cured by abolishing the corn laws, and all 
 the burdens for which they are the compensation, and placing 
 landed property on the same footing as to burdens and privileges, 
 as property in the funds, or in commerce, or in cotton works, or 
 iron works. Land, as a property in the market competing with 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 295 
 
 commercial or manufacturing investment, and neither raised 
 above nor pressed below its just level by conventional causes, 
 would absorb the capitals which now are, from necessity not 
 choice, thrown all upon trading and manufacturing, and by over- 
 production spreading ruin and distress among masters and opera- 
 tives. This forced supply of capital into the one branch of pro- 
 ductive industry — manufacture and trade— will be remedied by a 
 preliminary equalization of all kinds of property, and a subsequent* 
 abolition of the corn laws. 
 
 Besides tliis adjustment of interests at home, which justice and 
 policy require before the corn laws are abolished, an adjustment 
 abroad is required in common prudence. The greater proportion 
 by far of our supplies of foreign grain comes from the Prussian 
 ports in the Baltic, Hamburgh, Bremen, and Holland, are but 
 entrepots for grain originally shipped from these ports. Odessa, 
 Archangel, St. Petersburg, and America send too inconsiderable 
 quantities to govern our markets and prices, independently of 
 the supplies from Dantzick and other Prussian ports. This ap- 
 pears from Mr. Jacob's report. Now without some adjustment 
 by treaty with Prussia previous to the abolition of the import duty 
 on corn, we would be merely paying our present bread tax into 
 the Prussian exchequer, instead of into our own. That would 
 be the only effect of the abolition of the corn laws. What we 
 took oft' in import duty, they would lay on in export duty. Why 
 should they not ? There is no effective competition from other 
 corn exporting countries sufficient to make the British market 
 for foreign grain independent of the supplies from the Prussian 
 ports, and those connected with Prussia in the German custom- 
 house league. We are paying the price now of the supine policy 
 of our former rulers and ministers in permitting the dismember- 
 ment of Poland, which should have been at this day an inde- 
 pendent country, exchanging its product — corn — for our product 
 — manufactured goods. We are reaping the truit of weak policy. 
 As matters stand, it was a sound measure proposed by the late 
 administration to impose a fixed duty of eight shillings per quar- 
 ter on wheat, and proportional duties on other grain, because if 
 we do not levy it as import duty, Prussia and the other export- 
 ing countries will levy it as export duty, and bread will not be 
 cheaper to the British consumer by the same amount of duty 
 going into the Prussian exchequer, instead of into the British, 
 
296 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 We are told, indeed, that this would be contrary to the interests 
 of the land-holders in Prussian Poland, and the districts which 
 supply Dantzick and the other Baltic ports with grain for expor- 
 tation, and therefore no such export duty would be imposed. 
 But this is the mere ipse dixit of political economists looking at 
 the Continent with English eyes. It is not for the people that 
 government exists in Prussia, but the people for the government. 
 It is the obvious policy of Prussia to keep down the prosperity 
 of the class of land-owners or nobility in her Polish province's. 
 They are the natural heads and leaders of the people, of a people 
 quite ready to revolt ; and to allow them to acquire wealth or 
 independence by a favourable corn trade would be a suicidal 
 measure. Besides the trading and manufacturing interests which 
 Prussia is anxious to raise would be materially promoted by a 
 remission of some taxes which the revenue of the state can only 
 afford by levying an export duty on grain. 
 
 The whole revenue of Prussia, according to the last statement, 
 viz., for 1838, is, net, 525681,000 thalers. 
 
 Thalers. 
 
 The land tax (Grundsteuer) produces ... - 9,847,000 
 
 The tax on trades (Gewerbsteuer) , an assessment on the estimated 
 
 income from trade ---..- 2,054,000 
 
 The tax on classes (Classensteuer) , a capitation tax according to 
 the rank or social class of persons not in trade and not subject 
 to the Gewerbsteuer ------ 6,502,000 
 
 The indirect taxes on goods imported or exported, on the con- 
 sumpt of home productions, on transport of goods, on shipping, 
 and land carriage by tolls, and the stamp duties - - 20,130,000 
 
 The monopoly of salt - - - - - - 5,620,000 
 
 The rest of the 52,681,000 thalers of revenue is made up from 
 rents of royal domains, from the post-office, lotteries, royal mines, 
 and manufactures carried on by government or let out to licensed 
 undertakers. Now from this schedule it appears, that land as 
 property pays less in proportion than other kinds "of property to- 
 ■\vards the state. T-he direct tax on land (Grundsteuer), 9,847,000 
 thalers, exceeds the direct taxes on personal property — the Ge- 
 werbsteuer and Classensteuer together — only by 1,300,000 tha- 
 lers. This is evidently not the proportion between the value of 
 the land in this country, in which as yet there is little capital, and 
 the value of other kinds of property ; and the latter are much 
 more heavily taxed in proportion than with us. It appears also 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 297 
 
 that poor rates, town rates, and such local burdens are not im- 
 posed, as in Eiigland, on land or houses alone, but also on all 
 other property — on trades, professions, or other sources of income, 
 by a Gewerbsteuer and Ciassensteuer. These taxes, whether 
 direct or indirect, on trade and industry, are adverse to the object 
 of Prussia to raise a manufacturing industrial interest; and if a 
 few millions of thalers could be raised by imposing an export 
 duty upon the bread corn of our labouring classes, the Prussian 
 government would be quite right in doing so. It would be able 
 to relieve its own subjects of some of the taxes which press most 
 heavily on their industry. The landed interest would have no 
 just cause to complain, being still taxed or rated less heavily than 
 other kinds of property ; and its markets would be no more 
 affected by the Prussian export duty than at present by the British 
 import duty. The price to the consumers — the British public — 
 would be the same. It is evident that such a free trade in corn 
 would not give us cheap bread. A discriminating duty on 
 corn, that is a nominal duty on grain coming to us with only a 
 nominal export duty upon it, and rising even to be prohibitive 
 on grain shipped under heavy export duties at the foreign port, 
 appears to be the nearest approach that can be made, without 
 previous treaties with foreign powers, to a perfectly free trade in 
 corn or timber. Free trade requires a free market to act in, that 
 is, a market with free effective competition. But it appears from 
 Mr. Jacob's report, that there is no effective competition from all 
 the corn exporting countries of the world put together, in the 
 British market wiih Dantzickand the other Baltic ports under the 
 dominion of Prussia. 
 
 The true free trade in corn is to be sought at home— in the 
 free production of it, in relieving the land and labour employed 
 in producing it from all unequal rates, taxes, and burdens, and 
 from all social or political privileges or preferences that prevent 
 working capitals from being invested in land. 
 
 The abolition of the import duty on corn is a measure pregnant 
 with unseen results. Many of the expected effects— such as that 
 of reducing the cost of bread— are not exactly within the power 
 of our own legislation, but require the concurrence of other go- 
 vernments to produce them; and a revolution in our whole social 
 economy inevitably attends it. Men in power may fairly be ex- 
 20 
 
298 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 cused (whether they be tories or liberals) for not making up their 
 minds so suddenly upon this great question, as those who see 
 none of the difficulties or consequences may desire. It is unjust 
 to blame the late or the present administration for hesitation, or 
 delay in legislating on this measure. It is by no means a simple 
 measure involving in its effect the price of the quartern loaf at 
 the baker's shop, and nothing more. 
 
CHAPTER Xlir. 
 
 NOTES ON THE RHINE — SWITZERLAND.— SWISS CHARACTER.— CHURCH 
 
 OF GENEVA.— SWISS SCENERY. 
 
 The Rhine is, no doubt, an historical river; but the political 
 economist reads history in its stream difierently from the scholar, 
 or the antiquarian. This river has been flowing these two thou- 
 sand years through the centre of European civilization — yet how 
 little industry or traffic upon its waters ! not one river barge in ten 
 miles of river ! Is not this the effect of faulty social economy, of 
 bad government, of restricted freedom among the twenty or thirty 
 millions of people dwelling in communication with this great 
 water-way? Is it not a bitter historical satire on the feudal in- 
 stitutions which have so long reigned on either side of this river? 
 In America, rivers not half a century old to any human know- 
 ledge are teeming with floating craft exchanging industry for 
 industry between rising cities, and communities of free self-go- 
 verning men. This ancient river Rhine flows stately and silently 
 through vast populations of feudally governed countries, and like 
 one of its own dignified old barons, caring little for industry, com- 
 merce, and civilization, but sweeping in lonely grandeur between 
 robber castles of former days, modern fortifications, decaying 
 towns, military and custom-house sentinels and functionaries, 
 and beneath vine-dotted hills, around which the labouring man 
 toils, and climbs, and lives as he did a thousand years ago, with- 
 out improvement, or advance of any importance in his social con- 
 dition. Is this the Rhine, the ancient Rhine, the Rhine that 
 boasts of commerce, literature, science, law, government, reli- 
 gion, having all sprung up in modern times upon its banks — 
 this river, with half a dozen steamers carrying idle lady and 
 gentlemen passengers up and down to view the scenery, and a 
 solitary barge here and there creeping along its sides? Truly 
 the American rivers, under the dcmocratical American govern- 
 
300 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 merits and social system, have shot ahead, in half a century, of 
 this European river under the aristocratical European govern- 
 ments and social system, although the European has had the 
 start of the American streams by fifteen hundred or two thousand 
 years. When Prince Metternich sits in his window-seat in his 
 castle of Johannisberg, reading in some book of travels about the 
 Ohio, or Mississippi, or Hudson, all teeming with the activity 
 and civilizing industry of free, unrestricted men, what may be his 
 thoughts vv^hen he lifts his eyes from the book, and looks down 
 upon the Rhine ? It is here that the American traveller may be 
 allowed to prose, at long, and at large, upon his favourite topic — 
 the superiority of American institutions and government. He 
 may begin his glorifications at Cologne, and end them at Basle, 
 without interruption. 
 
 The two small populations at the two extremities of the Rhine, 
 far apart from and unconnected with each other, and in all phy- 
 sical circumstances of country, soil, climate, means of subsistence, 
 and objects of industry, as distinct and different as two groups 
 of human beings well can be, are yet morally and nationally 
 very like to each other. The same spirit in the'ir social economy, 
 and a similar struggle to attain and preserve independence, and 
 free political arrangements in their countries, have produced a 
 striking similarity of character in the two populations. The Swjss 
 are the Dutchmen of the mountains. They are the same cold, 
 unimaginative, money-seeking, yet vigorous, determined, ener- 
 getic people as the Dutch of the mouths of the Rhine. In private 
 household life the same order and cleanliness, attention to small 
 things, plodding, persevering industry, and addiction to gain, pre- 
 dominate in the character of both, and as citizens, the same rever- 
 ence for law, and common sense, the same zeal for public good, 
 the same intense love of country, and, hidden under a phlegmatic 
 exterior, the same capability of great energy and sacrifices for it. 
 The Swiss, being less wealthy, but far more generally above 
 want and pauperism than the Dutch, retain, perhaps, more of the 
 virtues connected with patriotism ; and their two-and-twenty dis- 
 tinct governments, all more or less liberal in form, and the neces- 
 sity of watchfulness and energy in their united general govern- 
 ment, keep alive in every man a spirit of devotedness to his 
 country, which the traveller looks for in vain among the pea- 
 santry of the monarchical states which allow no free action or 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER, 301 
 
 participation in public interests to their subjects. The Swiss 
 cantons bicker and quarrel among themselves as the American 
 United States do ; but, like the dogs in a snow-traineau, they get 
 on together not the less rapidly for their barking and biting — and 
 a common object in view silences all differences. Some political 
 observers conceive that this republican bundle of two-and-twcnty 
 distinct states, different in laws, religion, and language, and placed 
 between three monarchies jealous of the prosperity, and especially 
 of the example of such free institutions, has but a very precarious 
 lease of existence, in its present independent federal constitution. 
 This is a mistaken view. The best and surest defence of a coun- 
 try consists in its power of aggression. Switzerland has emi- 
 nently this aggressive power — could throw a ball of fire from the 
 Alps into the plains of Italy, which would kindle a flame that 
 Austria or Sardinia could not quench; and with the south of 
 France in no cordial subjection to the reigning branch of the 
 Bourbon family, has a powerful moral aggressive force on that 
 side also. Her population, too, is ^ one of military habits, united 
 in sentiment for the independence of the country, accustomed to 
 the use of arms, and the country strong in its ruggedness for its 
 local defence by the inhabitants. Switzerland is in reality a 
 heavier power in the European balance than some of the little 
 kingdoms, such as Wurtemburg, Hanover, Denmark, Sweden, 
 which class themselves among the secondary powers, and look 
 upon the Swiss confederated states as of very inferior importance 
 to their own. 
 
 The Swiss appear to be a people very destitute of imagination, 
 and its influences — remarkably blind to the glorious scenery in 
 which they live. Rousseau, the only imaginative writer Switzer- 
 land has ever produced, observes, " that the people and their coun- 
 try do not seem made for each other." There is much truth in the 
 observation. Men of all nations excepting of the Swiss nation 
 itself, and of almost every station in life, are met with in Switzer- 
 land wandering from scene to scene, pilgrims paying homage at 
 every lake and mountain, to the magnificence of the scenery. 
 The Swiss himself is apparently without any feeling of this kind. 
 If it be possible to build out a fine view, or to put down a house 
 exactly where one with any eye or feeling for the beauty of situa- 
 tion or scenery would not place it, there the traveller may reckon 
 upon finding the mansion and olliccs of the wealthy class of the 
 
302 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Swiss, who could afford to indulge a taste, if they had it, for the 
 fine scenery of their land. The Swiss speculators in hotels, and 
 lodging houses for strangers, who are a numerous and respectable 
 class, are altogether puzzled at the unaccountable preferences the 
 strangers give to cottages on the lake side, to single houses, or inns 
 in the little villages, instead of their superb chateaus in the middle 
 of a market town, or built out from every prospect by magnificent 
 office houses. The Swiss, in truth, are altogether utilitarian. 
 Material interests are at the top, bottom, and middle of their minds. 
 They have not a spark of fancy in their moral composition, no de- 
 lusion of themselves, or others. Yet, without imagination, they 
 have great energy, great patriotism, and a strong sense of public 
 duty; and, with their military habits, these are more to be de- 
 pended upon for the stubborn defence of their country and its in- 
 stitutions, than a temporary volatile enthusiasm. This peculiar 
 spirit and character may be ascribed to the peculiar occupation of 
 a great portion of the Swiss people. They have for ages been the 
 hirelings of Europe, either in public or private service, as soldiers, 
 or as domestic servants. Pay has for ages been the only influ- 
 ence, in general and constant operation on the Swiss mind in every 
 class of society, and has weakened the efficiency of any higher 
 influences and feelings in aflairs, than self-interest. Point cP ar- 
 gent, point de Suisse, has extended from their military to all their 
 social relations. A great proportion of the young men of Switzer- 
 land have small farms, or houses with portions of land, and rights 
 to grazing in the Alps of their native parishes, to succeed to upon 
 the death of their parents ; but until that event in their social posi- 
 tion, they are supernumeraries at home, their labour not being 
 necessary for cultivating the paternal acres, and their subsistence 
 more, perhaps, than the land can afford. They have no colonies 
 to migrate to, no labour to turn to, except labour of skill which all 
 cannot learn, or live by, and no considerable manufacturing em- 
 ployment, except in two or three cantons, to absorb their numbers, 
 and they enlist, therefore, readily for a few years in Swiss regi- 
 ments in foreign service. France, after the restoration of the 
 Bourbons, had, if I mistake not, about 17,000 men of Swiss regi- 
 ments ; and the disgust of the French nation at the prefereiKie 
 shown to these mercenaries was a main cause of the expulsion of 
 Charles X. Naples has at present four regiments of these mer- 
 cenaries, Rome as many: and it is reckoned that from 8,000 to 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 303 
 
 10,000 Swiss are in foreign service at present, embodied generally 
 in Swiss regiments distinct from the native troops of the country. 
 They are the condottieri of the middle ages, serving for their pay, 
 and without any other principle, or attachment real or assumed, 
 or any pretext of higher motive for their service. In other ser- 
 vices, the rudest soldier, the most arrant scamp, the vagabond, the 
 deserter from other regiments, lays the flattering unction to his 
 soul, that destiny, folly, hard necessity, wildness of youth, love of 
 distinction, of country, of honour, something, in short, connected, 
 with principle or fate, has led him into the military service. But 
 these Swiss have no principle, real or imaginary, but pay. They 
 engage generally for terms of four or six years,and receive a bounty 
 of one Napoleon for each year they engage for. This bounty is 
 not paid to them in full upon enlistment, but a portion of it is 
 placed to their credit in their llvret, or book, which every private 
 has in foreign services, and is paid to them at the expiry of their 
 engagements, to enable them to return home from the port of Ge- 
 noa, to which those serving in Italy are sent free of expense if 
 they do not choose to re-engage for a new term of years. They 
 receive much higher pay than the native troops. A subaltern in 
 a Swiss regiment in the Neapolitan service told me his pay is better 
 than that of a captain in a Neapolitan regiment. The men receive 
 four gran and bread, and the elite, or old soldiers who have re- 
 enlisted, five gran per day, and their ration of eight ounces of meat 
 costs but three gran. They are consequently well off' as soldiers, 
 are always in good quarters, and under their own Swiss officers, 
 and both at Naples and Rome are undoubtedly fine, well appointed 
 troops. Scotland formerly furnished the same kind of condottieri 
 to Holland, Sweden, and France, but the advance of industry and 
 manufacVflre at home, the colonization of America, and the de- 
 mand of England for labour from the poorer country, extinguished 
 this kind of military service; nor was it in Scotland so devoid of 
 all connection with principle, so entirely mercenary, as the Swiss 
 enlistments of the present day. The Scotch peasant enlisted un- 
 der his clansman, or the son of his landlord, who from attachment 
 to the Stuart cause, or difference of religion, or from national pre- 
 judice, preferred foreign service to the Jkiiish, even with inferior 
 pay. The recruiting also for foreign service was unacknowledged 
 and private. But the Swiss government sanctions (his demoral- 
 izing system, allows the recruiting publicly, and with the same 
 
304 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 protection and regulation as for a national army ; and sells, for the 
 benefit of a few aristocratic families, principally of Bern, who 
 officer these mercenaries, the military services of her young men 
 to support the most arbitrary governments in Europe. The Pro- 
 testant republic of Bern furnishes one regiment entirely for the 
 service of the kingof Naples, and even in the Pope's body guards 
 there are Protestants from Bern and other Protestant cantons. 
 No government can set principle at defiance with impunity. These 
 men return to their little spots of land, devoid of religious habits, 
 or feelings, or attachment to any religious faith. This service 
 keeps up through the whole population of Switzerland, principles 
 and conduct adverse to religious character. The men who thus 
 enlist to pass their youth in the most vicious and bigoted cities in 
 Europe — Naples, and Rome — are not the refuse of their country, 
 but the sons of respectable peasants, who are to return to their 
 little heritages, and marry, and settle as fathers of families. If 
 the Swiss character be mercenary, and devoid of feeling for higher 
 influences or motives than pay, the taint comes from this source. 
 Yet it is surprising, and suggestive of very important reflections, 
 how an enlightened self-interest keenly appreciating its own pri- 
 vate advantage in the public good, keeps a people honest, sober, 
 industrious, highly patriotic, and in the active and regular dis- 
 charge of all private and public duties as men and citizens, with- 
 out the higher influences of religion. But so it is. The Swiss 
 people present to the political philosopher the unexpected and 
 most remarkable social phenomenon of a people eminently moral 
 in conduct, yet eminently irreligious ; at the head of the moral 
 state in Europe, not merely for absence of numerous or great 
 crimes, or of disregard of right, but for ready obedience to law, 
 for honesty, fidelity to their engagements, for fair de§.ling, so- 
 briety, industry, orderly conduct, for good government, useful 
 public institutions, general well-being, and comfort — yet at the 
 bottom of the scale for religious feelings, observances, or know- 
 ledge, especially in the Protestant cantons, in which prosperity, 
 well-being, and morality seem to be, as compared to the Catholic 
 cantons, in an inverse ratio to the influence of religion on the 
 people. Plow is this discordance between their religious and 
 their moial and material state to be reconciled ? It is so obvious, 
 that every traveller in Switzerland is struck with the great con- 
 trast in the well-being and material condition of the Protestant 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 305 
 
 and Catholic populations, and equally so with the difference in 
 the influence of religion over each. Tins influence is at its mini- 
 mum in Protestant, and at its maximum nearly in Catholic Switz- 
 erland ; and the prosperity and social well-being of the people 
 are exactly the reverse. How is this? Is it that the Swiss peo- 
 ple, at home and abroad, see the utility of moral conduct, the 
 utility of temperance, fidelity, self-restraint, honesty, obedience 
 to law, patriotism, and defence of their country : and of their 
 independent political establishments, see the advantages, the pay, 
 in short, of moral conduct and patriotism, in every shape and 
 way, and are, therefore, eminently moral and patriotic, yet nof 
 from religious principles or influences, but altogether from an 
 enlightened self-interest? It is a very remarkable social state, 
 similar, perhaps, to that of the ancient Romans, in which moral- 
 ity and social virtue were also sustained without the aid of reli- 
 gious influences. 
 
 I happened to be at Geneva one Sunday morning as the bells 
 were tolling to church. The very sounds which once called the 
 powerful minds of a Calvin, a Knox, a Zwingli, to religious exer- 
 cise and meditation, were now summoning the descendants of 
 their cotemporaries to the same house of prayer. There are few 
 Scotchmen whose hearts would not respond to such a call. I 
 hastened to the ancient cathedral, the church of Saint Peter, to 
 see the pulpit from which Calvin had preached, to sit possibly in 
 the very seat from which John Knox has listened, to hear the 
 pure doctrines of Christianity from the preachers who now stand 
 where once the great champions of the Reformation stood 5 to 
 mark, too, the order^ and observances of the Calvinistic service 
 here in its native church ; to revive, too, in my mind, Scotland 
 and the picturesque Sabbath days of Scotland in a foreign land. 
 But where is the stream of citizens' families in the street, so re- 
 markable a feature in every Scotch town when the bells are toll- 
 ing to church, family after family, all so decent and respectable in 
 their Sunday clothes, the fathers and mothers leading the younger 
 children, and all walking silently churchwards ? and where the 
 quiet, the repose, the stillness of the Sabbath morning, so remark- 
 able in every Scotch town and house? Geneva, the seat and 
 centre of Calvinism, the fountain-head from which the pure and 
 living waters of our Scottish Zion flow, the earthly source, the 
 pattern, the Rome of our Presbyterian doctrine and practice, has 
 
306 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 fallen lower from her own original doctrine and practice than 
 ever Rome fell, Rome has still superstition ; Geneva has not 
 even that semblance of religion. In the head church of the ori- 
 ginal seat of Calvinism, in a city of five-and-tvventy thousand 
 souls, at the only service on the Sabbath day — there being no 
 evening service — I sat down in a congregation of about two 
 hundred females, and three-and-twenty males, mostly elderly men 
 of a former generation, with scarcely a youth, or boy, or working 
 ma^n among them. A meager liturgy, or printed form of prayer, 
 a sermon, which, as far as religion was concerned, might have 
 figured the evening before at a meeting of some geological society, 
 as an "ingenuous essay" on the Mosaic chronology, a couple of 
 psalm tunes on the organ, and a waltz to go out with, were the 
 church service. In the afternoon the only service in towns or in 
 the country is reading a chapter of the Bible to the children, and 
 hearing them gabble over the Catechism in a way which shows 
 they have not a glimpse of the meaning. A pleasure tour in the 
 steam-boats, which are regularly advertised for a Sunday prome- 
 nade round the lake, a picknick dinner in the country, and over- 
 flowing congregations in the evening at the theatre, the equestrian 
 circus, the concert saloons, ball rooms, and coffee houses, are all 
 that distinguish Sunday from Monday in that city in which, three 
 centuries before, Calvin moved the senate and the people to com- 
 mit to the flames his own early friend Servetus, the discoverer of 
 the circulation of the blood, and one of the first philosophers of 
 that age, for presuming to differ in opinion and strength of argu- 
 ment from his own religious dogma. This is action and re-action 
 in religious spirit with a vengeance. In the village churches 
 along the Protestant side of the Lake of Geneva — spots upon this 
 earth specially intended, the traveller would say, to elevate the 
 mind of man to his Creator by the glories of the surrounding 
 scenery — the rattling of the billiard balls, the rumbling of the 
 skittle trough, the shout, the laugh, the distant shots of the rifle- 
 gun clubs, are heard above the psalm, the sermon, and the barren 
 forms of state prescribed prayer, during the one brief service on 
 Sundays, delivered to very scanty congregations, in fact, to a few 
 females and a dozen or two old men, in very populous parishes 
 supplied with able and zealous ministers. 
 
 What may be the causes of this remarkable difference in the 
 working of Calvinism in Switzerland and Scotland? The 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 307 
 
 churches of Geneva and Scotland set out together on their Chris- 
 tian pilgrimage, in the days of Calvin and Knox, with the same 
 profession of faith, the same doctrines, and the same forms in 
 congregational worship. We, the vulgar of the kirk of Scotland, 
 have at least always been taught to consider the church of Geneva 
 as the mother-church of our Presbyterian faith, and established 
 church usages— the njodel by which both our doctrines and prac- 
 tices were framed and adjusted into their present shape. How 
 widely the two have wandered from each other ! The member 
 of the Scotch kirk comes out of the church of Geneva inquiring if 
 it be a Calvinistic or Lutheran service he has been attending — the 
 liturgy, or printed prescribed form of prayer, is there, the organ 
 is there, and the sermon is a neat little moral essay that might do 
 for either, or for any congregation. Scotland is at this day the 
 most religious Protestant country in Europe ; and in no country 
 in Europe, Protestant or Catholic, is the church attendance worse, 
 the regard for the ordinary observances of religious worship less, 
 the religious indifference — not entitled to be called infidelity, not 
 so respectable as infidelity, because not arising from any reason- 
 ing or thinking, wrong or right, about religion — greater than in 
 Protestant Switzerland, in the district of our Calvinistic mother- 
 church in and about Geneva. Whence is this remarkable differ- 
 ence ? The starting point of the human mind was the same in 
 both countries, at the same period, and under the same leaders, 
 Calvin and Knox ; and the present divergence of the human mind 
 in its religious direction in Switzerland and Scotland is as striking 
 as was the original coincidence. 
 
 The only obvious cause of this divergence is, that the state and 
 church in Switzerland have from the first engrafted on Calvinism 
 a bastard Lutheranism. It is characteristic of Calvinism as re- 
 ceived in Scotland, that it is the only branch of Christianity which 
 flourishes independently of all church establishments, state assist- 
 ance, or government arrangements, and requires no union of 
 church and state. Spiritual, and unconnected with forms, it is 
 injured by government interference and regulation. In Scotland 
 itself religion is more nourishing in the Secession than in the 
 Established Church, simply because the former is a voluntary, 
 the latter a state church. The doctrine and church observances 
 and education of the ministers are the same in both. The state 
 has— and Calvin himself in conjunction with the state, to prevent 
 
308 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 probably the excitement of the public mind by the extemporary 
 prayers of fanatic preachers adapting their effusions to the pass- 
 ing feelings of their congregations, or to keep them exclusively 
 Calvinists, and out of the hearing, as far as possible, of other 
 impressions — prescribed a set form of printed prayer, a liturgy, in 
 settling the church discipline and usages of the church of Geneva. 
 The Scotch Calvinistic church, about sixty years after the Reform- 
 ation, repudiated such interference, even from the church power, 
 with individual freedom of thought and expression in prayer, as 
 being contrary to the genuine spirit of Calvinism. The Scotch 
 were more Calvinistic than Calvin himself. Time has proved that 
 the Scotch kirk was right. In Switzerland, in attempting to guard 
 the people by prescribed forms against the diseases of fanaticism 
 and erroneous doctrine, the state and Calvinistic church have 
 inoculated the people with the worse disease of indifference. It 
 is the same experiment for the same object, and with the same 
 results, which Prussia is trying in our times with the Protestant 
 religion in Germany — to make it a subservient machine to state 
 or church policy, to hold the minds of men enslaved to a civil or 
 clerical' system of government by religious ties. 
 
 The Lutheran and Church of England clergy, it may be said, 
 are also confined to prescribed printed forms of prayer — true ; 
 but in the old Lutheran and Anglican churches these forms of 
 ceremonial prayer — selected, translated, and improved from the 
 more ancient popish service — are, as in the Roman Catholic 
 church, the sum and substance of the religious service. The 
 sermon is only an adjunct of secondary importance in the service 
 of the day. But in the Calvinistic church, as we conceive of it 
 in Scotland, the substance of the service is in the sermon ; and 
 the best sermon loses half its effect, the best preacher half his 
 power, if applicable, appropriate prayer, composed under the 
 same impressions and feelings as the discourse, be superseded by 
 set forms issued by the state, and which in Switzerland, not hav- 
 ing the venerated antiquity, the admirable eloquence, and the 
 application to every condition and every mind, of the fine ancient 
 liturgy of the English church, not being interwoven with the very 
 existence of the church, as in the old Lutheranisra, are listened to 
 rather as proclamations to heaven of the church and state, than 
 as prayers. The influence of the preacher is impaired. He stands 
 in the pulpit in a false position as a free Calvinistic minister, with 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 309 
 
 this dead weight of a leaden, meager Hturgy round his neck. He 
 is not in the position of the Church of England or old Lutheran 
 clergyman, who in the delivery of his prescribed liturgy is per- 
 forming the most important part of his pastoral duty, and one 
 consistent, not discordant, with the principle and spirit of his partly 
 ceremonial church, in which the pastor's individual labour as a 
 preacher is but secondary and subsidiary. This false position in 
 their own pulpits necessarily lowers the moral and religious tone 
 and energy of the clerical character in the Swiss clergy. Their 
 liturgy, too, is in itself a meager, nnimpressive composition. They 
 attempt to remedy their false position in the pulpit, by introducing 
 occasional prayer in the middle and as part of the sermon itself. 
 This smuggled prayer is, in itself, of very impressive effect in 
 pulpit oratory. It is rarely used by our Scotch preachers; but 
 here it is so common, that the peasants, who sit with their hats on 
 during the sermon, are on the watch when the preacher is sliding, 
 from addressing them, into prayer, to take off" their hats until he 
 returns to the thread of his discourse. This practice shows, I 
 conceive, that ministers feel themselves in a false and inconsistent 
 position, in being only allowed to exercise half their duty — that 
 of addressing their congregations — not the more important half — 
 that of addressing their Creator in prayer — according to their own 
 feelings, impressions, and powers. This position also gives the 
 pastor too much the character with the people of a functionary of 
 the state and church, who has his routine duty to do, and is paid 
 for doing it like other functionaries. The routine duty of reading 
 their short meager liturgy is too brief to be a regular impressive 
 church service, and yet it prevents any other mode of prayer. 
 
 The usual form of church duty in the Calvinistic parishes is 
 this: The minister first reads a short prayer, the people standing; 
 tlieii gives out two verses of a psalm, which are well performed, 
 there being an organ generally even in country churches, and all 
 the psalm-books having the notes of the music printed with the 
 psalms— and the common people understand music enough to use 
 the notes. The text is read while the people are still standing, and 
 they then sit down, and old men and peasants generally put on 
 their hats while the minister delivers his sermon. The sermons 
 are always read from papers ; but some of the young clergy use 
 the papers very little, and seem to have them merely as notes to 
 refresh the memory. The printed forms of prayer are then read. 
 
310 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 They have at least the mqrit of being very short. None of the 
 congregation have them in their hands. They are not used hke 
 the EngUsh prayer-book, by the congregation as well as by the 
 minister, but only by the minister. A couple of verses of a psalm 
 concludes the service, which, with a brisk tune on the organ — 
 the fashionable opera air of the day — to go out of church with, 
 occupies about three-quarters of an hour. This is all the church 
 service on Sundays. The afternoon service is a meeting of the 
 children, who after a prayer (a printed form) and a psalm without 
 the organ, are examined in the Catechism. Baptisms, churchings, 
 and such duties, are performed ; but there is no sermon and no 
 congregation, either in town or country in the afternoon, unless it 
 be on some special occasion, such as a charity sermon. 
 
 This supine state of the Protestant church in Switzerland is 
 owing greatly to the effects, indirect and direct, of the last war. 
 The indirect effects were those on the minds of the people bred 
 up in the very centre of military movement, amidst excitement, 
 bustle, and employments which left little time or inclination for 
 any religious education. The grown generation, and perhaps 
 their progeny, show that little value had been put upon religious 
 observances, habits or instruction, in the days of their youth. 
 The direct effects were, that during the war, youth of talent 
 and good education found in other professions a more congenial 
 and better recompensed career than in the church. It was aban- 
 doned to those who had no ambition or talent for any other pro- 
 fession 5 and the standard both of learning and abilities in the 
 clerical profession fell during the war below the standard of other 
 professions. It is not to be denied that something of the same 
 kind took place in Scotland, also, during the last war. The 
 church did not obtain her fair proportion of the high-minded, 
 high-gifted, and high-educated youth of the country, to fill her 
 ranks; and she is now under the paroxysm of a strong re-action, is 
 filled with ambition, and an active spirit too great for the narrow 
 circle of her social influence in a country of widely spread dissent, 
 of habits of independent thinking, and of general education and 
 intellectual culture not inferior to the standard of the clergy them- 
 selves. The agitation of late in the Scotch church is perhaps 
 owing to this false position of the clergy with the people. The 
 moral influence of great superiority of education, and of acquire- 
 ments unattainable by the multitude, is wanting to the Scotch 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 311 
 
 churchman from the low standard of education which country 
 presbyteries required in Ucensing preachers. As a sacred class 
 of men, the Calvinist admits no superiority or influence to the 
 licensed or ordained clerical preacher, more than to any lay or 
 other preacher, either in the theory or practice of reUgion, It is 
 to the gifts, talents, intellectual acquirements, not to the empty 
 ordination ceremony, or clerical function, that social influence is 
 given. But the established clergy in Scotland have no superiority 
 in these over the clergy of the Secession, and neither have any 
 over the youth of the middle classes who study for the lower 
 branches of the legal or medical professions, or for filling up their 
 leisure hours in commercial, manufacturing, or other ordinary 
 vocations of life. They are not fenced in, as in the English 
 church, by expensive forms of education dividing the clerical 
 class from other men however well educated ; nor by essential 
 forms, as in the same ceremonial church of England, which none 
 but the regularly ordained clergyman can legally, or, in public 
 opinion, perform in a religious sense ; nor, as in England, by the 
 ignorance of the rest of society, from whose want of education 
 the clergyman, however poorly educated himself, derives a certain 
 social influence. They have in Scotland neither more knowledge, 
 nor of a higher kind, than the people they have to instruct. They 
 have no status in public opinion simply from being ordained, and 
 unfortunately are struggling for influence and power as a clerical 
 body co-ordinate with the civil power in the state, without laying 
 the foundation — superiority of attainments and education— on 
 which alone clerical power or social influence can rest in an edu- 
 cated country. 
 
 The young men of the Swiss church stand higher, compared 
 to the people, in education, than, those of the Scotch. They are 
 elected by the people from a lect sent from government. The leet 
 is made up by the consistory from the roll of licensed candidates, 
 according to their standing or seniority. The candidates are first 
 suflragans or assistants to parish ministers. They are all paid by 
 the state, and are, undoubtedly, in the present generation, well- 
 educated, pious men. A reaction has taken place in the Swiss as 
 in the Scotch church, and in both the young clergy, not the old, 
 lead the movement. But in Switzerland the movement seems 
 confined to a very small circle, chiefly of females, around the pas- 
 tor. The men appear not to enter into that circle. The taint in 
 
312 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the flock is too deeply seated in the constitution of the Swiss church, 
 and in the social state of the people, to be cured by their clergy in' 
 one generation. 
 
 The late insurrection in the canton of Zurich, in 1839, in which 
 the peasantry, headed by some of the clergy, overturned, not 
 without bloodshed, the local government, for having appointed 
 £)r. Strauss to the chair of theology, may appear altogether at 
 variance with this low estimate of the Swiss religious character. 
 , I Was in Switzerland at the time ; and from all I could learn, I 
 considered it political, not religious, and confirming the opinion 
 of the low religious state of the country. Dr. David Frederic 
 Strauss pubhshed, in 1835, his Life of Jesus — Das Leben Jesu* 
 — avowedly with the object of overturning all belief in those 
 events of or connected with our Saviour's history, which cannot 
 be reconciled to, or explained by, the ordinary course of natural 
 operation. He brings to this attack upon Christianity and the 
 miracles not the wit, ingenuity, or philosophy of a Voltaire, a 
 Hume, or a Gibbon, but a mass of learning and biblical criticism, 
 which, his admirers say, the church is unable to match. The 
 weight of profound scholarship and philosophical criticism is, it 
 seems, all on the side of infidelity ; and the most able and leanied 
 of the German theologians— no superficial scholars in biblical lore 
 — have, it appears, been worsted in the opinion of the learned by 
 this Goliath. In the wantonness of power the authorities of 
 
 * Dr. Strauss's Leben Jesu was admitted into Prussia by the college of 
 censorship, in consequence of a minute of Professor Neander, one of the 
 censors, and one of the most eminent divines in Prussia, which stated, "that 
 if the - interpretation of the original history of Christianity laid down in Dr. 
 Strauss's work were to be generally received, Christianity, as at present un- 
 derstood, would certainly be at an end. The work, however, is written with 
 such philosophical earnestness and science, that a prohibition of it by the 
 state would be unsuitable, because it can only be overcome in the fields of 
 learning and philosophic science; and it is moreover, a work which can 
 scarcely penetrate beyond the circle of the learned. Such a character of Dr. 
 Strauss's work, from a scholar and divine of such eminence in biblical litera- 
 ture, places it beyond the contempt of ordinary theologians, who may affect 
 to sneer at what they cannot even read. Why do not our young clergy with- 
 draw from their political economy, and their non-intrusion or intrusion politics, 
 and refute the errors in philosophical criticism and in biblical learning of his 
 antagonist, who, at the age of five-and-twenty, or thirty, has thrown down the 
 gauntlet to the divines of Europe 1 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 313 
 
 Zurich chose to call Dr. Strauss to tho vacant theological chair in 
 their university— to appoint a learned man who denies and con- 
 troverts the very facts and foundations of all Christianity, to teach 
 theology to those who are to instruct the people in the Christian 
 faith. This attempt on the part of a government shows suffi- 
 ciently the state of religion in the country. It was defeated, 
 not from any new-born religious zeal of the people, but because 
 the misgovernment and perversion of the powers entrusted by 
 the community to their rulers, in this absurd appointment, were 
 apparent ; and the ministers found no want of followers, from 
 the roused common sense of the people, even among those who 
 perhaps bad not crossed the church door for six months, to go to 
 Zurich and displace magistrates who had abused their delegated 
 powers so obviously. So little of religious zeal entered into this 
 movement, that Dr. Strauss, as he had received the appointment, 
 was allowed the retiring pension of a professor. The people ap- 
 pointed new members without changing the forms of their govern- 
 ment, retired to their mountains and valleys, and this revival was 
 at an end. The present commotions in Argau, also, appear to be 
 entirely a struggle between Protestants and Catholics for property 
 and political power. 
 
 The snowy peak, the waterfall, the glacier, are but the won- 
 ders of Switzerland; her beauty is in her lakes — the blue eyes 
 of this Alpine land. The most beautiful passage of scenery in 
 Switzerland is, to my mind, the upper end of the Lake of Geneva, 
 from Vevay, or from Lauzanne to Villeneuf. Scenery more 
 sublime may be found on the lakes of Lucerne, Zug, IJrientz ; 
 but in the pure, unmixed sublime of natural scenery, there is a 
 gloom, essential perhaps to it, which cannot lon^ be sustained 
 without a weariness of mind. Here the gay expanse of wafer 
 is enlivening ; and the water here is in due proportion to the 
 landward part of the scenery — not too little, nor too much, for 
 the mountains. The climate, too, under the shelter of the high 
 land, the vegetations of various climes upon the hill-side before 
 the eye at once, have a charm for the mind. The margin of the 
 lake is carved out, and built up into terrace above terrace of 
 vineyards and Indian corn plots ; behind this narrow belt, grain 
 crops, orchards, grass fields, and chestnut-trees have their zone ; 
 higlier still upon the hill-side, pasture grass and forest-trees oc- 
 cupy the ground; above rises a dense mass of pine forest, broken 
 21 
 
314 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 by peaks of bare rock shooting up, weather-worn and white, 
 through this dark green mantle ; and last of all, the eternal snow 
 piled high up against the deep blue sky— and all this glory of 
 nature, this varied majesty of mountain-land, within one eye- 
 glance ! It is not surprising that this water of Geneva has seen 
 upon its banks the most powerful minds of each succeeding 
 generation. Calvin, Knox, Voltaire, Gibbon, Rousseau, Madame 
 de Stael, Lord Byron, John Kemble, have, with all their essential 
 diversities and degrees of intellectual powers, been united here 
 in one common feeling of the magnificence of the scenery 
 around it. This land of alp and lake is indeed a mountain- 
 temple reared for the human mind on the dull unvaried plains 
 of Europe, to which men of every country resort from an irre- 
 sistible impulse to feel intensely, at least once in their lives, the 
 majesty of nature. The purest of intellectual enjoyments that 
 the material world can give is being alone in the midst of this 
 scenery. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NOTES ON SWITZERLAND.— MONTREUX.— CHECKS ON OVER-POPULA- 
 TION—SWISS DAIRY.— AGRICULTURAL.— SOCIAL CONDITION. 
 
 It is of iFie people of the countries I visit, not of the scenery, — 
 of poUtical and social economy, not of rocks and wilds, forests and 
 floods, that I would speak, even in Switzerland. During two 
 successive summers of late years, I fixed myself in the parish of 
 Montreux, on the side of the Lake of Geneva, not far from the 
 castle of Chilon. The locality is celebrated in every note-book, 
 delineated in every sketch-book of every sentimental tourist from 
 the days of our grandmothers — for before Byron sung, and when 
 Chilon was nothing more than it now is — an old French-like 
 chateau, very suitable for its present use— a military magazine — 
 the locality was the region of sentimentality and hot-house feel- 
 ing ; for here Rousseau had placed his Julie, and St. Preux ; and 
 Clarens, and Meillarie, and all that is real or unreal in the Heloise 
 — are here or hereabout. But the locality has its own claims on 
 the political economist as well as on the romantic tourist. We, 
 the inhabitants of the parish of Montreux, are of unspeakable in- 
 terest in the speculations of the enlightened prosers on political 
 economy in the winter evening re-unions of Geneva and Lausanne. 
 They demonstrate, from our sage example, to a simpering circle 
 of wives and daughters-in-law, the wisdom, duty, possibility, and 
 utility of keeping the numbers of a community, be it a nation, 
 parish, or family, in due Malthusian ratio to the means of living. 
 We of this parish have the honour of being cited in print to all 
 Europe— besides the cities of Geneva and Lausanne— as an edi- 
 fying example of sagesse on the great scale, as a perfect and re- 
 markable instance of the application of moral restraint by a whole 
 population upon their own over-multiplication. It appears from 
 the register of this our parish of Montreux that the proportion of 
 births to the population is 1 to 4G, while in the rest of Switzerland 
 
316 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 it is reckoned 1 to 27 or 28 inhabitants. In England ihe propor- 
 tion is 1 in 28 ; in France, 1 in 32 or 33 ; in Prussia, 1 in 25 ; in 
 Bohemia, 1 in 24 ; in the old Venetian states, 1 in 22 ; in Russia, 
 1 in 18 or 19. This remarkably small proportion of births to the 
 population in our parish is ascribed to the late period of life to 
 which the peasants put off their marriages. 
 
 Sir Francis d'lvernois published in 1837 a pamphlet" Enquete 
 sur les Causes patentes ou occultes de la faible Proportion des 
 Naissances a Montreux," in which, with some ill-supported con- 
 clusions, he makes many valuable observations. The strength 
 of nations, their wealth as regards population, depends, he justly 
 observes, not on the number of births, but of persons born who 
 attain a useful age. The true and valuable increase of the popu- 
 lation of a country depends, in short, upon the principle of making 
 as many men as possible out of as few children as possible. If 
 one-half of the children born die before they attain a useful age, 
 the rearing them has been a national loss, not a national gain. 
 The population of eifective people in Russia, with 1 birth to 
 every 18 or 19 persons, may not be advancing so rapidly as that 
 of France with 1 birth only to 33 persons. The observation is 
 applicable to the supposed rapid increase of the population of the 
 United States ; more die before reaching the age of utility, and 
 the rearing them is a loss, in reality, to the country by the time, 
 labour, and expense of their food and rearing, if they die before 
 that age. In. this parish, in which 1 birth is the average to 46 
 people, 1 death is the mortality to 75. In Switzerland, in general, 
 1 in 42 is reckoned the average mortality. In the canton Thur- 
 govia, in eighteen years before 1824, the births were 1 in 27, and 
 the deaths 1 in 31 ; so that in reality its population was increasing 
 in a slower ratio than that of this parish with its births 1 in 46, 
 and its deaths 1 in 75. There, one-half of the infants die before 
 their fifth year. Here, nineteen out of twenty reach the first year 
 of life, and very nearly four-fifths of those whom the present 
 venerable minister has baptized have lived to receive the sacra- 
 ment from his hands. This diminished mortality Sir Francis as- 
 cribes to the postponement of the age of marriage, by which a 
 healthier child is produced than in precocious marriages, and the 
 child is better nursed. The postponement of the marriages to a 
 later age, and also the fewer births in families, Sir Francis ascribes 
 to a moral restraint acted upon by the population of this parish, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 317 
 
 both before marriage, and also after they have entered into the 
 marriage state— a restraint, it seems, which their untutored good 
 sense leads them to exert, and entirely conformable to the moral 
 restraint inculcated by Malthus and Dr. Chalmers, This moral 
 restraint, as an effective check upon the tendency to over-multi- 
 plication, is, in reality, mere delusion. Moral restraint is an ex- 
 pression ill-defined. The propagation of the species by marriage 
 is not immoral in itself. It may be imprudent for a man to marry, 
 and have a family of children whom he cannot support ; but it is 
 confounding the landmarks of morality and prudence to say that 
 marriage is moral in Canada, and immoral in Kent ; or should be 
 placed under moral restraint when a man's banker's book, or his 
 employer's tally book is against him, but is a moral and laud- 
 able transaction if the balance be on the right side of the page. 
 It is a delusion, or even worse in character than mere delusion, 
 to conjure up false feelings of moral restraint, and erect a false 
 moral standard in the human mind against acts which, however 
 imprudent, are not immoral, and in all times, and under all cir- 
 cumstances, unchangeably immoral. The immorality which it 
 is proposed by these political economists to put under moral re- 
 straint, is the imprudence of marrying without means to maintain 
 a family. This imprudence is founded upon the poverty of the 
 parties. This poverty again is founded upon what ? Upon their 
 moral delinquency ? No, but upon the state to which they were 
 born ; but this is no moral guilt — it is the effect of an evil con- 
 struction of society, of a wrong distribution of property in it, by 
 which a numerous class succeed to no property whatsoever. It 
 is rather too much for our political economists to enlist moral re- 
 straint into the defence of the fictitious feudal construction of 
 society. This parish of Montreux proves the very reverse of the 
 conclusions of Sir Francis d'lvernois, as to the use of this false 
 moral restraint on improvident marriage. It shows that econo- 
 mical restraint is sufficient. Our parish is divided into three com- 
 munes or administrations. In that in which I am lodged, Vey- 
 taux, there is not a single pauper, although there is an accumu- 
 lated poor fund, and the village thinks itself sufficiently important 
 to Iiave its post office, its fire engine, its watchman; and it has a 
 landward population around. The reason is obvious without 
 having recourse to any occult moral restraint, or any tradition of 
 the evils of over-j)opulation from the fate of the ancient Helve- 
 
318 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 tians, as Sir Francis absurdly supposes possible, whose emigration 
 from over-population Julius Caesar repressed with the sword. 
 The parish is one of the best cultivated and most productive vine- 
 yards in Europe; and is divided in very small portions among a 
 great body of small proprietors. What is too high up the hill for 
 vines is in orchard, hay, and pasture land. There is no manufac- 
 ture, and no chance work going on in the parish. These small 
 proprietors, with their sons and daughters, work on their own 
 land, know exactly what it produces, what it costs them to live, 
 and whether the land can support two families or not. Their 
 standard of living is high, as they are proprietors. They are well 
 lodged, their houses well furnished, and they live well, although 
 they are working men. I lived with one of them two summers 
 successively. This class of the inhabitants would no more think 
 of marrying without means to live in a decent way, than any 
 gentleman's sons or daughters in England ; and indeed less, be- 
 cause there is no variety of means of living, as in England. It 
 must be altogether out of the land. The class below them, again, 
 the mere labourers, or village tradesmen, are under a similar eco- 
 nomical restraint, which it is an abuse of words and principles to 
 call moral restraint. The quantity of work which each of the 
 small proprietors must hire is a known and filled up demand, not 
 very variable. There is no corn farming, little or no horse work, 
 and the number of labourers and tradesmen who can live by the 
 work and custom of the other class, is as fixed and known as the 
 means of living of the land-owners themselves. There is no 
 chance living— no room for an additional house, even for this 
 class, because the land is too valuable, and too minutely divided, 
 to be planted with a labourer's house, if his labour be not neces- 
 sary. All that is wanted is supplied ; and until a vacancy natu- 
 rally opens, in which a labourer and his wife could find work and 
 house room, he cannot marry. The economical restraint is thus 
 quite as strong among the labourers as among the class of pro- 
 prietors. Their standard of living, also, is necessarily raised by 
 living and working all day along with a higher class. They are 
 clad as well, females and males, as the peasant proprietors. The 
 costume of the canton is used by all. This very parish might be 
 cited as an instance of the restraining powers of property, and of 
 the habits, tastes, and standard of living which attend a wide 
 diffusion of property among a people, on their own over-multipli- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 319 
 
 cation. It is a proof tiiat a division of property by a law of suc- 
 cession difterent in principle from the feudal, is the true check 
 upon over-population. 
 
 The speculations of political economists on this subject are, 
 with us, confined to philosophical discussion ; but on the Conti- 
 nent—in Swhzerland and in Germany — they have been adopted 
 as a basis of practical and altogether monstrous legislation. 
 The Thurgovians, taking the alarm at the facts, that in 18 years 
 preceding 1824, the proportion of births among them had been 1 
 in 27 of the people, and of deaths 1 in 31, and that in another 
 canton, that of Tecino, of 77,000 people 2,932 were new-born, a 
 vast proportion of whom died within the first year, proposed — 
 that is, the administrators of their poor rates proposed — to their 
 legislative body, that the marriages of the poor who were unable 
 to pay the quota to the poor tax should be prohibited. The first 
 article of their proposed law prohibits the marriage of males who 
 live by public charity : the second requires that to obtain permis- 
 sion to marry, a certificate from the overseers of the poor must be 
 produced of the industry, and love of labour, and of the good 
 conduct of the parties, and that, besides clothes, they are worth 
 700 francs French, or about 30/. sterling. The third article of this 
 extraordinary law in a free state makes the marriage admissible 
 without the proof of this 700 francs of value in movable pro- 
 perty, if the parties have furniture free of debt, and pay the poor 
 tax of 1 per mille upon fixed property. Their legislative body 
 had sense enough to reject this absurd proposition in 1833. The 
 canton of St. Gall, however, actually has imposed a tax on mar- 
 riages ; and to make it popular, the amount goes to the poor fund. 
 It fails, because, according to Sir Francis d'lvernois, it is too low, 
 being 46 francs, about 71 francs French, or about 3/. sterling ; and 
 because it is not graduated according to the ages of the parties, 
 so as to prevent early marriages. But he thinks the principle 
 excellent, as both Ricardo and Say, it seems, recommend the post- 
 ponement of the marriageable age of the poor as an object of 
 legislative enactment, — but not of the rich. Professor Weinhold, 
 who proposed, in 1836, the infibulation of both sexes in Prussia to 
 prevent the increase of population, was a sage and wise legislator 
 compared to these great political economists, for his operation 
 would have been at least equal for all classes ; and not a law 
 affecting one class only. In (jermany, commissaries have actu- 
 
320 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ally been appointed by some governments (Bavaria among others) 
 who are invested with the power to refuse permission to marry 
 to those whom they judge not able to support a family. They 
 have a veto on marriages. All this monstrous, and demorali- 
 zing, and tyrannical interference with the most sacred of those 
 private rights for which man enters into social union with man, 
 is the consequence of the absurd speculations of our English po- 
 litical economists and their foreign proselytes, who see clearly 
 enough the evil, but who do not see, or are afraid to state, that the 
 remedy is not in a false code of morality, imposing moral restraint 
 upon an act not immoral, — the marriage of the sexes ; nor in a 
 false code of laws for preventing the most powerful stimulus of 
 nature ; but in raising the civilization, habits, mode of living, and 
 prudence of the lower classes of the community by a wider diffu- 
 sion of property among them, by an inoculation of the whole 
 mass of society with the restraints which property carries with it 
 upon imprudence and want of forethouglit in human action. The 
 object of the laws which these political economists propose to 
 themselves is the postponement of marriages among the lowest 
 class to 26 or 30 years of age, when it is assumed healthier chil- 
 dren will be procreated. Of 214 marriages in this parish, the 
 average age of the males was found to be 30, and of the females 
 26y\ years. But it is by no means an ascertained fact in physics, 
 that the progeny of parents advanced far beyond puberty are more 
 healthy than of parents who have just reached the age of puberty. 
 Our breeders of cattle, sheep, horses, and dogs of valuable races, 
 seem, on the contrary, to find improvement instead of deteriora- 
 tion from putting them together at earlier ages than formerly. 
 Our nobility and gentry in England marry at much earlier ages 
 than our lower classes : and they are certainly finer animals than 
 these or almost any other of the human species. Other causes 
 than the age of the parents form the constitution of animals ; and to 
 legislate upon a fact so imperfectly ascertained is sufficiently ab- 
 surd. The ages of 30 and 26 years are probably the average of 
 the greater proportion of marriages among our own lower and 
 middle classes at present in Britain. On the Continent, most of 
 the civil codes fix the age of puberty for females at 16, and for 
 males at 18 years, and probably marriages do take place at >an ear- 
 lier age abroad than with us. Sir Francis d'lvernois states that at 
 Prselognan, in the States of Sardinia, in which a premium and 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 321 
 
 even a pension is paid to fathers of families who have above 12 
 children, upon the old exploded idea that the numbers of the 
 population form the strength of the state, the young men had 
 voluntarily entered into a secret association, binding themselves 
 not to marry before 2S years of age, in consequence of the misery 
 they saw produced in their valley by over-population. They 
 show intelligence in thisresohition ; but no such association would 
 be necessary in any community in which property was attainable 
 by industry ; for in few situations can or does the labouring man, 
 if he is in the way of earning anything by his labour, think of 
 marrying at an earher age than 28 or 30. It is only in Ireland, 
 or in Sardinia, that the peasant sees no prospect of being better 
 off at 2S or 30 years of age than at 18 ; and therefore very natu- 
 rally and very properly marries at 18, or very early in life, so as 
 to have a prospect of children grown up before he is past the age 
 to work for them ; and who will be able to work for themselves, 
 and perhaps for him when he is worn out. It is also by no means 
 an ascertained fact, that a woman marrying at 26 and a man at 
 30 years of age will not have as large a family, as marrying at 
 18 and 20 years of age ; and it is clear that their children will 
 not be so soon ready to help them. In Russia, the Emperor Nico- 
 las fixed by an ukase, in 1830, the marriageable ages at IG for 
 females, and 18 for men ; but this is stated by Sir Francis to arise 
 from a circumstance which will scarcely be credited in civilized 
 coimtries. The value of estates in Russia is reckoned according 
 to the number of serfs; and the landed proprietors raise or force 
 a population on their estates. And how ? As the male does not 
 arrive at puberty so early as the female in the human species, the 
 infant husband's marriage bed is filled by his father, until he comes 
 to puberty ! — So says Sir Francis. But this barbarous practice 
 for augmenting the number of serfs upon an estate is scarcely 
 credible ; and can scarcely be general, if it ever did exist. It is 
 more reasonable to suppose, that marriages below the ages fixed 
 by the ukase took place to avoid the military service, as fathers 
 of families would of course not be so liable to conscription as 
 unmarried men ; and therefore the military age must be attained 
 before a man can legally marry. 
 
 Political economists have unfortunately used in their specula- 
 tions the ambiguous term of moral restraint. Malthus evidently 
 used it originally, as contra-distinctive merely to the tcims legal 
 
322 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 restraint or physical restraint; but not as restraint founded on 
 moral principle, on the moral innate sense of right or wrong. 
 Prudential restraint, or economical restraint, would, perhaps, have 
 expressed his meaning less ambiguously. But his followers, and. 
 perhaps he himself in some passages, lost sight of the original 
 meaning, and followed the ambiguity in the meaning of moral, 
 so as to set up a new moral delinquency repugnant to the innate 
 sentiments of right and wrong in the human breast. Men heard 
 with indignation marriage, however imprudent and reckless, 
 classed with fornication, or theft, as a moral delinquency ; and 
 the morality or immorality of human action seriously stated even 
 by divines, by Malthus and Dr. Chalmers, to depend upon pru- 
 dential considerations. The rough untutored common sense of 
 all men of the lower class rejected this new code of morality ; and 
 the socialists and radicals with reason crow over the ecclesiastics 
 in this argument. They ask for what purpose is this new-fash- 
 ioned moral obligation in the most important of the actions of 
 man, his marriage, to be inculcated ? Is it to support any natural 
 and necessary system of society ? No. But to support an artifi- 
 cial feudal division of property originating in the darkest and 
 most barbarous ages, by which one son alone succeeds to the 
 land, and the others with their posterity are thrown into that 
 pauper class who must live on the taxes or alms of the rest of 
 the community ; and must be debarred by legal enactment or by 
 a false tuition of their moral obligations, from the common right 
 of all animals, that of propagation by the law of their species by 
 pairing or marriage. On the Continent, where speculative ideas 
 are pushed to the extreme, the legitimate deduction from this 
 new moral restraint has been carried to an extent which may 
 alarm our pious moralists who first propounded it. The obliga- 
 tion of this moral restraint on the poor is carried into their mar- 
 riage beds. There are some subjects which it is difficult to treat 
 with decency of expression. The physician, and also the moral- 
 ist, occasionally meet with cases in which a clear understanding 
 can only be attained at the expense of modesty. What is meant 
 by this kind of moral restraint in marriage ? The prefet of the 
 Department de la Somme, Monsieur Dunoyer, in transmitting to 
 the communes of his department the money allotted for the 
 maintenance of their paupers, publishes the following circular 
 letter: "There are not two ways of escaping indigence. Fa- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 323 
 
 milies in indigence can only extricate themselves by activity, 
 good sense, prudence, and economy — prudence, especially in the 
 conjugal union, in avoiding icith an extreme care to render 
 their marriage more fruitful than their industry.^^ What is 
 meant by this " evitant avec un soin extreme de rendre leur ma- 
 riage plus fecond que leur Industrie ?" Does it mean this official 
 manifesto of the magistrate, which, if not law, comes with the 
 force of an injunction from the administrator of the law, does it 
 mean to recommend the stifling the fruits of marriage after 
 birth ? or before birth ? or does it mean some practice which it 
 is against modesty to imagine ? It is perhaps impossible to come 
 nearer to the subject in decent language: but this "evitant de 
 rendre leur mariage fecond" can only mean one or other of these 
 three modes of avoiding any fruits of marriage ; or it must mean 
 a separation of the parties from bed and board after cohabitation, 
 or a rendering marriage de facto a temporary cohabitation, a 
 marriage for a few months, renewed, or not, according to pecu- 
 niary or convenient or economical circumstances. The Count 
 Villeneuf de Bargemont, a prefet, counsellor of state, and deputy, 
 under Charles X, in his " Economic Politique Chretienne, 3 vols. 
 8vo. Paris, 1834," takes this latter more innocent meaning, but 
 one as injurious to social happiness as that which our political 
 economists are supposed by the foreign political economists to 
 have intended to recommend : and after a profound research into 
 the writings of the fathers of the church, finds that" the Christian 
 religion places continence between husband and wife, when it is 
 by mutual consent, among the highest of virtues," In that en- 
 lightened age, the eleventh century, more than one instance 
 occurred during the Heptarchy, of royal saints who attained 
 canonization by reaching the summit of this highest of virtues, 
 by marrying, bedding, sleeping together, and remaining in vir- 
 ginity all their lives. It is somewhat curious in the nineteenth 
 century to find a Catholic lawyer imagining that two Protestant 
 divines, one of the English church, and one ot the Scotch, re- 
 commend this first of Christian virtues, and charitably coming to 
 their assistance, and proving by citations, and authorities from 
 the fathers, that their doctrine is quite agreeable to Christianity. 
 The principal difficulty to be got over in the theory of this 
 doctrine is in the simple question. Why marry at all, if people 
 are not to live comformably to the married state, and to have fa- 
 
324 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 milies in it ? or why not marry for a time, for a year or two, a 
 month or two, a night or two ? The principal difficulty in the 
 practice of this continence in marriage among the poorer class 
 lies exactly in the circumstance which its foreign expounders 
 consider as making it necessary — in their poverty. Where is the 
 indigent family to find two rooms and two beds? or are they to 
 sleep together husband and wife, yet preserve continency ? or are 
 they to resort to any of the three other means hinted at, of " 6vi- 
 tant de rendre leur mariage plus fecond que Jeur Industrie ?" Sir 
 Francis d'lvernols suspects that the peasantry of Montreux must 
 practise this latter precious moral means of preventing their mar- 
 riages being more fruitful than their industry, and puts the ques- 
 tion to their venerable minister. The old gentleman, who is in 
 his ninety-fifth year, evidently laughing at the gullibility of the 
 political economists of Geneva, refers him to the other side of the 
 lake, the Catholic side, for information, as on his Protestant side 
 there is no confessional through which the priest can become ac- 
 quainted with such secret sins of his parishioners ; and observes, 
 that in his youth the political economists from Geneva used to 
 deplore the unprolific constitutions of the Vandoise females ; and. 
 now it is become a subject of their congratulation ; but in his 
 opinion, hard work, in which, as proprietors working for them- 
 selves, they persevere, he thinks, even to an excess, exemption 
 from misery, there being no destitution or extreme poverty, and 
 exemption from great superfluity, or means of indulgence inde- 
 pendent of work, have much to do with the matter ; and have 
 raised among his flock a spirit of prudence, inculcated from gene- 
 ration to generation, which postpones marriages until the parties 
 can support a family. Sir Francis d'lvernois considers it quite 
 certain that in France the practice of this highest of Christian 
 virtues, the " 6vitant avecun soin extreme de rendre leur mariage 
 plus feconde que leur Industrie," is extensively diff'used ; because 
 the proportion of births to the population has since the Restoration 
 been diminishing regularly; and is now only 1 in 33, or even less. 
 Is it not more reasonable to suppose, that the same causes which 
 in this parish of Montreux have, in the enlightened opinion of the 
 minister, reduced the proportions to 1 in 46, are in operation also 
 on a great scale in France ? that the possession of property has 
 given to the whole population the habits of caution and prudence, 
 and the use of gratifications of civilized life, which necessarily 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 325 
 
 postpone marriages until a later period of life, and until a pro- 
 perty is acquired adequate to the higlier standard of living intro- 
 duced by this universal diffusion of property ? The additional, 
 and iiitherto unnoticed physical check pointed out by the minister, 
 upon over-population in a country of small landed proprietors, 
 must also have had its effect in France, viz., the spirit of hard 
 work and of unremitting occupation of mind and body about their 
 little properties, which the pastor of Montreux thinks is carried 
 even to excess, and which is intimately connected with two other 
 physical checks — the earlier age at which the pastor thinks his 
 female parishioners cease to be prolific, and the prolongation of 
 the period of nursing. The fact that France is supporting one- 
 third more inhabitants from nearly the same extent of arable land 
 than before the revolution, proves that this population must be 
 much more laborious, and give more care and incessant work to 
 their land. It is needless to add that idleness is a great originator 
 of population, and is altogether propagational— and hard or in- 
 cessant occupation of body and mind a most powerful physical 
 check upon it, and is altogether anti-propagational. 
 
 The most profound observation ever made in the science of 
 political economy is that of Solomon — " The destruction of the 
 poor is their poverty." It is their poverty that causes their over- 
 multiplication, and their over-multiplication their poverty. Cure 
 tlieir poverty, give them property, inoculate the whole mass of 
 society with the tastes, habits, and feelings of prudence which 
 attend the possession of property, by abolishing the laws of suc- 
 cession which tend to concentrate all property in one upper class, 
 and over-multiplication is cured. It is evidently curing itself ra- 
 pidly in France, without the unnatural and immoral restraints 
 recommended by political economists to be taught as injunctions 
 of religion and morality by their clergy, or to be enforced as law 
 by the local authorities. 
 
 Political economists do not enter into the position of the poor 
 man under our feudal construction of society. They arc ignorant 
 of his calculations. They pour out the vials of their wrath against 
 him for marrying Without having the means of supporting a family. 
 But in his position it is the wisest and most moral step ho can take. 
 He marries early, because he has a more reasonable chance of 
 raising his children to an age to provide for themselves if he mar- 
 ries early, than if he postpones his marrying until an age when 
 
326 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 he must be failing in capability of work before they can work for 
 themselves. If his family have no property, or reasonable pros- 
 pect of property, but from their work, the sooner he can produce 
 two or three working hands to help in their common subsistence 
 the better. It is wisdom in his position to marry at twenty years 
 of age, and folly to postpone it to thirty or thirty-five or forty, 
 because he will be getting past hard work, especially piece-work, 
 in the latter case, before his children can earn wages for full work 
 as grown-up men and women. To tell him to wait until his savings 
 enable him to keep his children is but a mockery. Wages of la- 
 bour in no trade or position of life in which the mass of labourers 
 exist admit of any such saving, without the giving up of all habits 
 of civilization. It is out of the wages of labour, day by day, that 
 the poor must subsist their families, not by any possible accumu- 
 lation of savings out of their wages. If they postponed their 
 marriages for such an accumulation, according to the recommend- 
 ation of our political economists, they would find themselves be- 
 tween fifty and sixty years of age, when a hard-worked man is 
 sensibly failing, burdened with children to support, of an age too 
 young to support themselves. The poor act much more wisely 
 in having children grown up, and the expense of their infancy 
 and rearing over, before they themselves begin to fail. It is here 
 we see the truth of Solomon's observation that " the destruction 
 of the poor is their poverty." Give them property, as a class, by 
 abrogating the feudal law of succession, and all other impediments 
 to the widest difiusion of property through society, and the moral 
 and economical restraints arising from property and prudential 
 consideration, would postpone their marriage age until the period 
 most suitable for their interests. The very same prudential con- 
 sideration hastens their marriage age now, in their hopeless, end- 
 less state of destitution of property. The state of France furnishes 
 a remarkable illustration of this principle. In France property is 
 widely diffused, population is increasing, yet the number of births 
 is decreasing. Of those born many more live to be added to the 
 population, although the actual births are in proportion almost 
 one-third fewer in numbers than in countries in which property is 
 not diffused as in France. Can there be a more satisfactory proof 
 of the right working of the great social experiment now in pro- 
 gress in France ? The number of children reared in proportion 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 327 
 
 tion with respect to food, lodging, and domestic habits of those 
 who rear them — of the people. 
 
 A political economy opposed to the moral and natural economy 
 of society is unsound. It rests upon an arbitrary expediency only. 
 The speculations upon artificial checks to the increase of popula- 
 latioii by legislative, educational, or conventional restraints incon- 
 sistent with the natural rights, moral duties, and social relations of 
 the individuals composing the po.orer classes, are altogether false 
 in principle. The administration of the poor law by the commis- 
 sioners in England — the separation of husband and wife — of pa- 
 rents and children — the confinement in workhouses of all receiving 
 relief — cannot be justified on any principle but expediency ; and 
 on that, anything — the veto on marriages among the poor — the 
 enormities alluded to by Sir Francis d'lvernois — anything and 
 everything in short may be justified. The destitute either have a 
 right or have not a right to relief If they have not, it is a robbery 
 to take the sum from the richer class to relieve them. If they 
 have, from the nature and constitution of property and society, 
 a right inherent in them as animals to such a portion of the fruits 
 of God's earth as will maintain them, it is unjust and tyrannical 
 to withhold that portion, except on conditions inconsistent with 
 their free agency and enjoyment of life as moral inteUigent beings. 
 The expediency-principle of making the poor-rate relief as sour 
 as possible to the receiver, in order to lessen the pecuniary burden 
 on the giver, would justify the exterminating, or torturing, or 
 mutilating the pauper class. This is from first to last a false legis- 
 lation. The expediency itself arises only from false legislation — 
 from throwing the whole burden of supporting the poor upon one 
 kind of property only, and one class of proprietors : and then at- 
 tempting, by such an administration of the poor rates, to alleviate 
 the burden which this exemption of all other kinds of property 
 necessarily accumulates to a ruinous extent upon that one kind — 
 the land. 
 
 In Switzerland each parish has its Alp, that is, its common pas- 
 ture, for the cows of the parish — which is the proper meaning of 
 the word Alp — and each inhabitant is entitled to a cow's grazing, 
 or half a cow's grazing, from June to October, on this common 
 pasture. The grazing rights are highly prized, for the Swiss 
 peasant is extravagantly fond of his cow. To pass a winter 
 without a cow to care for, would be_ a heavy life to him. Few, 
 
328 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 however, have cows in sufficient number to repay the labour of 
 attending them at the summer grazing in the Alps, The proper- 
 ties are too small, in general, to keep more than five or six cows 
 all winter: and few can keep more than half that number. Yet 
 these small proprietors contrive to send cheeses to market as large 
 as our Cheshire dairy farmers with their dairy stocks of forty or fifty 
 cows, and farms rented at 200/. or 300/. a year. This is a signal 
 instance of the absurdity of the flogma in agriculture so implicitly 
 received by all our political economists from books on farming — 
 that small farms are incompatible with good husbandry, or farm- 
 ing operations on a great scale. Gruyere and Parmesan cheeses 
 are quite as large as Cheshire cheeses ; and, as the price shows, 
 are incomparably better in quality. They are made by small 
 farmers, each of whom has not, on an average, the milk of half 
 a dozen cows to make cheese of. Each parish in Switzerland 
 hires a man, generally from the district of Gruyere, in the can- 
 ton of Freyberg, to take care of the herd, and make the cheese ; 
 and if the man comes from Gruyere, all that he makes is called 
 Gruyere cheese, although made far enough from Gruyere. One 
 cheeseman, one pressman or assistant, and one cowherd, are con- 
 sidered necessary for every forty cows. The owners of the cows 
 get credit, each of them, in a book daily, for the quantity of milk 
 given by each cow. The cheeseman and his assistants milk the 
 cows, put the milk all together, and make cheese of it, and at the 
 end of the season each owner receives the weight of cheese pro- 
 portionable to the quantity of milk his cows have delivered. By 
 this co-operative plan, instead of the small-sized, unmarketable 
 cheeses only, w^hich each could produce out of his three or four 
 cow's milk, he has the same weight in large marketable cheese 
 superior in quality, because made by people who attend to no 
 other business. The cheeseman and his assistants are paid so 
 much per head of the cows, in money or in cheese, or, sometimes, 
 they hire the cows, and pay the owners in money or cheese. 
 When we find this, which of all operations in husbandry seems 
 most to require one large stock, and one large capital applied to 
 it, so easily accomplished by the well-understood co-operation of 
 small farmers, it is idle to argue that draining, or irrigation, or 
 liming, or fencing, or manuring, or any operation whatsoever in 
 farming, to which large capital is required, cannot be accom- 
 plished also by small farmers — not small tenant-farmers, but 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 329 
 
 small proprietor- fanners like the Swiss. In October the cows are 
 brought home, and the home grass-lands having been mown for 
 hay twice during the summer, the winter food is provided, and a 
 very small area of land keeps a cow when the home grass has 
 not been burdened with the summer grazing. The pasture in 
 these Alps, or summer grazings, is abundant and rich. In some 
 of the upper valleys, inhabited winter as well as summer, but in 
 which the corn-crops are secondary, and dairy produce the main 
 object^as, for instance, Grindewald — a man with a house suita- 
 bly situated is permanently established for receiving the milk of 
 the neighbourhood. Each family takes care of and milks its own 
 cow or cows, keeps the milk wanted for family use, and sends the 
 rest of it daily to the cheeseman, who gives each family credit for 
 the quantity of milk delivered each day ; and the cheese made 
 during the season is divided, or very usually the cheese is mar- 
 keted, and the money divided : and in this way cheeses of great 
 weight are manufactured, although no one cow owner has milk 
 enough to make one of marketable size. I went one warm fore- 
 noon, while ascending the Rhigi, into one of these dairy houses. 
 From the want of dairy-maids, or females about the place, and the 
 appearance of the cow-man and his boys, I thought it prudent to 
 sit down on the bench outside of the smoky dwelling room, and 
 to ask for a bowl of milk there. It was brought me in a remark- 
 ably clean wooden bowl, and I had some curiosity, when, clean 
 or dirty, my milk was swallowed, to see where it came from. 
 The man took me to a separate wooden building; and instead of 
 the disgusting dirt and sluttishness I had expected, I found the 
 most unpretending cleanliness in this rough milk room— nothing 
 was in it but the wooden vessels belonging to the dairy ; but these 
 were of unexceptionable nicety; and all those holding the milk 
 were standing in a broad rill of water led from the neighbouring 
 burn, and rippling through the centre of the room, and pre- 
 vented by a little side sluice from running too full, and mingling 
 with the milk. This burn running through gave a freshness 
 and cleanliness to every article ; although the whole was of 
 rude construction, and evidently for use, not show. The cows 
 were stabled, I found, at some distance from the milk-house, 
 that the effluvia of their breath and dung might not taint the 
 milk. Cheese is almost the only agricultural product of Switzer- 
 land that is exported ; and it is manufactured by these small 
 22 
 
330 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 farmers certainly as well, with as much intelligence, cleanliness, 
 and advantage as by large farmers. Grain the country must 
 import; and the supply is principally from the east side of the 
 lake of Constance. Wine is not produced in greater quantity than 
 the country consumes. The Swiss cows are exported even to 
 Russia, and to all parts of France and Germany ; but as Swiss 
 pasturage, and Swiss care, and love for the cow are not export- 
 able, these agricultural improvements generally fail. The Swiss 
 cows are very handsome animals, and of great value. A fine 
 cow will sell for 20/. sterling in Switzerland. Such a cow in 
 England would bring the same price in any good market. In all 
 this branch of husbandry, the small farming system is not in any 
 respect behind the large farming system. In' corn husbandry, 
 from the nature of the country, no very extensive tracts dedicated 
 entirely to raising corn-crops are met with, except in the cantons 
 of Bern, Thurgovia, and a few other localities. To judge of the 
 agriculture of a country by the appearance of the crops on the 
 ground, of the working stock, utensils, drainage, fencing, and 
 attention to manure, and from the state of all farm buildings and 
 accomodations, Switzerland stands very high even as a corn 
 country well farmed. 
 
 The peculiar feature in the condition of the Swiss population 
 — the great charm of Switzerland, next to its natural scenery — 
 is the/ air of well-being, the neatness, the sense of property im- 
 printed on the people, thek dwellings, their plots of land. They 
 have a kind of Robinson Crusoe industry about their houses 
 and little properties ; they are perpetually building, repairing, 
 altering, or improving something about their tenements. The 
 spirit of the proprietor is not to be mistaken in all that one sees 
 in Switzerland. Some cottages, for instance, are adorned with 
 long texts from Scripture painted on or burnt into the wood in 
 front over the door; others, especially in the Simmenthal and the 
 Haslethal, with the pedigree of the builder and owner. These 
 show sometimes that the property has been held for 200 years 
 by the same family. The modern taste of the proprietor shows 
 itself in new windows, or additions to the old original picturesque 
 dwelling, which, with its immense projecting roof sheltering or 
 shading all these successive little additions, looks like a hen sitting 
 with a brood of chickens under her wings. The little spots of 
 land, each close no bigger than a garden, show the same daily 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 331 
 
 I 
 
 care in the fencing, digging, weeding, and watering. The vine- 
 yard luisbandry is altogether a garden cnltivation,in which manual 
 labour, unassisted by animal power, scarcely even by the simplest 
 mechanical contrivance, such as wheelbarrows, harrows, or other 
 assisting implements to the basket, hoe, and spade, does every 
 operation ; and this gives the character to all their husbandry ; 
 hand-labour is applied to all crops, such as potatoes, Indian corn, 
 and even common grain crops, more extensively, both in digging 
 and cleaning the land, than with us. It is not uncommon to find 
 agricultural villages without a horse ; and all cultivation done by 
 hand, especially where the main article of husbandry is either 
 dairy produce, or that of the vineyard, to eitlier of which horse 
 work is unnecessary. I confess I do not like a vine-farm. The 
 vineyard is but a garden. The hand-labour is incessant in all 
 the different operations, and yet it is not, like the hand-labour in 
 a garden, applied to but a few fruit trees, or plants, or beds with 
 which you form a kind of acquaintance that ripens into friend- 
 ship in the course of years. The vines are too many, and each 
 too insignificant by itself for that kind of pleasure, and the land 
 under vines being always under vines, you don't get intimate 
 either with the acres or beds, as in corn and grass husbandry, nor 
 with the individual plants, as in gardening. Then the eye has 
 nothing agreeable to dwell upon in the dotty effect of a field of 
 vines ; and the eaj misses the rural music of a farm — the crowing 
 of the cock— the lowing of the cattle — the sound of the Hail. In 
 sheep-farming, cattle-farming, horse-breeding, corn-farming, or- 
 chard or kitchen-gardening, or flower-gardening, a man may be 
 an amateur, may have a singular delight, a very craze— but I 
 could never hear of any such feeling about vine-farming. It is, 
 in spite of poetry, a dull manufacture. 
 
 Two circumstances attending the great diffusion of laifdcd pro- 
 perty among the people strike the traveller in Switzerland; one 
 is the great perfection it gives to their social arrangements. I 
 lodged in a little hamlet (Veytaux),so inconsiderable that it could 
 not support a shop, nor a shoemaker, tailor, or tradesman living 
 by his trade. I found, however, that there was a regular post- 
 office in the place, although it was not a thoroughfare to other 
 places; a regular watchman by night, calling the hours as in 
 great towns; two public fountains, with regulations for keeping 
 them clean painted on boards at the spouts; a kind of market- 
 
332 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 place, in which all the orders or edicts of the canton, or of the 
 federal government were posted up under a wire covering, for the 
 public information ; and a fire-engine in good order, and which 
 occasionally was brought out, and the people exercised in its use. 
 Towns of twenty or thirty times the population in Scotland and 
 England have no such social arrangements. I am speaking of a 
 hamlet of thirty, or at the outside forty houses. The other circum- 
 stance which strikes the traveller is the condition and appearance 
 of the female sex, as it is affected by the distribution of land 
 among the labouring class. None of the women are exempt 
 from field-work, not even in the families of very substantial peas- 
 ant proprietors, whose houses are furnished as well as any coun- 
 try manse with us. All work as regularly as the poorest male 
 individual. The land, however, being their own, they have a 
 choice of work, and the hard work is generally done by the men. 
 The felling and bringing home wood for fuel, the mowing grass 
 generally, but not always, the carrying out manure on their backs, 
 the handling horses and cows, digging, and such heavy labour is 
 man's work; the binding the vine to the pole with a straw, which 
 is done three times in the course of its growth, the making the 
 hay, the pruning the vine, twitching off the superfluous leaves 
 and tendrils, — these lighter yet necessary jobs to be done about 
 vineyards or orchards form the women's work. But females, 
 both in France and Switzerland, appear to have a far more im- 
 portant role in the family, among the lower and middle classes 
 than with us. The female, although not exempt from out-door 
 work, and even hard work, undertakes the thinking and manag- 
 ing department in the family affairs, and the husband is but the 
 executive officer. The female is, in fact, very remarkably superior 
 in manners, habits, tact, and intelligence to the husband, in almost 
 every family of the middle or lower classes in Switzerland. One 
 is surprised to see the wife of such good, even genteel manners, 
 and sound sense, and altogether such a superior person to her 
 station ; and the husband very often a mere lout. The hen is 
 the better bird all over Switzerland. This is, perhaps, an effect 
 of the military or servile employment of a great proportion of 
 the male population during youth, and of the mercenary spirit 
 too prevalent in Switzerland. In France, also, the female takes 
 her full share of business with the male part of the family, in 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 333 
 
 keeping accounts and books and selling goods, and in both conn- 
 tries occupies a higher and more rational social position certainly 
 than with us. This seems to be the effect of the distribution of 
 property, by which the female has her share and interest, as well 
 as the male ; and grows up with the same personal interest and 
 sense of property in all around her. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LYONS.— ON ITS MANUFACTURING SYSTEM. — NOTES ON AVIGNON. 
 — FRENCH BARRACKS. — COOKERY. — ITS EFFECTS ON NATIONAL 
 WEALTH. 
 
 Lyons, with its narrow dark streets and lofty old houses on 
 each side, resembles some of the old parts of the old town of 
 Edinburgh. It is built at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone, 
 upon a flat tongue of land, so narrow that the stranger is sur- 
 prised, on taking the breadth of the city, to come so soon from 
 the one river quay to the other ; and on taking its length in his 
 walk, he can scarcely believe that this is the second city in France, 
 a city nearly as populous as EdinbWgh. In 1831, it contained 
 165,459 inhabitants; and Edinburgh in 1831 reckoned 178,371. 
 But on looking more carefully, the traveller perceives that the 
 secondary streets are remarkably narrow, the houses very lofty 
 and densely inhabited, each a little town of people within itself, 
 and, as in Edinburgh, a great proportion of the inhabitants lodge 
 in the air, not on the surface of the earth. 
 
 In this chief seat of the silk manufacture in France, and, at no 
 distant period in Europe, the manufacturing arrangements are 
 apparently ill adapted to the improvement, extension, or even the 
 future existence of its trade, against the competition of England, 
 Prussia, and Switzerland. The old leaven of the corporation 
 system sticks to Lyons ; and the distress in which her operatives 
 are so frequently plunged that their whole existence, it may be 
 said, is distress, is very much the consequence of a faulty arrange- 
 ment of business not suitable to the times. The master-manu- 
 facturer has no factory and workmen constantly in his employ. 
 He merely buys the raw material, and gives it out to be sorted, 
 spun, dyed, and put in a state for the silk weaver. In these 
 operations, which are not conducted in his own premises or 
 factory, he has but very imperfect checks upon embezzlement, 
 and none upon waste. The division of labour in a manufacture 
 is not always economical. It is a very nice point, in practice, to 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 335 
 
 judge of its applicability, and to adjust it to advantage. Cheap 
 production may arise from a division of labour under one head 
 or master-manufacturer ; but faulty processes, loss of time, and a 
 waste of labour and means, may arise from a division among 
 different sub-capitals, and independent operators, of such labour 
 or operations as are essential for producing a good and cheap 
 product. It requires great judgment to determine — happily 
 self-interest is the surest guide — what may be left to others to 
 prepare, and what the manufacturer must, from first to last, carry 
 on himself In Lyons, in the silk trade, the laying or preparing 
 the pattern for the loom is the work of independent workmen ; 
 although the patterns are produced by a draughtsman, who is 
 generally a partner with the master-manufacturer. The weavers 
 again are independent workmen, also, living and working eacli in 
 his^own shop, with two or three looms for different kinds of fabric, 
 and with journey mem to work them. He lodges and boards the 
 journeymen, finds the looms and the work, and gets one-half or 
 one-third of their earnings, according to the regulations or customs 
 of the craft, as established for the different stufis or fabrics. This 
 master- weaver is paid for the work by the master-manufacturer 
 so much per ell. This is the state of infancy in manufacturing 
 operations with us — a happy infancy, but still a state of infancy 
 in which capital has not been accumulated, or machinery in- 
 vented, to enable the master-manufacturer to concentrate his 
 operations. 
 
 It is evident that the eye and superintendence of the master- 
 manufacturer cannot be given to quality and economy, where every 
 operation essential to the manufacture is not under one roof, or 
 one guidance, with partners and managers attending it, and with 
 workmen responsible directly to one head, and whose hands are 
 always kept employed in the same kinds of work. When the 
 web is done it is too late to check faulty workmansiiip, or save 
 the character of the goods, by putting better workmen or better 
 material to it. As long as the Continent had only Lyons, and 
 England only her French colony in Spital fields, to look to for the 
 greater part of their silk fabrics, the system went on ; but when 
 Manchester, Paisley, and, on the Continent, Zurich, and other 
 places, took up the silk trade upon dilfercnt manufacturing princi- 
 ples, the superior economy and quality of their fabrics mined these 
 old seats of the silk manufacture. England, about twelve years 
 
336 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ago, was reckoned to haVe about 10,000 looms engaged in the 
 silk manufacture, and is now reckoned to have about 80,000. 
 Lyons and its neighbourhood has now but 31,000; and Zurich 
 and its neighbourhood is reckoned to have above 20,000. In all 
 that regards the preparation of the silk, and the texture and quality 
 of the stuffs, the English excel the French manufactures, and in 
 economy so decidedly, that the ell of silk stuff which cannot be 
 produced at Lyons under the cost for labour of 120 to 125 cent- 
 imes, costs in labour only 40 centimes in England. A certain 
 number of privileged workmen are alone entitled to set up as 
 masters in the weaving and other branches of the silk manufacture 
 at Lyons, and are entitled to exclude others from the exercise of 
 their trade. They must have served as apprentices and as jour- 
 neymen for certain periods, and cannot set up for themselves with- 
 out large fees of entry for the freedom of the craft, be the demand 
 for looms ever so great. The French Revolution gave political 
 liberty only to the people — the forms of constitutional government 
 — but gave them no civil liberty, nor to this day is civil liberty, 
 or the perfect freedom of every citizen to act for himself without 
 interference, understood or thought of by the French people any 
 more than before the Revolution. The municipal taxes on the 
 transit of goods through towns, the leave and license necessary to 
 carry industry from one locality to another, and the restraints upon 
 its free exercise, as here in silk weaving, are in full vigour. The 
 only argument in favour of this system of corporate privileges is, 
 that it allows the small capitalist as well as the large to live, and 
 this is not an argument to be despised in social economy. The 
 weaver with his two or three looms has an independent existence; 
 and, however inefficient as a producer of silk fabrics at the cheap- 
 est rate compared to th6 master-manufacturer, who has a couple of 
 hundred looms perhaps at work under his eye, with all that pre- 
 cedes and follows the weaving going on simultaneously, he is one 
 of a body far more valuable in social relation than the two or three 
 great capitalists who supersede this body of middle class manu- 
 facturers. But this is, unhappily, the natural and unavoidable 
 progress of manufacturing industry. Large capital, when it comes 
 into competition with small capital in the world's wide market, 
 inevitably drives the small out of the field. An aristocracy of 
 large capitalists obtains the possession, the property it may be 
 called, of supplying all human wants, and holds it by the best of 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 337 
 
 all tenures — that of being able to supply mankind cheapest. It 
 is a manufacturing and physical good, but a social and moral evil. 
 The actual operative in Great Britain has no prospect before him. 
 He may save a few hundred pounds by unceasing industry and 
 sobriety ; but why should he save it ? This little saved capital — 
 call it thousands instead of hundreds of pounds sterling— can do 
 nothing in the present state of our trade and manufactures, in 
 competition with the vast capitals accumulated by long inheritance, 
 pre-occupying every branch of industry and manufacture, and 
 producing far cheaper than he can do with bis trilling means. 
 Land, by the effect of the corn laws, and of the privilege accorded 
 to that kind of property, is out of his reach as much as trade and 
 manufacture ; there being no small estates in Britain, generally 
 speaking, which a labouring or middle class man could purchase 
 and sit down upon with his family to live as a working yeoman, 
 or peasant proprietor ; small capitals, when they are accumulate^, 
 are forced into trade and manufacture, although every branch is 
 over-supplied with the means of producing. What can a man 
 turn to who has a little capital of three or four thousand pounds ? 
 What can he enter into with any reasonable prospect of not losing 
 his little capital in his most honest and prudent efforts ? And 
 what can the working man do but spend his earnings, drink, and 
 fall into a reckless improvident way of living, when he sees clearly 
 that every avenue to an independent condition is, by the power 
 of great capital, shut against liim ? A vassalage in manufacture 
 and trade is succeeding the vassalage in land, and the serf of the 
 loom is in a lower and more helpless condition than the se;-f of the 
 glebe ; because his condition appears to be not merely the effect 
 of an artificial and faulty social economy, like the feudal, which 
 may be remedied, but to be the unavoidable effect of natural 
 causes. Mankind will naturally prefer the best and cheapest 
 goods. Great capitals will naturally produce better and cheaper 
 than small capitals applied to the same objects. Corporations, 
 trade restrictions, privileges either of masters or workmen, and all 
 such local or partial legislation, add to instead of curing the evil, 
 for they can only reach the producers, not the consumers ; and 
 few, indeed, are the branches of industry, in which the producers 
 have a command of the market. The feudalization going on in 
 our manufacturing social economy is very conspicuous in some of 
 the great cotton factories. The master-manufacturer in some 
 
338 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 districts, who employs eight hundred or a thousand hands, deals 
 in reality only with fifty or sixty sub-vassals or operative cotton 
 spinners, as they are technically called, who undertake the work- 
 ing of so many looms, or spinning jennies. They hire and pay 
 the men, women, and children, who are the real operatives, grind- 
 ing their wages down to the lowest rate, and getting the highest 
 they can out of the master-manufacturer. A strike is often the 
 operation of these middle men, and productive of little benefit to, 
 and even against the will of the actual workmen. They are, in 
 the little imperium of the factory, the equivalent to the feudal 
 barons. 
 
 In a few branches of the silk trade, in the elegance^of pattern, 
 and in some few dyes, the Lyons manufacturer still has a pre-emi- 
 nence. The draughtsman and dyer are educated in the branches 
 of science and fine art connected with their trade. Science and 
 good taste in colours and patterns are more diffused in France by 
 education, social habits, and cultivation even among the working 
 class, than among our middle class. In every departmental town, 
 a public school of design for the working class, and exhibitions of 
 models, and objects coimected with the cultivation of taste, are 
 established. Elegance, and variety of fashion in patterns, can, it 
 is probable, never be overtaken by machinery, or by the class of 
 workmen who are but parts in a machine, so well as by the 
 manual labour of independent workmen of taste and skill under 
 the French system. In the figured stuffs in which hand-labour 
 is not and cannot be superseded by machinery on account of the 
 changeable and short-lived fashion, the French workmen excel 
 ours, and can work 25 per cent, cheaper. Fashion is too evanes- 
 cent and variable to be followed up closely by machinery ; and 
 our corn laws, and other taxes affecting labour, turn the balance 
 against us, where hand-labour is in competition with hand-labour. 
 It is, however, a remarkable sign of the times, that what is called 
 fashion in colours, patterns, and materials of dress, appears to be 
 growing less changeable and fantastic as the world grows older. 
 As the body of the middle and lower classes, and not merely the 
 court and highest class, become consumers, and regulate the mar- 
 ket, good taste, or taste with reference to the useful in its require- 
 ments, becomes more prevalent, and its application more steady. 
 One no where sees now, as fifty years ago, except, it may be, in 
 remote little German towns, sky-blue, or pink, or green, or pom- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 339 
 
 padour coats, or people walking the streets in silk stockings, silk 
 breeches, and powdered hair. The taste of the middle class, the 
 mass of the consumers, has invaded the empire of fashion, and, 
 in fact, sets the Aishion to the higher classes ; and the nobleman 
 now would be laughed at, who appeared in any other shape, 
 colour or material of clothing, than the well-dressed tradesman. 
 Exclusiveness, the soul of fashion, cannot exist in the present 
 cheap, extensive production of clothing material. This greater 
 steadiness of fashion with the great mass of the consumers of 
 cloth, cotton, and silk, and the longer endurance, and greater 
 extension of the demand for any fashion that once gets estab- 
 lished, enable machinery and large capital to work even upon 
 objects which would have been left formerly to hand-work ; and 
 the field for hand-loom weavers is narrowed to the production of 
 a few fancy articles. The hand-loom weavers in the silk trade in 
 Lyons appear to have been for the last hundred years in no supe- 
 rior or more prosperous condition than those in Spitalfields. 
 
 As far back as 1740, it appears by a petition to the local autho- 
 rities at Lyons for raising the rates of weaving the ell of silk stuff, 
 that the earnings of a master-weaver with three looms in full 
 work all the year fell short of the necessary expense of a family 
 living in the poorest way. The statement of the hand-loom 
 weavers reckons 296 working days (52 Sundays, 17 holidays, and 
 6 days of military town guard duty, being deducted), and reckons 
 800 ells a year the production of each loom. Bread is taken at 
 2 sous per lb., and 10 'lbs. as the daily allowance of a man, his 
 wife, two children, and a journeyman. • Meat is taken at 6 sous, 
 and 2.i lbs. daily for such a family, and wine 1 pint, at 6 sous; 
 and to meet this condition of subsistence with such a family in 
 full work, the earnings are shown to be deficient. How then has 
 this class of operatives existed through a century? By going 
 down lower in the scale of subsistence, in the enjoyment of the 
 comforts and necessaries of life. It is impossible to foresee how 
 low the condition of many masses of population may be reduced 
 in the working manufacturing classes. It has no minimum of 
 depression, as there appears to be in the condition of the working 
 agricultural class. The reproduction of the husbandman's food, 
 and of seed for the following crop, is the point below which the 
 condition of the labouring husbandman cannot permanently fall. 
 Population and cultivation stop at that point ; and ovcr-i)roduclion 
 
340 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 is a good, not an evil, where the producers are themselves the 
 principal consumers. In manufacturing industry there is no such 
 defined terminus. Labour and production go on, whether food 
 and cost are reproduced by the operatives or not; and over-pro- 
 duction is followed by famine to them. The very prosperity of 
 one great body reduces another great body to want in manufac- 
 turing industry. One would almost think there is a balance point 
 in social well-being, which society has already reached, and that 
 now the higher one end is mounting, the lower the other end is 
 descending. Although the peculiar manufacture of Lyons, the 
 silk weaving, is declining, the country around Lyons is flourish- 
 ing. Building, repairing, whitewashing, are going on briskly in 
 the villages. New cotton or flax factories, iron-works, andsteam- 
 engine chimneys are rising along the river side. Steamboats, rail- 
 roads from coal works and quarries, river craft carrying goods, 
 iron suspension-bridges across the stream, are far more numerous 
 on the Rhone than on the Rhine — bustle and business far more 
 advanced. Industry, in spite of the trammels on its free develop- 
 ment, is on the move in this part of France, although its objects 
 are changing from the manufacturing of one single article of 
 luxury, silk, to the production of a great variety of useful articles, 
 for which the command of coal and water carriage in this district 
 gives peculiar facilities. This will be a great manufacturing dis- 
 trict, and only wants civil liberty to be so : it surpasses already, 
 in the activity on the waters, and in the numbers of new factories, 
 and manufacturing villages, and establishments on their banks, 
 the German manufacturing districts on the Rhine. Here they are 
 doing, — there they are but dreaming of doing. 
 
 The ancient palace of the popes at Avignon is now converted 
 into a barrack for infantry. The popes resided at Avignon full 
 73 years, from 1 303 to 1 376. There is nothing remaining of those 
 times, but the outward shell of the buildings, and the names of 
 the different chambers — the chamber of inquisition, the chamber 
 of torture, the chamber of execution, and among the inhabitants 
 of the town and neighbourhood, it is said a tendency to favour 
 despotism, fanaticism, and legitimacy in royal rights. The cham- 
 bers in the old papal residence, so agreeably handed down to pos- 
 terity by their religious uses, and in which the names of victims 
 are said to be still legible on the plaster of the walls, subject to 
 the doubt if writing was so ordinary an accomplishment in the 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 341 
 
 fourteenth century — were washed in blood at the Revolution. 
 The crimes and sufferings spread over a century were surpassed 
 in a day. And now these chambers of blood resound with the 
 careless laugh and merry vaudeville of the young soldiery. A 
 French barrack is worth seeing. The beds appear particularly- 
 good. Each private had a bed to himself on an iron bedstead. 
 In our service, two and even three men are laid in one bed. The 
 French peasantry, even in the lowest condition, are accustomed to 
 good beds. A high pile of bedding seems a kind of ornamental 
 furniture indispensably necessary in their ideas of housekeeping ; 
 and you see even in the single-room households of the poor, a 
 kind of display in the neatness and quantity of bedding. This 
 taste has probably spread so widely as to act upon the military- 
 accommodation. Each bed had a brown cloth covering, neatly- 
 covering the bed-clothes, and the sheets and matresses were as 
 clean and nicely done up as in any hospital. In this barrack it 
 struck me as characteristic of the good relation between the officers 
 and men, that on the inside of the door was stuck up a notice, 
 that it would not be reputable to be seen in certain streets men- 
 tioned, on account of houses of ill-fame in them. 
 
 A great quantity of very good wit, which might have served 
 the owners for any of their lawful occasions, was expended some 
 year ago upon the subject of cookery. The French began with 
 their Science Gastronomique, their Almanacs des Gourmands, 
 their saucepans and gridirons of honour, and a thousand equally 
 witty sayings and doings. Our manufacturers of roast and boiled, 
 and printed paper, our Kitcheners, Udes, and Glasses, were not 
 behind, and mixed up their flour and melted butter with wit and 
 philosophy as well as their neighbours. The subject is not quite 
 so ridiculous as it has been made. The food of a people, and its 
 preparation, are closely connected with their industry and civili- 
 zation. The female half of the human species do little other work 
 in most communities but cook : and much more than half of all 
 the work of the other moiety is applied to the direct production of 
 l!ie materials for cooking. The least observant and least hungry 
 of travellers abroad is struck with admiration at the readiness with 
 which a dinner of eight or ten dishes of various eatables makes 
 its appearance in foreign inns, and remembers with no patriotic 
 feeling the never-ready perpetual mutton-chop and mashed pota- 
 toes of the English road. Yet much of our national prosperity 
 
342 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and wealth, much of the capital and productiveness of our labour- 
 ing and middle classes, and especially of the industrious who are 
 in a state of transition from tiie one class to the other, may be as- 
 cribed to the greater simplicity and frugality of diet among us : 
 and particularly to the great saving of time and labour in its pre- 
 paration. A working man, tradesman, or man in the labouring 
 or middle class in ordinary employment, sits down abroad to a 
 much better dinner than a man of good realized capital and in a 
 thriving way, with us. The three or four well-dressed dishes, 
 principally of legumes or other cheap materials, cost the foreigner 
 less perhaps in money than the bread and cheese, or simply-cooked 
 mutton and potatoes of the English dinner of the man of the same 
 class. This is the main economical advantage, indeed, which 
 absentee families promise themselves from settling abroad. It is 
 to them, no doubt, an advantage. They eat and drink more 
 sumptuously than they could at home for the same money. But 
 this way of living is of great social disadvantage to the people 
 among whom it is habitual. Its cheapness is but a delusion. The 
 political economist will differ widely from the traveller, in his 
 opinion of its superiority. It costs a vast deal more time and 
 labour to bring all this finely-cooked food together : it costs, at 
 the least, twice as much of human time and labour to dine five 
 millions of French or German people, as to dine five millions of 
 English ; and time and labour, be it remembered, are the basis of 
 all national wealth and prosperity. Time and labour employed 
 unreproductively are capital thrown away. The meals of the 
 Englishman and of the continental man end equally in satiating 
 appetite, and recruiting strength. If this end be attained in Eng- 
 land by an hour's work of one person in a family of five, in the 
 ordinary station of life of our working and middle class, cooking 
 generally but a single meal in the day in the simplest way, and 
 on the Continent, owing to the general habit of living, the more 
 complicated forms of cookery, and the more frequent meals, if the 
 cooking for such a family occupies one of its members the whole 
 day, the English family evidently has saved most capital, or th^t 
 from which alone capital is produced — time and labour — in a 
 given period. The loss of time in the eating and preparation of 
 food, the numerous meals, dishes, and modes of cookery, form a 
 very important drawback on the prosperity of families on the 
 Continent in that station in which, with us, very little time, indeed, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 343 
 
 is expended in feating or cooking. It is an important dinriinution 
 of the means of national wealth. Gournmndize is found also to 
 be a vice as troublesome to deal with among the French soldiery 
 as tippling among ours. The craving for variety of food and 
 cookery leads to most of the irregularities and depredations in the 
 field, of which the French armies are accused. The variety in 
 food, and in its complicated preparation, which is so blended with 
 the habits of living on the Continent that even the peor have the 
 craving for it, appears by no means necessary or conducive to 
 health. A remarkably smaller proportion of the labouring and 
 middle classes abroad are healthy-looking individuals with bloom- 
 ing looks, pure teeth, and all external indications of vigorous 
 animal condition, than in our more simply fed population. It is 
 evidently such a drawback on the acquiring of capital in the 
 lower stations of life, that the want of a middle class of capitalists 
 — of men who rise by industry and frugality from common labour 
 to a wider circle of business— is very much to be ascribed to this 
 habitual waste of time and labour in their family living and house- 
 keeping. They spend in immediate gratification the beginnings 
 of a working capital. The national wealth and prosperity is ma- 
 terially affected by this cause, trifling and ridiculous as it appears 
 to be in stating it in a single case. In the total, however, it is 
 fully a fifth of the time and labour of a continental population, 
 that is daily wasted in cookery and eating. 
 
CHAPTER XVr. 
 
 HOTES ON GENOA.— POOR OF GENOA— CAUSES OF THE DECLINE OF 
 GENOA. 
 
 Genoa — Genoa the superb ! I first set my foot on Italian 
 land on the mole of Genoa. Who does not picture to himself, on 
 approaching the mole of Genoa, the grand days of this once 
 powerful republic — her doges, her Doria, and all her magnificent 
 aristocracy stepping in splendid array on board of gallant fleets 
 that carried her dominion over the realms of the East ? How 
 unromantic is reality ! The moles of Genoa, as works of mag- 
 nificence and art, are but shabby quays, not to be named on the 
 same day with the quays of Leith, Dundee, Aberdeen, or dozens 
 of our third-rate shipping towns on the British coast. I see in 
 Genoa only a town of eighty thousand inhabitants, covering 
 about as much ground as Aberdeen, built at the foot and on the 
 slopes of some rocky barren knolls of about the same elevation, 
 and as bare as the upper half of Arthur's Seat near Edinburgh, 
 and which surround a bight of the coast, called by courtesy a 
 bay, of about the size of one of the larger wet docks of Liverpool, 
 at the bottom of a gulf of the Mediterranean. This bight is 
 made a tolerably secure port by two piers or moles dividing it 
 into an outer and inner harbour : the latter for small craft, and 
 containing a good many of them, and the other for larger vessels, 
 of which, that is of brigs and traders to foreign parts, there might 
 be a score or more — a show of masts certainly inferior to what 
 we see daily in our third-rate ports, such as Dundee, Aberdeen, 
 or Leith. This is, next to Leghorn, the greatest commercial port 
 on this side of Italy — one of the main mouths of the export and 
 import of a population equal to that of Great Britain — so that the 
 poor muster of sea-going vessels in it surprises the traveller. . 
 
 The streets of Genoa are in general so narrow that tw^ ladies 
 in the huge sleeves lately in fashion would certainly stick if they 
 met each other. They are all paved with flat stones of a foot or 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 345 
 
 two square, laid diagonally, and with an open channel in the 
 middle of the alley for the run of water. Climate is a better 
 scavenger than the dean of guild, or dirt-baillie of our ancient 
 Scotch burghs. These narrow wynds and closes of Genoa are 
 not dirty, and from the constant draught of air through such nar- 
 row funnels, are sweet and cool in hot weather. The buildings 
 on each side of these narrow alleys are palaces— lofty, magnifi- 
 cent, extensive palaces rising to the skies, excluding heat and even 
 light from the two-legged insects dressed in brown woollen cloaks 
 crawling between theiYi. 
 
 Here in Genoa, the imaginative traveller may revel in his de- 
 scriptions of orange groves, vine-clad hills, and marble palaces, 
 mingled in luxuriant magnificence, and rising against a background 
 of heaven-high peaks of snow cutting into a deep blue sky above, 
 and washed beneath by a sea still more intensely blue. But that 
 miserable proseman, the political economist, goes dodging about 
 this magnificent city, the city of palaces, the Genova la Superba, 
 asking. Where do your middle classes live ? Where did they live 
 in the days of Genoa's greatness? He sees now that the same 
 roof covers the beggar and the prince ; for, on the ground-floors, 
 under the marble staircases, and marble-paved halls, and superb 
 state rooms on the first floor, there are vaults, holes, and coach- 
 house-like places opening into the streets, in which the labouring 
 class and small shopkeepers pig together, living, cooking, and 
 doing all family work half and half in the open air. But was this 
 always so ? Where did, or where do they live, who are neither 
 princes nor beggars? who are a degree above porters, or day 
 labourers, or the small shopkeeper or tradesman living by their 
 custom, in the means and habits of a civilized existence ? Where 
 be the snug, comfortable, suitable dwellings for this middle class, 
 the pith and marrow of a nation, which cover the land in England 
 and Scotland so entirely that the great mansion is the exception, 
 not the rule, in our national iiabitations, wealthy as the nation is? 
 Here, all is palace, and all is noblesse, public functionary, and 
 beggar. They reckon in Genoa, in clerical function alone, 6,000 
 persons, and 7,000 military. Sweep away the edifices of nobility, 
 those appropriated to public functionaries and their business, to- 
 gether with churches, convents, hospitals, barracks, theatres, and 
 such public buildings, and Genoa would scarcely be a town. Yet 
 23 
 
346 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Genoa is not a poor town in one sense. Many of these palaces 
 are inhabited by a wealthy nobiUty, and, it is said, there are 
 more capitalists, more great capitalists in Genoa, than in any 
 town in Italy. To have erected, and to keep up such palaces as 
 they live in, or even to afford so much dead stock as is invested 
 in the mere material, the marble, gilding, pictures of value, orna- 
 ments, and costly furniture, speaks of enormous wealth, both in 
 past and present days. Some traveller tells us, that the Italian 
 noble will go on building and building at a family palace from 
 generation to generation, living in the meantime in a corner of 
 it, or in a garret, poorly and shabbily. This is certainly not the 
 case here. 1 underwent the usual sight-seeing penance of the 
 traveller, and was trotted by a valet-de-place through sundry 
 magnificent palaces — the Palavicini, the Brignoli, the Durazzi, and 
 others. These appeared to me as complete in furniture, establish- 
 ment of servants, and all the magnificence of life, as any noble- 
 man's mansion in any country. In one palace, for instance, as 
 we entered the hall in the morning about 9 o'clock, the chaplain 
 of the family was going into the drawing-room to read family 
 prayers, the servants went in after him, a goodly number neatly 
 dressed, just as in any orderly English family of high rank, and 
 we were asked to wait in an adjoining room, until the service 
 was over and the family had retired to the breakfast-room, in 
 order to show us some paintings of note in the grand drawing- 
 room. It v/as more interesting than the pictures to see this magni- 
 ficent apartment, although gilded, curtained, chandeliered, and 
 ornamented with a costliness suitable for the residence of a crowned 
 head, yet comfortably as well as splendidly furnished, with a carpet 
 fully covering the floor,a blazing fire in the chimney, tables covered 
 with books, ladies' Avork in baskets and work-bags, scattered about 
 the room, and with a home look of daily use and domestic enjoj^- 
 ment about everything, which resembled the taste of English life. 
 Many of the old wealthy mercantile nobility have apparently fallen 
 from their high estate, and, in the course of ages, have been ex- 
 tinguished, or become impoverished; for vast edifices — in fact, • 
 costly palaces — are occupied by innkeepers and others, who could 
 never have built them for the uses they are now put to : but evi- 
 dently a class of very great capitalists remains. They, with a 
 very great body of destitute people, and the military, civil func- 
 tionaries, clergy, and the small dealers and tradesmen living by 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 347 
 
 their expenditure, now constitute the population of this once 
 powerful republic. 
 
 May not the history of Genoa's connmercial greatness and de- 
 cline become, in the course of ages, that of England's? May 
 not the one show in small, what the other will come to in large? 
 Is not the same element of decay common to the social economy 
 of both ? It is in the nature of trade and manufacture, that great 
 capital drives small capital out of the field ; it can afford to work 
 for smaller returns. There is a natural tendency in trade to mo- 
 nopoly, by the accumulation of great wealth in few hands. It 
 is not impossible that in every branch of trade and manufacture 
 in Britain, the great capitalist will, in time, entirely occupy the 
 field, and put down small capitalists in the same lines of busi- 
 ness; that a moneyed aristocracy, similar to that here in Genoa, 
 will gradually be formed, the middle class of small capitalists in 
 trade and manufacture become gradually extinguished, and a 
 structure of society gradually arise, in which lords and labourers 
 will be the only classes or gradations in the commercial and 
 manufacturing, as in the landed system. An approximation, a 
 tendency towards this state, is going on in England. In many 
 branches of industry, — for instance, in glass-making, iron-found- 
 ing, soap -making, cotton-spinning, — the great capitalists engaged 
 in them have, by the natural effect of working with great capital, 
 driven small capitals out of the field, and formed a kind of ex- 
 clusive family property of some of these branches of manufacture. 
 Government, by excessive taxation and excise regulation, both 
 of which have ultimately the effect, as in the glass and soap ma- 
 nufacture and distillery business, of giving a monopoly to the 
 great capitalist who can afford the delay and advance of money 
 these impediments require, has been hitherto aiding, rather than 
 counteracting, this tendency of great capital to swallow all the 
 employments in which small capital can act. It is a question 
 practically undetermined, whether the experiment into which 
 this tendency has forced society within these few years, the junc- 
 tion of small capitalists in joint-stock, subscription, or share com- 
 panies, can compete in productive industry with great capital in 
 the hands of one or two partners wielding great means with the 
 energy, activity, and frugality of an individual. It is not an ima- 
 ginary, nor perhaps a very distant evil, that our middle classes 
 with their small capitals may sink into nothing, may become, as 
 
348 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 here, tradesmen or small dealers supplying a few great manufac- 
 turing and commercial families with the articles of their house- 
 hold consumpt, or supernumerary candidates for unnecessary 
 public functions, civil, military, or clerical ; and that in trade, as 
 in land, a noblesse of capitalists, and a population of serfs work- 
 ing for them, may come to be the two main constituent parts in 
 our social structure. ' A Genoa in large England may possibly 
 become — with one small class living in almost royal splendour 
 and luxury ; and the freat mass of the community in rags and 
 hunger. 
 
 I went to see the poor-house in Genoa, a vast ancient palace, 
 in which about 1800 poor are kept upon the principle of making 
 them work for their living. Work, or material of various kinds 
 suited to the trade or ability of the pauper, is given out to each, 
 and, when finished, it is sold or valued, the cost of the material 
 and of the rations of food or other necessaries supplied to the 
 pauper while producing it, deducted, and the balance paid to him 
 in money. Rational as this principle of relief appears to be, I 
 am in doubt whether it answers well, or rather in no doubt that 
 it answers ill. In the small population of a town the effects may 
 be more distinctly traced than in an extensive national system 
 upon the same principle ; but the effects must be the same. The 
 kinds of employment given to the pauper are necessarily those 
 which the poor usually live by, and which require few, and not 
 expensive tools, and are easily acquired and exercised ; such as 
 coarse weaving, rope-making, ordinary joiner-work, shoemaking, 
 tailoring of slop clothes, &c. Among 80,000 people in a town, 
 the work of 1800 working in a poor-house, or as out-door pau- 
 pers, at the common trades of the poorer class, displaces exactly 
 so much of the work of the latter, makes them poorer — is robbing 
 Peter to pay Paul. The poor artisan whose market is anticipated 
 and overstocked by a forced production from the poor-house, and 
 at a cheaper rate than he who has to buy the material by retail can 
 afford to produce the article, must go to the poor-house himself. 
 This is clearly the effect, in the great as in the small, of applying 
 public or subscribed capital to pauperism, in a way that interferes 
 with any branch of industry in which the poor usually employ their 
 own time and labour to keep them out of pauperism. If this 
 be true, the only kind of industry which is suitable either for 
 pauper or penal employment in a community, is that which inter- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 349 
 
 feres with the means of living of no other class in the community : 
 and that is only labour applied to the direct production of the pau- 
 per or penal labourer's own food and necessaries, as in the poor 
 colonies in Holland, either in husbandry, fisiiery, or work con- 
 nected with what they themselves consume. 
 
 When we reflect on the former greatness and the present decay 
 of this once powerful state, how important the lesson it teaches ! 
 not the common-place lesson only of the instability of human 
 greatness — but that the misapplication of capital, or rather of 
 human industry — for capital is the command of human labour 
 and time, embodied in the form of money — is the cause of the 
 instability of greatness in empires as in individuals. Look at this 
 city of Genoa! at the millions upon millions that have been ex- 
 pended unreproductively ! The loom, the ship, the steam-engine, 
 the factory, reproduce their own cost with a profit, and the whole 
 is laid out, again and again, and to the latest generation, repro- 
 ductively; but the palace, the gorgeous ornament, the pageant, 
 the display of pomp and power in fleets and armies and courtly 
 splendour, reproduce nothing. The labourer earns his needful 
 food during the time he is employed in producing them; that 
 done, he is no richer than at first, and the means of his employer 
 to re-employ him, the capital which, laid out in a reproductive 
 way, would have gone on to all posterity, augmenting and ex- 
 tending employment, well-being, and civilization, is fixed down, 
 and buried in a pile of stones. The labourers of the day earned 
 their wages for piling them together, consumed and paid for their 
 meat and drink during the time, and that is all the result of the 
 outlay of capital, which, if the Genoese nobles had employed it 
 reproductively in manufacturing or transporting the objects of 
 civilized life for the consumers instead of in building huge palaces, 
 would have vivified the East. Capital is a bank-note for so much 
 human labour. If its value is not reproduced by its outlay, the 
 holder of it is wasting his means, and the industrious of the coun- 
 try suffer a loss. 
 
 I mourn not for Genoa. Distant countries conquered, plun- 
 dered, oppressed, reduced to subjection and barbarism, to enable 
 a wealthy and ostentatious aristocracy to vie with each other in 
 splendid extravagance — the middle class extinguished — the useful 
 arts and manufactures, those which diffuse comfort and civiliza- 
 tion through society, and extend by their productive action the 
 
350 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 sphere of human industry, postponed to the ornamental, to those 
 which administer only to the kixurious enjoyment of the few, 
 and add httle or nothing to the means of Hving, well-being, and 
 industry of the many — in the downfall of such a state — of a peo- 
 ple of princes and beggars — what is there to regret? Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh need not turn him in his grave, if the annihilation of the 
 Genoese aristocracy as a state be the greatest of his diplomatic sins. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NOTES ON NAPLES — SCENERY. — VESUVIUS.— POMPEII. — NEAPOLITAN 
 PEOPLE.— CAUSES OF THEIR LOW CONDITION. 
 
 The Bay of Naples will not disappoint the expectation of the 
 most imaginative of the tribe of wanderers. Distant raonntain, 
 peaks tipped with snow rising in the clear intensely blue sky, are 
 encircled by the deep green forests, below which bright pasture 
 and grass fields join to a rich network over the face of the country 
 of vineyards, orchards, olive and orange groves, hamlets, towns, 
 villas, terraces, white walls, and a dazzling confusion of the 
 works of nature and of man. This splendid hill-skirting termi- 
 nates in sea-cliffs, some black, some yellow, some bare, some 
 bending over the waves under the tangled luxuriance of southern 
 vegetation. High over all, the graceful outline of Vesuvius loses 
 itself in the column of smoke«which rises, and spreads in the 
 heavens, concentrating the innumerable details of the vast scene 
 into one harmonious glorious whole. But this magnificence of 
 nature must be seen : it cannot be described. It is seen to most 
 advantage from the sea. On shore you want a suitable fore- 
 ground. You are shut in between white walls on a dusty road, 
 or stand upon terraces with vineyards and orchards, row behind 
 row, all around you; and although these may please at a great 
 distance, they have but a patchy, dotty cfl'ect near the eye, as the 
 foreground of scenery. The poet-painter would scarcely select 
 such objects for the foreground of his landscape. They are too 
 artificial. The great clearness of the Italian atmosphere, the 
 absence of mist, vapour, or exhalation partially hiding, partially 
 showing distant objects, and thus giving the mind play upon 
 them, is also against the picturesque efloct of this scenery in 
 general. All is distinctly seen. There is no delusion, or rather 
 there is the delusion that distances appear smaller, and elevations 
 lower than they actually arc. In our northern scenery, from the 
 
352 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 vapour in the atmosphere, the refraction of the rays from a dis- 
 tant mountain makes it visually, and to the sense of sight posi- 
 tively, higher than the actual measurement confirms : and where 
 mist and cloud partially hide the mountain, there is a mental 
 refraction magnifying the unseen, as well as a visual refraction 
 enlarging the seen. It is this difference of the medium through 
 which a country is viewed, and which in our cloudy atmosphere 
 brings our own imaginations to act on objects of mountain scene- 
 ry, that makes the traveller from the north doubt whether the 
 mountains he sees so clearly and minutely in the south are really 
 so much higher than those he has been accustomed to see half 
 hid in mist and vapour. 
 
 Vesuvius is an isolated mountain about three miles from the 
 sea, of an elevation of 3,792 feet. An American would call it an 
 elegant mountain, and no English word can better express its 
 character, so graceful are the flowing outlines of its slopes from 
 the base to the summit, on every side. Vesuvius has been pro- 
 digiously higher than it now is, for the Monte Somma, a peak 
 about 800 yards north of the present cone, and Ottaiana on the 
 south, are apparently peaks remaining of the circumference of the 
 base of some vast ancient cone. These three remaining peaks, 
 of which Monte Somma is the highest, belong to one mountain- 
 base, although divided above by chasms of the vast extinct crater, 
 and, by ravines below, and the whole mountain-mass is a single 
 independent elevation on a vast plain, and unconnected with the 
 Apennines, To ascend Vesuvius is no very difficult feat. The 
 stranger is beset with guides waiting at Portici with their mules 
 and asses, and, like watermen at the Tower stairs, clamorous 
 for a fare, and so violent in their gesticulations, that the traveller 
 might suppose they were going to roast him at the volcano, and 
 were quarreling about their shares of the meat. But it is the 
 custom of these people to scream at the top of their voices in 
 ordinary conversation, and to use their hands and arms, as well 
 as their tongues, as explanatory organs. In fact no guide is ne- 
 cessary, there being a regular foot-path, and the shape of the 
 ground, to lead any one accustomed to hills, and the foot-path is 
 well frequented at all hours. You ride up to the hermitage, a 
 house of two stories high like an old Highland manse, about half 
 way up, or about an hour and a quarter's walk from the beginning 
 of the ascent. It is situated on the dividing ridge between the 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 353 
 
 ravine through which the lava of the ancient crater of Monte 
 Somma has flowed, and that through which the lava of the pre- 
 sent crater, in its recent eruptions, has partly taken its course. It 
 is a ridge formed apparently by the deposition of stones and ashes 
 from the volcano, upon a natural feature of the ground rock of 
 the mountain. The hermitage is at the end of the cultivated 
 ground on the side of Vesuvius. Above it, all is lava or scoriae, 
 and some of this rubbish was still so hot that lava ejected eight 
 months before ignited dry leaves thrust into its crevices. At this 
 hermitage you may get hermit's fare for your money, a bottle of 
 good wine and an omelette : and ladies are carried to the summit 
 from hence in about an hour and a half, in a sort of sedan-chair, 
 with about as much fatigue and danger, as in being sedanned on 
 a frosty night from the lowest to the highest of the fashionable 
 streets of the city of Bath. 
 
 Is there any reason for supposing that the fire-seat, the focus 
 of this volcano, is situated far below the level of the plain on 
 which the mountain stands, and is not contained altogether, or 
 principally, within the walls of the mountain itself? Travellers 
 and geologists are very apt to run poetical, when they fall in with 
 burning mountains. They tell us that this and the other great 
 volcanoes of the world are vents of a great central fire in the 
 interior of our globe. How does this vast central fire burn with- 
 out known communications with atmospheric air or water ? At 
 what depth below the crust of the earth is it in activity ? In the 
 last eruption of Vesuvius in 1S39, the elevation in the air to 
 which luminous matter, stones or ashes were thrown, was esti- 
 mated or guessed by intelligent observers to be about one half of 
 the apparent height of the mountain. In the great eruption of 
 the 8th of August, 1779, the height of the column of flame, or 
 ignited matter, was estimated at one and a half the height of the 
 mountain, or 1800 yards : and Sir William Hamilton even reckons 
 it to have been 3,600 yards, or above two miles high. Stones, as 
 large as hogsheads, are stated by the Abbe de la Torre to have 
 been projected to the elevation of 400 yards. In 1775, a mass of 
 lava of 120 cubic feet is stated by De Bottis to have been pro- 
 jected to an elevation from which he reckoned the descent to have 
 occupied nine seconds of time. This fact would also give an 
 elevation of about 400 yards. Now the projecting force cannot 
 have been working at any immense distance below, such as the 
 
354 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 semi-diameter of the earth, nor at any considerable portion of it, 
 because gravity and atmospheric resistance would oppose the 
 elevation of huge masses of stone through such a space. No 
 solid masses of matter, such as stones, rocks, lava, could be pro- 
 jected entire and compact, against the column of air through such 
 a distance ; but would come to the surface of the earth from such 
 a depth, be the crust over this central focus ever so thin, in a liquid 
 or gaseous state. The points of ejection, also, the vents of a cen- 
 tral fire action, would naturally be always and invariably in the 
 points of least resistance ; that is, in the lowest plains, not in the 
 points of greatest resistance, the summits of high and weighty 
 mountains resting on the plains. The prodigious power of vol- 
 canic agency on and above the surface of the earth, is the strongest 
 proof that the focus of that power is at no immense distance be- 
 low its visible energy. The supposed communications between 
 Vesuvius and Etna, Stromboli, Hecla, or even the Solfaterra, are 
 not supported by historical facts of any correspondence between 
 their eruptions. The communication even of this volcanic focus 
 with the sea, at three miles' distance, is very doubtful, and rests 
 only upon the ejection of torrents of water in one or two of the 
 recorded eruptions : but besides the explanation of rain-water 
 accumulating in the hollow of the crater, and at one period form- 
 ing in it a small pond or lake, the gases evolved in the combustion 
 within the crater might, by their combination in the air, produce 
 water. Water from the sea passing through such a focus of lire, 
 would undoubtedly be ejected in a gaseous state. 
 
 The most instructive appearance to the traveller who carries 
 the ordinary smattering of geological theory with him is, that the 
 ashes, cinders, dust, stones, whether, loose, or indurated and ce- 
 mented by pressure, heat, or other causes, into tufa rock more 
 or less compact — in short, all ejected matter from the volcano that 
 is not ejected in a liquid state like lava, is deposited in a distinct 
 order or stratification. The larger particles are in one regular bed, 
 above which is another bed of finer, above that another and an- 
 other of finer and finer particles, each bed lying with a certain 
 character of regularity above the other, as in water depositions; 
 and then comes another bed or layer of rougher, larger particles, 
 and a similar gradation of finer regularly above it. Where the 
 tufa rock is laid bare in section, as by the road leading to the her- 
 mitage, and also in the rocks about Naples, and in the excavations 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. ' 355 
 
 at Pompeii, this stratified tendency of the ejected matter is to be 
 seen. When the matter— dust, ashes, fine particles, stones — is 
 ejected, the densest falls first to the ground, is the first deposited 
 from tire atmosphere, exactly as if water instead of air had been 
 the medium in which the particles had been suspended.* Then 
 follow bed after bed, each in succession, according to the size or 
 gravity of its particles. A new ejection of the same eruption 
 follows with the same succession from coarse to fine particles, 
 deposited upon the former deposition. If this tendency to strati- 
 fication in the ejected matter of volcanic agency be confirmed by 
 more extensive observation, it would explain in a satisfactory 
 way many puzzling geological appearances — such as tlie stratified 
 formation of rocks composed of crystalline or chemically aggre- 
 gated particles, the veins or bands of rough pebbles in old red 
 sandstone, the stripes alternating in almost all rocks. If geologists 
 exclude all regularity from volcanic agency, and confine stratifi- 
 cation to aqueous deposition, how many deluges must they take 
 to account for a striped pebble, or a sandstone with bands or beds 
 running through it at every three or four inches, or lamcllated 
 structure of any kind? And how would they account for the 
 formation of gneiss with its character of regularity in the arrange- 
 ment of its particles ? The striated arrangement of its constituent 
 particles, and the lamellated structure and stratified formation of 
 rock of crystalline or chemically aggregated particles, may all be 
 explained without the clumsy supposition of some unknown fluid 
 in which these particles were suspended, and from which they 
 were mechanically deposited, by taking them as they naturally lie 
 after being ejected by a volcano and deposited in succession ac- 
 cording to their gravity, and supposing them welded or partly 
 fused together by the continuance or renewal of the heat. The 
 air as well as water has been a medium in forming the mechanically 
 deposited stratified rocks, and it is instructive to sec, from what 
 goes on at eruptions of this volcano, that many appearances 
 
 * Goethe in his observations, dated Cth Marcli, 1787, on Vesusiiis in a stale 
 of eruption, says, that the heavy pieces of rock fell first and rolled down the 
 cone with a deadening noise; the smaller stones fell pattering afterwards, and 
 then the shower of ashes rushed down ; and that this was by regular pauses, 
 which could even be measured by counting in the intervals between each 
 shower. — Goethe's Ualidnishc licise. 
 
356 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ascribed to aqueous belong in reality also to volcanic agency, and 
 may be simply explained by similar processes going on here ac- 
 cording to the usual law of gravity. 
 
 Pompeii, the victim of the mountain, loses much of its. interest 
 from the removal to the museum at Naples of every article that 
 could be removed. All the ancient utensils, household goods, 
 and personal ornaments of the inhabitants, had an interest upon 
 the very spot where they were last used and handled by their 
 owners eighteen centuries ago, which is lost under glass cases, 
 in modern show-rooms, with a prattling cicerone in black silk 
 name-me-nots showing them off. What remains at Pompeii are 
 pillars of brick stuccoed over, walls stuccoed, and embellished 
 with some rude paintings and ornaments in fresco on the plaster, 
 done mostly with red ochre, and some mosaic or tesselated work 
 in marble on the floor, representing, in black and white inlaid 
 stones, ill-drawn figures of animals, and such ornaments. The 
 interior arrangement of the houses is more interesting than any 
 thing remaining in situ at Pompeii. It gives us some idea of the 
 amount, or rather of the want of physical civilization, of domestic 
 comfort, and of luxury in the ordinary dwellings of the ancients. 
 The streets of Pompeii have been narrow lanes, ill paved and ill 
 kept, the ruts worn by the cart wheels in the bare rock appearing 
 in the street ; and from these ruts being single, it is to be pre- 
 sumed that there was little continuous traffic of carts in opposite 
 directions, no lines of going and coming carts ; but, as is the case 
 now in small Italian towns, the carts have come in from the 
 country in the morning, and gone out in the evening in the same 
 ruts in which they arrived. The houses have been generally 
 low without upstair rooms, and constructed generally on one 
 plan. An outside wall encloses a square or oblong space, and 
 except the street door, is without opening to the outside for 
 light or air. The roof has run with a slight slope from this out- 
 side dead wall to an inner wall parallel to it, which determined 
 the breadth of the apartments. A row of pillars connected with 
 each other by round arches, or by beams within this inner wall 
 all round the open space, has supported the extremity of the roof 
 on every side of the square open court, and has furnished a 
 covered colonnade all round it. In the centre of this open court, 
 which is in the best houses paved with marble in ornamental 
 figures, has been a fountain, cistern, or receptacle for the rain 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 357 
 
 water from the roofs ; and this open court appears to have been 
 the drawing-room of the mansion, or its equivalent. The doors 
 and windows of all the rooms have opened into 'tlie colonnade. 
 The rooms are very small, about ten or twelve feet square, and 
 have been dark and ill ventilated, the windows, small openings, 
 in general without glass, and for sake of shelter made in the 
 inside wall under the roof of the colonnade. The rooms have 
 seldom communications with each other, but each opens into the 
 covered gallery or colonnade. The best rooms are very small, 
 have never been lined with wood, but merely plastered, and a 
 rude ornament in ochre or red lead delineated on the plaster. 
 Under this square of dwelling rooms has been a sunk floor, or 
 square of vaults for cellars, and for lotlging the slaves. In one of 
 these was found the skeleton of a slave, who has had a bell fast- 
 ened round his neck, as we put a bell on a cow or sheep. In none 
 of these mansions, which, with masters and slaves, must have 
 been very close, crowded, and inconvenient, is there any appear- 
 ance of an outhouse, yard, privy, or detached building of any kind. 
 The rooms have been merely used to retire to at night or in bad 
 weather; and the open court in the centre, the covered colonnade 
 running round it, and the bath-room, have been the living places 
 by day. A basking, Lazaroni, out-of-door life has been then, as 
 now, the way of living in this part of Italy. 
 
 The two distinct theatres, one for comedy and one for tragedy, 
 and the amphitheatre with its seats for the different classes of 
 spectators, its dens for the wild beasts, its issues for them, and for 
 the prisoners condemned to be their victims — often prisoners of 
 war, not criminals— are the most interesting remains of public 
 structures in Pompeii. What a singular state of barbaric civili- 
 zation ! The whole population of a little town of six or eight 
 thousand inhabitants, even the female sex, the vestals, specta- 
 tors of such scenes of carnage ! All classes delighting in combats 
 which have not had even the excitement of an equality between 
 the parties, or of a doubtful issue, or of the possibility of the 
 escape of the human combatant ! The sheer lust of blood-and- 
 torturc spectacle has been the only gratification of this refined 
 people ! The scholarship of eighteen centuries has been extoll- 
 ing Roman virtue, Roman civilization, Roman arts, arms, and 
 institutions, until men arc almost afraid to express the opinion, 
 that the fine arts, sculpture, architecture, poetry, oratory, and all 
 
358 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the rest of them, have been vastly over-rated as indications, or 
 means of civilization. The Romans, with all these, were in a 
 more uncivilized social condition, had more of the tastes and 
 habits of savage life in their highest and most refined period, than 
 the inhabitants of New Zealand or of the Sandwich Islands, 
 when We first discovered them. King Tommaha or Prince Pom- 
 maree was, in reality, much less of a savage than Julius Cajsar, 
 or Augustus. 
 
 Naples is a wonderful den of human animals. Beggars, 
 thieves, and idlers are lounging at every corner: ladies, monks 
 and military fill the streets. Where is the industry, or what the 
 means and capital, that keeps this mass in life and movement ? 
 It must be the concentration and expenditure of almost all the 
 incomes and revenues of the kingdom, in this one spot, by no- 
 bility, churchmen, and military. The bustle and hubbub in the 
 Strada de Toledo is as great as in the most crowded street of 
 London ; but if you mark the stream of people, you see the crowd 
 here consists of idlers hanging about, not of passengers hastening 
 silently through on their affairs. All are talking at once at the 
 highest pitch of their voices, and hands and arms are going as 
 violently as tongues. In the secondary and poorer streets, peo- 
 ple squatting on the stones in the sun or shade, sleeping, eating, 
 working, hunting for vermin in their clothes, playing a favourite 
 game of betting on the number of fingers held up (a Roman 
 game, micare digitis), all out of doors, and all screaming like 
 peacocks, give no favourable impression of their social condition. 
 
 It is very striking to see in this finest soil and climate of Europe, 
 this land overflowing with the richest productions for the use of 
 man, the peasantry and townspeople of the labouring class clothed 
 in sheepskins with the wool on, and in all respects worse clad, 
 more wretched, and in food, lodging, property, sense of decency 
 in their habits and ways of living, in a lower condition than the 
 Laplander on the Norwegian fielde. Their fine climate is their 
 curse. Many of the wants and desires which with us are the 
 greatest stimulants to industry, and to all the virtues that spring 
 from industry, are of little importance here in the catalogue of 
 human gratifications. Life may be enjoyed without them ; and 
 therefore the industry is wanting, along with the motives. The 
 labouring man with us, who could ask, why should I strive to get 
 regular employment, or to earn high wages? would be deemed 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 359 
 
 insane. To buy mfeat, drink, fuel, lodging, clothing, and social 
 respect among those of your own station, would be the reply. 
 But in this country, the labouring man is no fool, who asks, what 
 enjoyment or gratification can high wages gained by constant hard 
 work give me, equal to the enjoyment of doing nothing, of bask- 
 ing in the sun, or sleeping in the shade, doing nothing? Fuel, 
 clothing, lodging, food, are in this climate supplied almost sponta- 
 neously to man. Fuel to cook with is all we need of firing, and 
 even that may be dispensed with by most working people, "for 
 our food is sold to us ready cooked at the corner of every street. 
 It would be waste, and no comfort in it, to light a fire in our own 
 dwellings. Clothing we only want to cover our nakedness; a 
 ragged cloak, or sheepskin jacket three generations old, does that. 
 Lodging is only necessary to sleep in, and shelter us from rain. 
 A mere shed, like a coach-house, does that. We live out of doors. 
 Animal food is not necessary, where olive oil is so plentiful as to 
 be used for frying all vegetable and farinaceous food, and assimi- 
 lating it, as nutritious aliment, to flesh meat. Olive oil, wine, 
 Indian corn, flour, legumes, fruit, are to be got in exchange for 
 our labour at vintage and harvest, during a few weeks when 
 these crops require a great number of hands at once. Why should 
 we labour every day? This is the condition of all around us in 
 our station ; why should we labour ? 
 
 It is the case, that steady, regular, every-day industry is actually 
 not required for enabling these people to satisfy the few wants 
 which the blessings of the climate, of the soil, and of the cheap 
 nutriment of olive oil, Indian corn, small fish, and fruits, leave 
 them ; and they only work by fits and starts. Lazaroni is rather 
 a character, than a class of the people, They are all Lazaroni in 
 their social condition, in the lounging about idle, and in a state 
 almost of nudity, when not forced by want to look for a short job, 
 and in their out-of-door way of living. It is in the nature of the 
 products of the climate, that the demand for labour on the land 
 is desultory — requiring great numbers of hands for short periods; 
 and, consequently, the payments are made in portions of the 
 material worked upon, not in regular wages. But this material 
 includes those necessaries of life for which, in other climes, people 
 must labour steadily, day after day. The aniount of food here, 
 in chestnuts, figs, fruit, legumes, cakes of Indian corn, various small 
 fish, and in the nutriment of olive oil added to those otherwise 
 
360 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 unsubstantial articles of diet, surpasses all we understand by 
 abundance in the northern countries ; and all these require but 
 very little human labour for their production. Food for the idle, 
 that is food requiring small and irregular application only of 
 human labour, is abundant ; and this is evident, from the way 
 in which common work is carried on. Time and labour seem 
 not worth saving in their estimation. The women are universally 
 sauntering about, spinning wool or flax with the distaff and spin- 
 dle. A woman will spin as much yarn at her spinning-wheel in 
 an hour, as in a week with her distaff and spindle. But I doubt^ 
 if a spinning-wheel could be found in Naples. I have seen two 
 men carrying between them, slung upon a pole on their shoulders, 
 a common-sized paving-stone. One of them could have trans- 
 ported six such stones in a common wheelbarrow, with ease. 
 Boats are manned with six or seven, or even ten men. A man 
 and a boy, or, at the utmost, two men, would be the crew of such 
 a craft in any other country. I have seen two asses with a driver 
 to each, and a padrone, or overseer, on horseback to attend them, 
 employed in trailing into town two sticks with each ass, one on 
 each side of the saddle, and the sticks positively of a size that one 
 of the drivers might have carried the whole four. In every job, 
 the padrone, the helper, the looker-on, the talker, and the listener, 
 seem indispensable personages. The division of labour may be 
 an evil as well as a good in society. It is an evil, if the time and 
 labour saved by it be not applied to reproduction. It is an evil 
 among these Lazaroni. Six men doing the work of two merely 
 multiply themselves and their idle habits by their division of 
 labour. They do nothing with the time and labour they have 
 gained by the division — if they have gained any by it — in their 
 way of working. This is a point not so thoroughly considered by 
 our political economist as it should be. The saving of time and 
 labour by machinery, or by a division of labour, is not of itself 
 of any value, nor is it adding to national wealth of itself, as our 
 great political economist Adam Smith and M'Culloch teach us. 
 It is only of value, and adding to national wealth, if the time and 
 labour saved be employed in other production. Steam, for in- 
 stance, applied to pumping water out of mines, to moving ma- 
 chinery, and so on, adds to national wealth, only because the men 
 and time employed in pumping, or in moving hand-engines, are 
 immediately employed in other analogous productive labour. But 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 361 
 
 if they conld not be employed, if any branch of industry, as, for 
 instance, all husbandry labour, or all shoemaking, or all tailoring, 
 could be executed by steam machinery, the nation, the community, 
 would be no gainer, unless the classes thrown ont of work, and 
 idle, can be, and are employed and absorbed in some other kind 
 of productive labour. One class only, the employers, would be 
 gainers at the expense of another class; and unless that class can 
 become productive in some other branch of industry, there is a 
 loss, not a gain, to the nation even by machinery. The division 
 of labour here is the offspring of idleness, not of industry ; and 
 produces idleness, not industry. It is followed by no increased 
 production. This evil, in the social condition of the people of 
 Italy, is so closely connected with the nature of the soil and cli- 
 mate, that it may be doubted if the inhabitants of this part of the 
 Italian peninsula ever were in any higher state of civilization than 
 they are in at this day. What were the inhabitants of Pompeii, 
 but a population of slaves cultivating the earth in chains, of Laza- 
 roni basking in the sun, and of public functionaries and patricians 
 of enormous wealth, to whom the Lazaroni were so formidable 
 that it was necessary to feed them, and keep them in amusement 
 and excitement by such shows and bloody spectacles as suited 
 their half savage state? The mass of the people then, as now, 
 have had no wants but those which the soil, with desultory 
 labour, could supply — no civilizing desires for comforts and en- 
 joyments which industry only produces. 
 
 It is characteristic here of the social condition, that all trades- 
 men's work — shoemakers', tinsmiths', coppersmiths' work — is 
 carried on out of doors, in the open air, amidst the gossip and 
 bustle of the street passengers ; and all domestic business is done 
 on the pavement, or in cellars, or vaults of coach-house-like 
 dwellings, with a side open to the street, leaving the whole in- 
 terior of their households exposed to view, and only shut in at 
 night or in rainy weather, there being no windows to these dens. 
 The sense or feeling of domestic privacy, or the tastes, civilized 
 habits, and virtues connected with this feeling, cannot exist, where 
 the whole family are separated from the view of the passengers 
 in the streets, even when in bed, only by a bit of mat hung up for 
 the occasion. Whoever considers well the causes which act on 
 the social state of the Irish or Neapolitan, and the Swiss or Frencli 
 people in the same station of life, will find that the lodging of a 
 24 
 
362 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 population, the ordinary standard of house accommodation for 
 the families of the lowest class, is very closely connected with 
 their moral condition. The first step, perhaps, towards the im- 
 buing the Irish people with the peaceful habits they are accused 
 of wanting, would be giving them timber free of duty, for build- 
 ing their dwellings on a civilized standard of accommodation. 
 
 The soil and climate which produce industry produce the real 
 crop on which man lives in well-being, civilization and comfort 
 — and not the soil and climate which produce the objects of in- 
 dustry : and viewing the world in large, industry will be found 
 to thrive in every country almost in the inverse ratio to the value 
 and amount of its natural productions. This is a just balance 
 made by Providence in the lot of man. With their crops of wine, 
 oil, silk, grain of every kind, and endless succession of fruits and 
 of vegetable food, with their perpetual fine weather and easy Ufe, 
 what is the condition, produced by these very advantages, of the 
 inhabitants of this earthly paradise ? The poorest cotter on the 
 poorest hill-side on the north of Scotland is a decently clothed, 
 decently brought-up, intellectual man, with habits and ideas of a 
 civilized being, compared to the half-naked, filthy, half-savage 
 human animal wallowing in a sheepskin with the wool on, and a 
 tattered brown cloak as his only body covering, upon the marble 
 steps of the palaces and churches of Italy. The soil and climate 
 are not more superior in the neighbourhood of Naples to the soil 
 and climate of the north of Europe than the social and moral con- 
 dition of the people is inferior. But moral causes, as well as 
 physical, have their part in this low social condition of the people 
 of Naples. The population is reckoned about 338,000 souls. It 
 is a city, therefore, about one-third more populous than Glasgow. 
 Here we see strikingly the social effects of functionarism in with- 
 drawing from the paths of industry the class who should be dif- 
 fusing employment in the useful arts among the labouring classes 
 around them. In Naples there are 4,632 secular clergy. If to 
 these we add the monastic clergy of 1,960 monks, and the nuns, 
 who are 717 in number, we have in all 7,809 persons withdrawn 
 from the pursuits of industry, and earning social influence and 
 all that men strive to obtain by industry, in other employments 
 than the useful arts. We see here, in its extreme, the working of 
 a forced church extension, of a numerous establishment of clergy 
 in a community. The effects will be proportionably the same 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 363 
 
 whatsoever be the reUgion; the same proportionably in Presbyte- 
 rian Glasgow as in Catholic Naples, if the clerical body were in- 
 creased upon the principle of what governments and clergy may 
 think requisite for a people, instead of upon the principle that the 
 people themselves will provide for their own religious instruction 
 according to their wants, and recipient capability of using it. 
 Carry the clerical establishment of Glasgow to 4,873 persons, 
 which would be in proportion to that of Naples — if that number 
 would satisfy our admirers of church extension — abstract this 
 number from the pursuits of productive industry — and Glasgow 
 would be another Naples. 
 
 This Naples is the St. Giles's of Europe. I would advise the 
 first pedler who travels this road to bring in his pack a goodly 
 assortment of small-toothed combs — not that the natives are civil- 
 ized enough to need such machinery — they use more summary 
 measures, and you see them sitting all of a row before their doors 
 with their heads in each other's laps in turns, and searching for — 
 animated ideas ; — but for the benefit of the English ladies who 
 may visit Naples, A man impregnates his skin with the effluvia 
 of tobacco and wine, and offers no such tempting pasture to the 
 herds and flocks of his Neapolitan majesty ; but a delicate English 
 lady, in all her cleanliness and loveliness, swarming, as she must 
 be — whew ! The English lady, in fact, must leave all her delicacy 
 at home, and all her blushes, unless a small travelling assortment, 
 if she intends to reside among this more than half-naked, and all 
 alive people. The country about Naples may be an earthly 
 paradise : but it is paradise after the fall, given up to the serpent 
 for an habitation. 
 
CHAPTER XVIir. 
 
 TRAVELLING IN ITALY.— VETTURINL— CAPUA.— TERRACINA.— PONTINE 
 MARSHES.— MAREMMA.— THE APPROACH TO ROME.— COLISEUM. 
 
 There are three ways of travelling in Italy. One is to travel 
 post, carrying all England along with you in your own English 
 travelling carriage. With English books, English servants, 
 English habits, and a foreign courier to cheat him, the English 
 traveller may get over a good deal of country, and a good deal of 
 money in this way, without the trouble of taking in any more 
 ideas, or loading the memory with any more weighty matters 
 than in seeing a diorama passing before his eyes. Another way 
 is to travel in your own foreign carriage with hired horses with 
 which the vetturino drives you to your journey's end, at the rate 
 of five-and-twenty or thirty miles a day. There is often the in- 
 convenience attending this way, that asthe driver, at the end of 
 his engagement, may have to ride his horses back without any 
 return fare, which he would have if the carriage as well as the 
 horses belonged to him, you are not much cheaper, and are vastly 
 slower in your movements, than with post horses: and the owner, 
 or vetturino, will scarcely come himself to ride back with his 
 horses if he can put off any lad upon you to do the job. The 
 third, and ordinary way of travelling for all ranks in the country, 
 is by a voiturin, or vetturino, who has his own carriage and 
 horses. They are a class of coach proprietors, many of them in- 
 telligent, respectable men, who drive a light carriage of their own 
 that will hold four inside and two outside passengers, and with a 
 pair of gaunt, bony horses. You engage the number of places 
 you want, and the vetturino visits all the inns to find other tra- 
 vellers going the same road to fill up the empty places. There 
 is, of course, considerable difference in the rates paid, even in the 
 same carriage, for the same distance, as the vetturino will take 
 any fare at last rather than none. It is necessary, also, to have a 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 365 
 
 regular contract in writing, and to insure it by taking an earnest 
 upon it — a piece of money from the vetturiuo, which is returned 
 to him when he is fairly on the road ; for in Italy it appears to 
 be the principle in all dealings between man and man — impose if 
 you can. The average expense, travelling in this way, is about 
 16.?. sterling a day for each passenger : but this includes your 
 living on the road, that is, a dinner-breakfast — dinner as to the 
 fare, but breakfast as to the hour, about ten or eleven — a good 
 supper at eight or nine in the evening, and your bed. The vet- 
 turino always engages for the living, and the traveller is much 
 better served, and more cheaply, than if he paid for himself. The 
 vetturini form a class all over the Continent, known to each other, 
 and have the innkeepers at their command, because the inn which 
 had the reputation of serving their passengers ill might as well be 
 shut up. An English family travelling in their own carriage with 
 four post horses would not get the best beds or the best fare at 
 every Italian inn, if a known vetturino with his passengers came 
 to the door at the same moment. The ordinary way of their 
 travelling is, to start at four in the morning, and stop at nine or 
 ten. They start again at two and travel till six or seven, and in 
 this way get on for weeks together, at the rate of thirty miles a 
 day. The old-fashioned arrangement of the vetturino undertaking 
 for the lodging and feeding, as well as for the transporting of his 
 passengers, is not, as our English tourists imagine, devised for the 
 sake of saving them from being imposed upon by Italian inn- 
 keepers. It is a remnant of ancient manners from the ages of 
 pilgrimages and crusaders, when bands of pious passengers from 
 all parts of Christendom contracted with conductors to lead them 
 to Rome, and purvey for them out and home. It is at this day 
 the best way for the traveller to see a foreign country. It takes 
 him as fast over it as he can go, with the advantage of seeing 
 what is remarkable, and brings him into contact with people of 
 the country, and travellers of all kinds and classes. 
 
 We set out early in the morning from Naples by vetturino, 
 and got to Mola de Gaeta for the first night's quarters, stopping 
 in the forenoon, for a few hours, at Capua. The road to Capua 
 is over a highly cultivated fertile plain. The most fertile land in 
 Europe is probably hereabouts, in the plain watered by the Vul- 
 turno, because, with the finest climate for vegetable production, 
 the soil is a deep black, alluvial, garden mould, which, in any 
 
366 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 climate, would be rich land ; and from its flat surface, and low 
 level, it retains the necessary moisture, or receives it easily by 
 irrigation. The gods, says Polybius, might dispute the possession 
 of such a delicious plain as that of Capua. Yet in this earthly 
 paradise, the people are not merely in rags and wretchedness ; it 
 is difficult even to conceive humanity in so low a condition as 
 you see it in here. In the streets of Capua, you see animals 
 which you can scarcely acknowledge to be human beings. The 
 Esquimaux has a covering for his body, which, even in his rude 
 state, shows a sense of decency, as well as the mere feeling of 
 cold — a sense of ornament even may be traced in his seal-skin 
 garment. But here the sense of decency, even in the female 
 animal of the human species, is apparently little higher than 
 among the irrational creatures. How low bad government may 
 reduce the civilization of a country is impressively brought out 
 here. Come to Capua, all ye conservatives of existing institutions, 
 all ye defenders of things as they are, all ye good, pious, moral 
 gentlemen of England, who look with aversion on every reform, 
 with horror on every social change, come to Capua, and see the 
 working of your principle of conservatism. It is not the wish 
 certainly of the Neapolitan government to have its subjects in a 
 low and miserable condition : but it is the fear of change, our own 
 principle of conservatism — which shuns all improvement ; and 
 where society is not improving, it is retrograding. There is no 
 stand-still in human aff'airs. 
 
 From Mola de Gaeta, where a branch of low hills from the 
 Apennine chain approaches the coast, we travelled next day to 
 Terracina, passing through the beautiful scenery around the 
 httle towns of Ilri and Fondi. Fondi is more celebrated for the 
 attempt, in 1534, of Hayraddin Barbarossa with a Turkish 
 squadron, to carry off, for the seraglio, the beautiful Countess 
 Julia de Gonzagua, than for the eloquence or logic of Thomas 
 d'Aquinas. Yet here he taught theology. He was a great man 
 in his day, and for generations after his day:— for ideas never 
 die, and his may still be influencing theological and metaphysical 
 science. 
 
 In this Italian atmosphere, there is a transparency in the shadows 
 seldom seen in our climate in our rural scenery. With us, all that 
 is in shade is indistinctly made out. The shadows in our land- 
 scape paintings, and drawings, are often laid in muddy, because, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 367 
 
 in fact, they often are so in nature — and it is not every painter 
 wiio is a poet of the brush ; who can select, and avoid or take 
 what nature offers. Copying nature hteratini is not painting well. 
 Here objects, even in the deepest shadow of a mountain, are very 
 distinct, both in outhne and colour, although kept down, and sub- 
 dued by the general shade : and this atmospheric peculiarity in 
 the real scenery of Italy gives a peculiar character to the paint- 
 ings of it, a something different from the way in which the artists 
 of other countries would conceive and express the same objects 
 under the same circumstances. 
 
 In strolling about Terracina, in defiance of malaria, which has 
 its head quarters here, I came upon a little watermill with a per- 
 pendicular shaft turned round by the rill of water striking upon 
 vanes inserted obliquely in it to receive the impulse — the mill of 
 the Scandinavian peasant, and still found in the Shetland islands, 
 and some of the Hebrides. How very Uttle progress iiad been 
 made by the ancients in the useful arts, at the time when many 
 of the fine arts were carried to great perfection ! A good mill is 
 a machine which, if it ever had existed in a country, could never 
 have been lost as an invention. The Romans have ground their 
 corn in hand, or cattle mills, or mills worked by slave labour, or 
 in such rude machines as this watermill, at a time when, in archi- 
 tecture and sculpture, they had made a progress not yet equaled. 
 Cicero's bread was made of flour ground in such a rude imperfect 
 machine ! They had neither shoes to their feet nor shirts to their 
 backs when, to please the eye, they had statues and magnificent 
 buildings which are still the admiration of the world. The wool- 
 len tunic next the skin worn while it lasted, the woollen toga 
 coarse and heavy as a horse-rug, and the raw wool much less 
 perfectly cleaned of its animal oil than a horse-rug, must have 
 rendered the windward side of the Roman gentleman, with all his 
 luxury, considerably the most agreeable on a sunshine day. 
 
 On leaving Terracina, we come upon the Pontine marshes. 
 The Roman Maremma, or Campagna, extends from the frontier 
 of Tuscany to the Neapolitan frontier, and from the foot of the 
 Apennines to the Mediterranean. This tract, including in its 
 widest scope Rome itself, is all more or less unhealthy, or subject 
 to malaria, but is not all marshy. The greater part, on the con- 
 trary, is a flat, dry, pasture land, with too little rather than loo 
 much moisture, the ditches holding no water from waul of a 
 
368 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 retentive subsoil, and the ponds and watering places for cattle 
 artificial. The Pontine marshes, included in this Maremma, begin 
 here at Terracina, and occupy an area of about eight leagues in 
 length along the coast, by about two in breadth ; and are so in- 
 undated that they cannot be cultivated or inhabited. The whole 
 marshy surface in this state has been estimated at about 56,000 
 English acres. On the south, this marsh is bounded by the sea, 
 or by salt water lagunes ; on the east, by the high grounds and 
 shore at Terracina ; on the north, by the high grounds about 
 Velletri ; and on the west, by the plains of Cisterno. This marsh 
 is formed by the rivers Araasino,Uifente, Cavatella, Tippin, Ninfo, 
 and other mountain streams, which are the drainage of a large 
 amphitheatre of country, but have no sufficient outlet, nor suffi- 
 cient descent to carry off the waters they bring down. In the 
 time of the Romans great works — among others the canal by 
 which Horace travelled, and the Appian way itself,— were con- 
 structed for draining, and giving access to this tract ; and although 
 it was so far rendered habitable that Pliny says there were three- 
 and-twenty towns in or round this district, the same author still 
 speaks of it as a lake, or marsh, of which the exhalations were 
 considered noxious as far as Rome. The draining of this marsh 
 has often been attempted, and abandoned, in later times. The 
 blame of the unsuccessful attempts at drainage is always thrown 
 by travellers upon the papal government. Bad enough the go- 
 vernment may be, and like all governments, good or bad, it must 
 put up with more than its own fair share of blame for all that does 
 not succeed : but the popes in reality have not been so very inert 
 in attempting to recover this land. Martin V, in the beginning 
 of the 15th century, constructed a drain, the Rio Martino, on such 
 a scale that it has been sometimes ascribed to the ancient Romans. 
 His death, in 1431, interrupted this work; but in each succeeding 
 century, in almost each pontificate,considerable efforts at drainage 
 have been made. But to drain an extensive area of flooded marsh 
 land on a level with the sea, or with very little fall, and receiving 
 the water of a very extensive amphitheatre of high grounds, and 
 hills, without any lower level to drain it off into, would puzzle 
 the most Protestant of governments. The Mediterranean Sea, be 
 it remembered, has no rise and fall, no ebb tide giving a drainage 
 of several feet of level for half of the twenty-four hours, as on our 
 no-popery shores of Kent, Lincolnshire, or Holland. After lead- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 369 
 
 ing the inland waters by canals to the sea-side, there is, after all, 
 no outlet or escape for them. This impediment to drainage on all 
 the coasts of the Mediterranean is insurmountable, and from cen- 
 tury to century is necessarily increasing. Land is forming, and 
 gaining upon the sea, by the diluvium of the rivers, and the accu- 
 mulation of vegetable matter on it ; but such low tracts never can 
 have been healthy, never can be made so, and must every century, 
 as the marshy surface extends itself, be growing less and less 
 habitable. True it is these tracts are studded thickly' with shape- 
 less masses of ruined habitations, wljich show that the Maremma, 
 at least, if not the marsh itself, has been inhabited densely in the 
 time of the Romans. But the agricultural population of the 
 ancient Roman territory were slaves working in chains under a 
 few freedmen as slave drivers, or factors, and were in reality 
 in no higher condition than the oxen, or husbandry horses of 
 the present day. The waste of human life, in this class, was re- 
 garded only as a matter of profit and loss. If a farm had to be 
 stocked with slaves, the losses by fever, or malaria, was a matter 
 of no more importance than the tear and wear of horses and 
 cattle in any of our agricultural undertakings — a deduction merely 
 from the gross value of the crops, to be allowed for in the cal- 
 culation. The aqueducts, towns, arches, ruins great and small, 
 thickly sprinkled over this waste and uninhabited Maremma, in- 
 dicate no greater salubrity of the air in former days, but only a 
 greater disregard of human life, nor perhaps any great resident 
 free population. 
 
 The fixed inhabitants of the whole district called Maremma do 
 not now exceed, it is said, 16,000 souls, as, owing to the un- 
 healthiness, or malaria, few places in it are habitable all the year 
 round ; but from 25,000 to 30,000 people come down from the high 
 grounds, the Abruzzi and the Sabine hills, to lay down the crops 
 and to reap them. The unhealthiness is aggravated by this kind 
 of migratory life of the cultivators. When there is work to be 
 done in this flat unwholesome country, they leave the villages on 
 the high ground to pass a few weeks or months in it ; and wood 
 being very scarce, as the Maremma is destitute of trees, they 
 lodge on the ground in temporary straw or reed huts, like bee- 
 hives in shape, put up in the fields in which they are working, 
 with a (e\v sticks or hurdles to support the straw or reeds ; and 
 into these huts the labourer crawls at night, and in the heat of 
 
370 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the day, and sleeps on the bare earth. Fever and ague would 
 be inmates of such a lodging in any climate. This migratory 
 life, also, is unfavourable to the morality, as well as to the health 
 and industry of the people. A shifting population is always in 
 a low moral condition, because the influence of public opinion 
 upon private conduct is lost where the individuals are isolated, 
 and beyond the social restraints and influences which neighbours 
 and friends exercise over each other in a fixed state of inhabita- 
 tion. This appears to be the great demoralizing influence in the 
 condition of the peasantry or labouring class in this part of Italy, 
 and the true cause of the banditti life resorted to sometimes by 
 people who, in general, are found to be not the fixed inhabitants 
 but the migrating wanderers about the Maremma. The little 
 towns, also, in which the people live when not employed in the 
 Maremma — viz., Cisterno, Gensano, Velletri, Albano, and many 
 others— furiiish very unwholesome lodging to the lower, and 
 even the middle classes. The inhabitants occupy ill- ventilated 
 cellars, or coach-houses, on the grt)und floors of the better 
 classes, or of ruinous decaying buildings not fully inhabited. A 
 perpetual malaria must exist in these damp small dungeons with., 
 out ventilation, light, cleanliness, or any domestic convenience. 
 The cooking goes on just within the door, which must be left ajar 
 for receiving light, and letting out the smoke, it being door, win- 
 dow, and chimney, in most of the houses of the labouring class in 
 these little towns. The beds are in the interior of the den, con- 
 cealed by a bit of curtain, or more usually by wine casks, jars, 
 or such household goods, piled up before them. In the far end 
 twinkles a little lamp night and day, before a print of the Virgin. 
 This adoption by the Romish church of the del penates of the 
 ancients is general over Italy. Around these cellars, or ground- 
 floor rooms, is an accumulation of old rubbish of former edifices, 
 from which the exhalations in such a climate must be very un- 
 wholesome. The country could never have been healthy ; and 
 the mode of living could not be less favourable to the health of 
 the people. From Naples to Rome you do not see one individual 
 in a state of robust health. The whole population is of a sickly 
 appearance, like convalescents from fever, or ague, sauntering 
 about their hospital grounds. 
 
 The land all the way from Naples to Rome is held in large 
 estates, let out to metayer tenants who provide the labour, and 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 371 
 
 the landlord the land, stock, and utensils, and the produce is 
 divided between the parties, or it is feued in perpetuity, or for 
 long periods, at lixed and heavy feu rents in kind. From the lit- 
 tle improvement, or alteration for ages, in the modes of husbandry, 
 or markets in Italy, the difference in the vahie of old feu duties 
 and their present value, and between the produce of the same 
 land now and formerly, is not so great as with us in Scotland. 
 The dominium nobile, and the dominium utile, are two distinct 
 interests in the land here as with us ; but the former has not be- 
 come a mere illusory payment for the land compared to its present 
 value; but is still a real rent of estates, and retaining all its original 
 proportion to the value of the land. 
 
 In all these fine southern climates, one evil peculiarly affecting 
 the condition of the working man weighs heavily against all their 
 advantages. It is that, in reality, there are two winters in the 
 year for man and beast. There is not only our winter, little felt, 
 indeed, in some particular localities, as about Naples, but still wet, 
 occasionally cold, and of such weather that agricultural labour is 
 interrupted from the state of the land, cattle must be tended in- 
 doors, and in general in Italy it is very severe ; but there is an- 
 other winter as far as regards labour, a summer-winter, in which, 
 for three or four months, all out-door work of man and beast is 
 suspended by heat, and much more interrupted than it ever is by- 
 cold in our climate. All cattle must be provided for in-doors, as 
 in winter. Fodder must be cut and water carried to them. From 
 extreme cold, man and beast have a relief in hard work; but 
 from overwhelming heat there is no relief but bodily inaction. 
 All water power, as well as animal power, is interrupted by it, 
 and many arts and manufactures cannot, evidently, be carried on 
 in these southern chmates, without an enormous waste of labour 
 and life. This summer-winter, also, is the season of malaria, pro- 
 ducing fevers among working-people exposed to the heat and 
 dews, far more generally, and dangerously, than epidemic diseases 
 in our climate. 
 
 From Cisterno we got to Rome easily in a day, the third from 
 leaving Naples, stopping at Albano to breakfast. Albano stands 
 on high ground, from which the descent into the great plain of the 
 Campagna is very impressive. This plain of the Campagna, 
 boundless to the eye, is without trees, or houses, or ponds, or run- 
 ning waters, but is one vast sheet of dry, fine, pasture grass, 
 
372 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 thickly studded with shapeless remains of buildings. The city of 
 Rome sits by herself in the midst of this green, yet uninhabited, 
 uncultivated, joyless desert. Rome sits here in lonely grandeur 
 on her plain— a type of what Rome was of old in the midst of 
 the world. The approach to Rome by this ancient Appian way 
 has great moral grandeur. For twelve or fifteen miles, pieces of 
 ancient pavement, ancient walls of bricks built checker-wise, 
 shapeless ruins, masses of rubbish of considerable elevation, arches 
 of demolished buildings, monuments with inscriptions not legible, 
 fountains not running, and broken ranges of aqueducts for con- 
 veying water from the hills, are scattered in all directions upon 
 the deserted plain — deserted by man, yet covered with remains 
 of human power, and with the habitations of an extinct popu- 
 lation. There is no sound or sign of human industry on this 
 lifeless sea of grass. The lark singing in the sky, and a solitary 
 shepherd and his dog in the distant horizon, are all of living ob- 
 jects that strike ear or eye. You reach the gate of Rome through 
 the silence and solitude of the grave. Within, all is as silent, so- 
 lemn, and destitute of movement as without. A clerical-looking 
 soldier on guard, a half-asleep functionary of the custom-house, 
 a few labourers working at remarkably slow time on the repair 
 of the causeway, are all the concourse at the gate of the mistress 
 of the world. You pass the gate, are within her walls, and are 
 still in the country, with fields, gardens, and vineyards on each 
 hand. Roads bounded by white walls on each side, a crucifix at 
 every turn of the road, and in the distance a monk, or a beggar 
 crossing it, are all that, for nearly a mile within this gate, remind 
 you that here is Rome. But our road becomes a street at last, 
 with houses, palaces, churches, ruins, temples, triumphaLarches, 
 statues, fountains, priests, monks, soldiers, people, shops, carriages, 
 bustle, and business. 
 
 We found some difficulty in lodging ourselves, as all the^inns 
 and lodging houses are occupied on account of the approaching 
 holy week of Easter, which is celebrated with great pomp by the 
 Catholic church. By going, however, a little beyond the circle 
 within which strangers generally herd, we got very good lodging, 
 in the Via delle Quatre Fontane, at a moderate rate of two pias- 
 tres a day — moderate for Rome at this particular season. It is 
 reckoned that the population of Rome is increased by 30,000 
 strangers generally during the holy week. This estimate is proba- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 373 
 
 biy an exaggeration in modern times, even if it include the inhabi- 
 tants of the neighbouring towns, villages, and country— the pil- 
 grims of a day on foot, in carts, or in chaises, who come for a 
 forenoon, and not strictly the strangers. The number of the latter 
 is no doubt considerable ; but the places of resort being the same 
 for all strangers — the galleries and antiquities, and frequented at 
 certain hours — one sees the whole body of foreigners, more than 
 in other cities, at one time, and is apt to over-estimate their num- 
 bers. There are few or no diligences running daily between 
 Rome and other distant cities : and taking the steam vessels which 
 stop at Civita Vecchia, the voiturins and the post horses at the 
 different stations near Rome into consideration, you see no means 
 of conveying 30,000 travellers and their luggage to and fro in any 
 moderate space of time — nor one-tenth of that number — to the 
 holy week. Artists, foreign clergy on business, and foreign no- 
 bility, with a few of the English of the highest class, and a great 
 body of English travellers of the nondescript classes, form the 
 mass of the foreigners. English sign-boards of " Horses to Hire," 
 "English Grocer and Tea-dealer," " Dealer in Curiosities," and 
 so on, show that there is a perpetual stream of English running 
 through the place. 
 
 A valet-de-place, cicerone, or bear-leader, is the first of the 
 Romans who makes his bow to you, and recommends himself as 
 a guide to all that is remarkable in Rome, at the rate of five francs 
 a day. He is a very useful personage at Rome, provided he is 
 intelligent, and provided you never take him with you. If you 
 do, you are the party fairly entitled to be paid for the day's work, 
 for you have the fatigue of listening to a rigmarole of names and 
 phrases that would tire the patient ear of any of his marble 
 statues. But consult him in the morning before you sally forth, 
 as a kind of two-legged dictionary, get all the information you 
 can out of him about what you intend to see, and the way to it ; 
 pluck him and leave him at home, and the goose is worth his price. 
 
 The Coliseum, of all that Rome incloses, should be seen alone 
 and by moonlight. No other human monument speaks so strongly 
 to the moral sense of man. The deep and lonely silence of the 
 moonlight hour within its vast walls, is broken only by the chirp- 
 ing of the solitary cricket in the grass of that arena which has re- 
 sounded with the shrieks of human beings, the wild yells of fero- 
 cious beasts tearing them, and the acclamations of eighty thou- 
 
374 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 sand spectators rejoicing in the butchery. This is the tritimph of 
 the Christian reUgion. This immense edifice is coeval with 
 Christianity, and is its noblest history. Eighteen centuries ago, 
 the most civilized people on the face of the earth erected this huge 
 pile for savage and bloody spectacles, such as no known tribe on 
 the face of the earth at the present day is so barbarous, so desti- 
 tute of humanity, feeling for others, and discrimination of right 
 and wrong, as to enjoy or tolerate. The New Zealander, or the 
 Cherokee of the present day, stands higher as a moral being im- 
 bued with feehngs of humanity, and of duty to his fellow-men, 
 than the citizen of ancient Rome in his most civilized state. Is 
 this no improvement in the social condition of man ? Is man not 
 in a progressive state as a moral and intellectual being? We may 
 rather ask, if human nature itself has not changed during these 
 eighteen centuries ; and if we really belong to the same species of 
 beings as the men who, eighteen centuries ago, laid those stones 
 upon each other for the uses for which this immense fabric was 
 erected. These stones are still sharply square. Man has changed 
 more than his works. How little appear all the squabbles be- 
 tween church and church, between Catholic and Protestant, 
 Lutheran and Presbyterian, sect and sect, opinion and opinion, 
 when we consider this sublime result of Christianity as a whole, 
 amidst these walls which witnessed its origin, its progress, and 
 are now bearing testimony to its humanizing influences on the 
 condition of man ! Details vanish before the sublime result. 
 Time itself seems to vanish amidst the works of man standing for 
 eighteen centuries, uninjured but by his own hands. What are 
 eighteen centuries in the history of the human race ? — a span of 
 time too short to reduce their buildings to dust, yet long enough 
 to elevate their physical and m^oral condition from the deepest 
 barbarism, ignorance, and wickedness, to civilization, knowledge, 
 and religion ; to raise them morally and intellectually to a new 
 species of beings. The changes of eighteen centuries are enclosed 
 within these gray walls of the Flavian amphitheatre. The mind 
 involuntarily runs back over the footsteps of time, to consider 
 what other events, influential on the condition of man, these walls 
 have witnessed. Is it an unreasonably extended view, here, 
 amidst the remains of the power, civilization, and barbarity of 
 man eighteen hundred years ago, to consider causes which first 
 appeared in the world about three centuries back as only now 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 375 
 
 beginning to act powerfully and visibly in the affairs of society ? 
 The diffusion of knowledge and mental power by the art of print- 
 ing, of religious inquiry by the Reformation, of new and artificial 
 tastes and wants which sprung up suddenly and simultaneously 
 in Europe on the discovery of America and the navigation to the 
 East, and which are now more influential among men as motives 
 of action and industry than the natural wants connected with the 
 support of life— for such are the acquired tastes for objects un- 
 known in former times, as tobacco, coffee, sugar, distilled liquor, 
 which now set in motion more of human activity than the Roman 
 power ever wielded, or all the monarchs of Europe in the present 
 day can command — the introduction of a new article of food in 
 the potato, of a new clothing material in cotton, of a new power 
 for human use in steam, are causes which, if we reflect on their 
 obscure, and unobserved origin and first progress, and their sub- 
 sequent vast development and influence on the human race in 
 this age, we must regard as events in the moral world, parallel 
 and equivalent to those deemed miraculous in the physical. These 
 mighty causes must work out mighty effects in the social condi- 
 tion of man. It is absurd, it is almost impious, to suppose that 
 such moral wonders have been called into action for no purpose 
 — and that the social arrangements constructed when these were 
 not in existence, or only beginning to influence human affairs, 
 can be adapted to the future social condition of man, and sliould 
 be pressed down upon it as of fitting capacity and suitable mould. 
 It is an error not dissimilar to that of the first Jewish converts to 
 Christianity, who witnessed the not more astonishing miracles in 
 the pliysical world, and supposed the effects were to be confined 
 within the circumcision and the law. The whole of civilized so- 
 ciety is in a state of transition. The laws, institutions, the very 
 ideas belonging to those ages of darkness and barbarism which 
 followed the downfall of the Roman empire, are silently but 
 rapidly passing away, and a new state of society is forming itself. 
 A day will arrive in the progress of the human race, when every 
 record or trace of our existing establishments will be regarded 
 with the same curiosity with which we now regard those of the 
 Roman power before its decline. The feudal arrangements of 
 society which sprung up and overspread its ruins are, in their 
 turn, decaying and giving place to other ideas and principles; and 
 in this slow but certain succession of one system of human affairs 
 
376 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 to another, like the successive formations of rocks in geological 
 science, the philosopher and the truly pious men hail in every 
 change an evident amelioration of the moral and physical condi- 
 tion of mankind, a wonderful advance in religion, morality, good 
 government, and well-being; and leave to the bigots in legislation 
 and religious forms the inconsistent and fruitless attempt to hold 
 back this mighty movement of divine and beneficent will for the 
 improvement of the moral and physical condition of its creatures. 
 These walls of the Flavian amphitheatre may witness in the next 
 eighteen centiiries — and no natural cause seems to forbid the idea 
 of their enduring so long — changes and improvements in the state 
 of human society, as great as those which have consigned them 
 in our times to the lizard and the owl. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 NOTES ON ST. PETER'S.— ON ROME.— POPULATION.— POSITION.— CAUSES 
 OF THE RISE OF ROME.— ORIGIN OF RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.— CIVILIZA- 
 TION OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 Great is my veneration for the opinions of all constituted 
 authorities — from the pope's to the kirk-session officer's — from 
 the lord of session's to the town-crier's — and doubly great for the 
 opinions of the self-constituted authorities in the realms of litera- 
 ture and taste. In the courts of these authorities, animosity, 
 virulence, and bad feeling rise high, just in proportion to the 
 smallness and unimportance of the matters in question. With 
 fear and trembling, therefore, I venture to propound my own secret 
 heresy in a small matter of taste, and to avow that St. Peter's, the 
 great cathedral of St. Peter, appears to me a great architectural 
 failure. The parts are magnificent, and the whole of no effect 
 by reason of the magnificence of the parts. They divide the 
 effect, distract the attention of the spectator, and prevent any 
 adequate impression from the first view of a structure so vast as 
 a whole. The spectator only views it piecemeal, not as one mass. 
 We all know that St. Paul's, with its dome, could stand inside of 
 St. Peter's ; yet the impression of St. Paul's on the spectator is so 
 much greater, that it is with difficulty, and upon consideration and 
 comparison only, that he admits the dimensions of the fabric, and 
 especially of the dome, to be so greatly inferior to St. Peter's ; 
 and he finds the dome of St. Paul's far more impressive and 
 grand than that of St, Peter's, both in the near and in the distant 
 view, both inside and outside. The reason I imagine to be, that 
 the dome of St. Paul's is simple, without accompaniment ; the 
 spectator sees it, and it alone ; and receives its full impression un- 
 disturbed, without by any superfluity of parts, or within by any 
 profusion of ornament. St. Peter's, again, is overloaded in the 
 exterior by so many accompaniments of pillars, colonnades, aiul 
 ornaments, that the mind receives no undivided impression from 
 25 
 
378 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 ii as a whole. The inside, with its silk hangings, brilliant paint- 
 ings, polished marble pillars, statues, gold and silver altar orna- 
 ments, is hke a peep into a child's penny show-box. All is tinsel 
 and glitter; neither the eyejior the mind takes it in as a whole ; 
 but views it|n detail, and from the multiplicity and splendour of 
 the parts,with a kind of painful distraction. You stand under the 
 dome of St. Paul's with an undivided feeling of awe. You cross 
 and recross St. Peter's before you are led to look up at all, so 
 many other objects press upon your notice ; and when you do, it 
 is from comparison and reflection, not from immediate impression, 
 that you arrive at the conclusion that it must be very vast and 
 sublime ; and that you ought to feel its grandeur, but somehow 
 you don't. 
 
 An important principle in the fine arts, and in literary compo- 
 sition, is involved in this superior effect produced by the inferior 
 structure of St. Paul's, in consequence of the simplicity and un- 
 obtrusiveness of its accompaniments or parts. 
 
 I have read or heard somewhere that architects admit that St. 
 /Peter's appears less than it is at first sight ; but that this is its 
 great perfection, as this impression of its smallness is produced by 
 the just and perfect proportion of all its parts. But, with all sub- 
 mission to architects and artists, this is sheer jargon. Architecture, 
 in common sculpture and painting, addresses itself to the mind 
 through the sense of sight, and its end and object are to impress 
 the mind with feelings of the beauty, grandeur, or sublimity of 
 the object it produces. Now what kind of perfection of propor- 
 tion is that by which a building fails of this object of architecture; 
 and by which material, laboiu", and talent are expended, in order 
 to make a building appear less, and to produce an inferior im- 
 pression on the mind, through the sense of sight, to that which it 
 might do ? The end and object of piling all these stones upon 
 each other were to produce at first sight impressions of sublimity, 
 grandeur, or beauty upon the mind of the beholders. To send 
 them home to reflect, calculate, and compare, in order to arrive 
 at a just impression of the magnitude and sublimity of St. Peter's, 
 is not the object of architecture as a fine art. The same quantity 
 of stones and human labour in any shape, would, upon consider- 
 ation and reflection, produce this after-thought impression. To 
 call that a just and perfect proportion which fails in the end and 
 object of the art is the entailed nonsense of artists handed down 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 379 
 
 from one generation to another, and adopted as hereditary undeni- 
 able axioms. In the fine arts, as in pohtics, many people can only 
 see out of their neighbours' spectacles. 
 
 Rome is not quite so populous as Edinburgh. It contains 
 158,678 inhabitants. About a century ago, viz., in July, 1714, 
 the inhabitants were found to amount to 143,000; but the Jews 
 not being human beings at that time in the estimation of the 
 church, and who amount to 8000 or 9000, were not included in 
 that enumeration. The number of ecclesiastics in the present 
 population is 5267; viz., 1478 secular clergy, 2208 monks or 
 persons belonging to monastic establishments, and 1581 nims. 
 About a century ago, the whole ecclesiastical population was 
 reckoned at 62S5, and 1814 nuns. The houses of the middle 
 and lower classes are four or five stories high, containing several 
 families under one roof, with one common entry and stairs; and 
 the streets are narrow, dirty, and without foot pavement. The 
 Canongate and Cowgate of Edinburgh give a good idea of the 
 ordinary streets of Rome. Half or more of the area within the 
 walls is not occupied with buildings, and probably never was 
 built upon. It entered into the principle of the military fortifica- 
 tion of cities before the invention of gunpowder to leave such a 
 space as would protect the citizens inhabiting the centre from mis- 
 siles, and would also furnish room and^ fodder for a day or two, 
 for sheep or cattle driven upon an alarm within the walls. The 
 enormous extent of walls around ancient cities, in some Eastern 
 remains, of many leagues in circuit, is by no means an indication, 
 as antiquarians consider it, of an enormous resident population ; 
 but merely of the numbers of men who from without as well as 
 from within, and from a circle possibly of several leagues from the 
 city, could be raised to man the walls on the approach of a be- 
 sieging army. The fortifications constructing round Paris are 
 laid out upon this old principle. 
 
 The expenditure of the large incomes of the nobility and high 
 clergy resident in Rome, and of the revenues of the Papal Slates 
 estimated to be about 1,800,000 pounds sterling, and of which 
 the greater proportion is laid out in Rome itself, everything being 
 centralized in this city, and the considerable sums, besides, ex- 
 pended by strangers, should make Rome one of the wealthiest 
 cities ki the world, for this expenditure among her population has 
 been going on for ages within her walls. Yet no city, except 
 
380 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Naples, displays so much poverty and misery, and has so many 
 wretched idle people wandering about in it. They live each in 
 his station, beggar or banker, thief or prince, upon this money 
 that is passing through. They breed up to the subsistence it gives, 
 each in his station ; are numerous enough to keep each other 
 poor ; and they do not labour. A people are not rich by the 
 amount of money passing through their country ; but by the 
 amount of their own productive labour. Spain was, and Rome 
 is, an example of the little benefit idle people derive from the 
 mere unreproductive receipt and expenditure of money among 
 them. They breed up to the amount, and are as poor as when 
 the amount was small. Productive industry is the only capital 
 which enriches a people, and spreads national prosperity and 
 well-being. " In all labour there is profit," says Solomon. What 
 is the science of Political Economy, but a dull sermon on this 
 text? 
 
 The seven hills of ancient Rome have been such elevations of 
 alluvial formation as now exist on both sides of the river-valley 
 of the Tiber a little higher up, and which on the left bank termi- 
 nate at the Capitoline and Palatine hills. These seven hills have 
 been eminences of from 50 to 150 feet high above the river plain; 
 and although the ruins of buildings, and degradation of soil dur- 
 ing so many ages must have reduced their original height, they 
 are still very good town hills, as well marked in Rome, as Lud- 
 gate Hill, Holborn Hill, Snow Hill, or Tower Hill in London. 
 The houses do not entirely hide the natural features of ground. 
 The Capitol is still a considerable eminence upon the ground plan 
 of the city. The acccumulation of earth at the basis of these 
 elevations has been very partial. In some places the ancient 
 pavements, as that of the Via Sacra, are upon the present surface. 
 In other places the soil has accumulated several feet. The correct 
 inference perhaps should be, that the sites and ground around the 
 ancient buildings, and the ancient streets themselves never were 
 leveled. The natural hollows of the ground were built upon or 
 paved upon, and these have been overlaid irregularly by accumu- 
 lations of soil. The difference of level between the Forum and 
 the Capitol can never have been very different from the present. 
 We see the old bottom level of the Forum in the pavement, and 
 it can scarcely have been so great as between the Castle of.Edin- 
 burgh and the Grass-market. A fall from the Tarpeian rock might 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 381 
 
 have broken a man's neck sufficiently well, if the ground below 
 was clear, and originally it was, perhaps, hollowed out, or natu- 
 rally lower, as ground at the foot of a steep precipice usually is. 
 The Tiber is a muddy or rather clayey stream, as yellow and 
 thick as the water of a clay-pit in a brick-field. It is deep and 
 rapid, but not wide, the bridge of St. Angelo crossing it in three 
 small arches, with two others having water only occasionally under 
 them. It is deep and rapid enough to have been a good natural 
 defence on one side for a town, and the population has always 
 been principally on the left bank, between the river and the hills 
 or eminences included within the walls. 
 
 What is there in the situation of this city, upon and around 
 some small eminences on a plain by the side of a small river, 
 which could give her that mastery over the neighbouring little 
 states and towns that led to the subjugation of Italy, and of the 
 known world ? Some principle in the physical advantages of the 
 position of this city must have occasioned the continued advance 
 of its power. The only very obyious advantage is, that the in- 
 habitants of this position had a constant supply of water, had a 
 defensible retreat on these hills, protected on one side by a river 
 not forcfeble, and had the command of the whole plain of the 
 Campagna, as a cavalry power acting fro|p a centre. The other 
 cities and states conquered in the early period of the Roman pro- 
 gress were all situated, probably for the sake of drinkable water, 
 among the hills which skirt the Campagna, and could only draw 
 their forage, pasturage, and even their bread corn, from this plain, 
 the higher grounds around it being more adapted for vines, and 
 olive trees, than grain crops. Rome, from the hour of her founda- 
 tion, occupied the best natural position for defence and aggression, 
 had imder her eye and command the routes up to the higher 
 grounds by which the supplies of grain and forage to the other 
 little states must pass, and they could only march into the Cam- 
 pagna with cavalry, or deploy troops in it, by a few routes known 
 and seen from Rome. The amalgamation of every little rival 
 city with Rome, and the voluntary removal of the inhabitants to 
 Rome, indicate that her position commanded their military move- 
 ment and food. Their supply of water has evidently not been so 
 permanent and certain a^ that of Rome ; and their forage and 
 grain more exposed to destruction. 
 
 Here, as in every site of early inhabitation, water appears to 
 
382 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 have been the mother of society. Water has been the first of the 
 common gifts of nature to ail human beings whicli has been 
 claimed and appropriated by individuals. Water has been property 
 long before land was appropriated, and it must, from the first day 
 of the existence of the human race, have, in the greater part of 
 the world been appropriated by a community exclusively to them- 
 selves ; and its use, from the first, been subject to laws and regu- 
 lations, as a property vested in the community, and not in any 
 individuals of it. Civilization, society, government, law, appear 
 to have originated in those countries which are partially watered, 
 that is, have water only at certain watering places on great rivers, 
 or at perpetual springs, but have it not at all seasons generally in 
 the land. Necessity must from the first day of human existence, 
 have led men to congregate at those particular watering spots, 
 and to appropriate them, as a society, to their own peculiar use. 
 In those countries in which water is abundant everywhere and at 
 all seasons— as in North America— no such natural want has forced 
 men into social union, and they still wander uncivilized, uncon- 
 nected, and without government or law, unless to the extent that 
 self-defence obliges them to unite in nomade tribes. Civilization 
 comes to such countries from without, by their subjugation, or 
 their intercourse with more civilized people. Civilization itself has 
 risen from the necessity of supplying a natural want — has sprung 
 from the waters. In India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, the 
 earliest civilized countries of the old and new continents, and 
 those in which men have first congregated in societies, water, 
 from the very nature of the countries, must have been appropriated, 
 and been a cause of law, government, and regulation, from the 
 very first day of the existence of human beings in them. I con- 
 ceive this to be a more reasonable conjecture upon the progress of 
 man to social union, and government, than the fanciful theory 
 adopted by philosophers, of men passing through three distinct 
 states, from the hunter state to the shepherd state, from the shep- 
 herd state to the agricultural ; and thence to the appropriation of 
 land, and the adoption of law and government. There is no 
 tendency of, nor motive for, men in any one of these states to pass 
 into the other. The hunter and shepherd require the range of a 
 hundred hills. Society, or even neighbourhood, is adverse to their 
 subsistence. We see, in fact, that in North America and in Asia, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. ' 383 
 
 people ill the hunter or shepherd state never have gotbej'ond that 
 state. 
 
 If we consider the remains of ancient art, the cyclopeaii walls 
 in Italy and Greece of an age prior to the Etruscan, and long 
 prior to the Roman or the Grecian, the mounds of earth containing 
 sculptured remains and gold ornaments of races of men forgotten 
 even by tradition, which are found in the forests of America and 
 in the steppes of Asia— and, above all, if we consider the intel- 
 lectual remains of former civilization, more imperishable than the 
 material, tiie structure and relations of the religion, and of the lan- 
 guages of the rudest tribes, connecting them with a state of great 
 mental development in those who first constructed those systems, 
 we must come to the conclusion that the shepherd and hunter states 
 are the retrograde, and not the progressive steps of the human 
 race from one stage of civilization to another; that the wandering 
 uncivilized tribes of mankind now in the hunter or shepherd state, 
 in America and Asia, are the expiring remnants of an earlier 
 civilization, and of varieties of our species which have originally 
 stood on afar higher material and intellectual grade of social exist- 
 ence than at present. 
 
 It is no idle speculation to inquire into the origin of property. 
 Hundred-weights of books have been written on subjects less 
 important. Is the right of property derived from society ? Does 
 the individual derive his right to appropriate, to individualize a 
 portion of land, water, or other of the common gifts of nature to 
 the human species, from a previously existing right of the whole 
 community to that property and to parcel and grant it out to its 
 several individual members, luider regulations and conditions for 
 the general good of the community ? Or is society derived from 
 the right of property ? Have social union, law, and government 
 originated from individuals seizing on, and appropriating (o their 
 own exclusive use, portions of the common gift of nature for the 
 subsistence of the species, and then meeting, and forming society 
 for the mutual defence, by arms, law, and government, of their 
 individualized property ? Idle as such questions or speculations 
 may appear, they are not without their practical application at the 
 present day. The right of every man to do with his own as he 
 likes, and the right of a government to interfere, either in the use 
 and application of property, or in the general arrangement of pro- 
 perty in the social economy of a country — as, for instance, to alter 
 
384 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 the distribution of the land by abolishing the rights of primogeniture 
 in heritage — depend, in the abstract, upon this question, Is society- 
 instituted for the protection of previously existing rights of pro- 
 perty, or is property derived from previously existing rights vested 
 in society ? 
 
 What was the real amount of civilization among the ancient 
 Romans, understanding by civiUzation the physical and moral 
 good enjoyed by the mass of the community ? This must not be 
 measured by their literature, architecture, and statuary, The 
 state of the fine arts in a country is usually taken as the measure 
 of the civilization of its inhabitants, but it is altogether a falla- 
 cious test ; for a taste for the fine arts, and great perfection in them, 
 may exist with great barbarism. The Russian noble at the pre- 
 sent day makes his slaves perform difficult pieces of music, or 
 copy with wonderful precision the paintings of the best masters 
 — just as the Roman artists, many of them slaves also, copied the 
 Grecian— yet without the slightest advance of the operative, or 
 of the community around him, in the comforts and conveniences 
 of civilized life, by the effect of his labour. The buildings, baths, 
 fish-ponds, statues, the amphitheatres, and temples of ancient 
 Rome belonged either to the public, or to a very small master- 
 class in the community, and the population which produced them 
 was not in any degree benefited, that is, raised to a higher physical 
 or moral condition, by their own labour. This is the great and 
 essential difference between slave labour and free labour. The 
 slave labourer may be, and no doubt very often is, as well fed, 
 clothed, and taken care of, as the free labourer. The American 
 slave owner, the old West Indian planter, the Russian noble tell 
 us so, and many travellers confirm their account. But the labour 
 of the slave does not tend to raise his condition. It carries no 
 improvement in it upon his moral state. His physical state, even 
 when it is equal in comfort and well-being to that of the free 
 labourer, is not the fruit of his own labour. His civilization is 
 not advanced by his industry. The public works, theatres, and 
 works even of lUility, and the agriculture itself of the Romans, 
 appear to have been all carried on for the gratification and use of 
 a small master-class by the animal power of men working in 
 slavery and suffering in slavery. The saving of labour — an 
 object which has led to the perfection of labour in all the useful 
 arts in our state of society — was no object in their state of society. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 385 
 
 All was done by slaves, ai\d great multitudes of them at com- 
 mand, and by overseers or freed men entertained about the fami- 
 lies of the great. Any thing may be produced, if waste of time, 
 labour, human life, and happiness, be left out of the estimate of 
 the cost of production. But this is not civilization, although a 
 country may be filled by it with temples, arches, statues, and am- 
 phitheatres. There is this radical difference between the civiliza- 
 tion of the fine arts and the civilization of the useful arts — the 
 taste for the fine arts is gratified by the simple recipience of the 
 senses. The individual is quiescent in receiving his gratification. 
 The taste is principally a gift of nature connected with the or- 
 ganization of the individual, cultivated with little trouble, and 
 to be enjoyed in slavery or in freedom. No exertion of his is 
 required to enable him to enjoy fine music, fine paintings, fine 
 statuary, and no benefit to others is involved in his enjoyment. 
 But the taste for the products of the useful arts can only be 
 gratified in freedom, and by free exertion, mental and bodily, of 
 the individual in a free social state. Industry, forethought, and 
 social co-operation, besides the free use of property, are all neces- 
 sary to enable the individual to gratify, or even form his taste for 
 the useful arts, even in their most simple applications, as in his 
 clothing, lodging, furniture. 
 
 The importance of the fine arts as humanizing influences in 
 society has been much overrated. Such objects and tastes as 
 belong to the fine arts are necessarily confined to the highest ranks 
 of the community. No other class of society was thought of by 
 scholars at the revival of literature and of a knowledge of the fine 
 arts. It was the public, it was the sole patron of intellectual merit, 
 and what influenced or gratified this small class, which scarcely 
 extended beyond the court-circle of the monarch, was raised to 
 exaggerated importance, and made a standard for all excellence ; 
 and the prejudice continues to this day. But in reality the great 
 mass of society, the most moral, influential, and intellectual, and 
 in every sense the most civilized portion of it in Europe, the mid- 
 dle classes, never, generally speaking, saw an object of the fine 
 arts in their lives, have no taste for any of the fine arts unless as 
 these may be connected with their trades and occupations. Unless 
 the fine arts are carried on as useful arts, that is, as trades repaying 
 free independent industry, they neither add to nor denote civiliza- 
 tion in a community ; and then they add to it less than the useful 
 
386 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 arts, because from their nature they employ less industry. They 
 depend entirely on the individual, on his single talent, or genius, 
 or execution alone ; the useful arts on the co-operation of many 
 individuals. Music, painting, statuary, and architecture as far as 
 it is a fine art distinct from masonry, employ but the head and 
 hand of the one artist. If the humanizing influences of the fine 
 and the useful arts may be measured by the civilization of those 
 who cultivate them, the professors of the fine arts stand, as a class 
 in society, below, in morality and intelligence, the class of manu- 
 facturers or merchants engaged in the production or circulation of 
 the objects of the useful arts. If the comparative influence on 
 civilization of the fine and the useful arts be measured by the state 
 of society most favourable to their development, we find it is only 
 under despotic governments that the money, labour, and time of 
 the community can be concentrated, and commanded into the 
 production of objects of the fine arts ; and it is under free govern- 
 ment only, and the security of property and its wide diff'usion in 
 society, that the useful arts prosper. 
 
 The amount of independent industry in a country, that is, of the 
 free labour, bodily or mental, which the labourer exchanges for 
 his own gratifications, physical and moral, seems to be the true 
 measure of its civilization ; and not its temples, palaces, statues, 
 pictures, music. Can Bavaria be compared to Scotland in the 
 enjoyments of civilized life by all the community, although the 
 country is drained and squeezed to produce the frippery in the 
 fine arts which adorns Munich? The ancient Romans, as a peo- 
 ple, have enjoyed little of this independent industry, as the mass 
 of the working producing population was in slavery. They 
 wanted those objects of the acquired tastes which both give em- 
 ployment to and are the gratifications of industry in modern society. 
 Annihilate in Europe as gratifications generally diffused, and as 
 incentives to industry, the use of silk, cotton, linen, and shoe-lea- 
 ther for ordinary clothing materials, the use of sugar, coffee, tea, 
 tobacco, distilled liquors, spiceries, and our ten thousand other 
 modern stimulants or condiments for the gratification of the palate, 
 the use of glass for the eyes, of steam and all machinery for the 
 hands, of books, sciences, knowledge, religion for the mind, and 
 leave only bread, wine, oil, and wool, as the main materials on 
 which industry is employed, slave labour as the means of pro- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 387 
 
 daction, and triumphal arches, temples, amphitheatres, statues, 
 public games, and spectacles of gladiators killing each other, and 
 of wild beasts tearing to pieces slaves — as the intellectual gratifi- 
 cations — and we get probably pretty near to a just idea of the 
 civilization of the mass of the people of ancient Rome in the most 
 flourishing period of the fine arts. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE POPE'S BENEDICTION. — VATICAN LIBRARY. — TOMB OF CLEMENT 
 XIIL— HORSES OF MONTE CAVALLO.— ANCIENT AND MODERN SCULP- 
 TURE. 
 
 The pope's benediction of the people, from a balcony on the 
 outside of St. Peter's, is a fine sight. Troops, body-guards, yeo- 
 men in red and yellow clothing of the costume of Henry VHPs 
 time, splendid equipages, gaudily dressed servants, ladies, officers 
 of all countries, monks, priests in great variety and contrast of 
 habiliments, a moving mass of uniforms, feathers, and lace, and an 
 assemblage of 30,000 people not wedged into a tight, immovable 
 heap, but undulating in the vast area in front of St. Peter's, form 
 a very fine sight — very fine to talk about afterwards — but, to 
 say the truth, a little tedious to wait upon. Sight-seeing is the 
 traveller's dull duty. 
 
 The illumination of the cupola of St. Peter's, which took place 
 the same evening, is also a fine sight— and is really a magnificent 
 effort of art. The outline of the dome, the ribs, belts, windows, 
 and all that would be drawn with the pencil in an outline sketch, 
 are first illuminated in the early part of the evening with a steady 
 but not brilliant light. This is the finest effect in the scene. 
 The cupola looks like some vast thing suspended from the hea- 
 vens. The lines of light give its form, and all between them is 
 in utter darkness. On the first stroke of eight o'clock the lights 
 start instantaneously into brilliancy, and all is brightness and 
 dazzle. They have changed in figure as well as in splendour, 
 and now form belts of diamond-shaped forms round the dome. 
 This magically quick change — done while the first three strokes 
 of eight are striking— is effected by a number of exercised peo- 
 ple, one to every fifty lights, with blinds and cordage, to unveil 
 them at once. The effect of all this glare is not so fine as before. 
 The flickering of the lamps destroy the delusion — it is no longer 
 a distant steady light suspended from heaven, but a huge chan- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 389 
 
 delier upon the ground. It is altogether a sight worth seeing. 
 The pageantry of the holy week concluded with a grand display 
 of iire-works from the castle of St. Angelo. But fire-works are 
 poor things. What is a sky-rocket to the lightning ? or a Cathe- 
 rine wheel fizzing upon a wall, over a yellow, muddy stream, to the 
 silent moon hanging over the wide Atlantic ? 
 
 Of all the tombs in the world the Vatican library is the most 
 impressive. What labours of mind, what hopes, fears, excite- 
 ments, irritations repose here ! The good, the bad, the dull, the 
 bright, wisdom, folly, the poet's inspirations, the philosopher's 
 speculations, the historian's researches— all the workings of the 
 human intellect for ages sleep on these shelves, preserved, yet 
 forgotten ! In this cemetery of the mind, as in that of the body, 
 the tomb is of more value than what it incloses. The decoration 
 of the rooms, the book-cases, the vast extent of librarian-palace 
 — palace in size and magnificence — make this the most princely 
 establishment in the world. It is an establishment for show, and 
 forming part of the suitable splendour of the head of the Catholic 
 church, not a library foj; use. You see no books, the book-cases 
 having doors of fine wood well locked — no readers, no catalogues: 
 you must believe, because you are told that all the literary pro- 
 ductions of every age, worth preserving, are entombed in these 
 magnificent rooms. We are told many things harder to be be- 
 lieved than this. 
 
 You go to the library and galleries of the Vatican through a 
 long gallery, in which a vast number of ancient inscriptions, on 
 tombstones principally, are arranged on each side, and built into 
 the walls. From the rude, irregular way in which the letters are 
 cut in ancient Roman inscriptions, even upon triumphal arches, 
 and under statues, and such important objects, it must be inferred 
 that people of the middle class among the Romans — the archi- 
 tects, sculptors, and the mass of the people who employed them 
 or saw their works — were not generally acquainted with the use 
 of letters, with writing and reading. The letters of inscriptions, 
 even upon objects of importance, are rudely shaped, of unequal 
 sizes, with frequent omissions among them, with the words some- 
 times running into each other, sometimes with intervals in the 
 middle, as if two distinct words ; the lines not straight— in short, 
 such work as a stone-cutter would make at the present day in 
 copying the strokes of an inscription laid before him without his 
 
390 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 having any knowledge of their use as letters ; and such work as 
 only a public unacquainted with the use of letters would tolerate 
 upon objects of art of the highest perfection. It is probable that 
 the sculptor of the Minerva did not know his A, B, C. Great 
 perfection in execution in sculpture, painting and music, is not 
 incompatible with gross ignorance. Phidias may have been as 
 unlettered as a Russian slave. A common millwright, to exer- 
 cise his trade, must be able to read, write, calculate, and think. 
 The one is the civilization of the fine arts, the other of the useful 
 arts. 
 
 In St. Peter's, a tomb of Clement XIII, the work of Canova, 
 attracts the general admiration of the travelling world, or rather 
 the figures of a Muse, Genius, or somebody of that family,* reclin- 
 ing upon a beautifully sleeping lion, on one side of the pediment 
 — the figures of the size of life — and on the other side of it a full- 
 length female of the same family, with a ditto also sleeping most 
 naturally ; and on the top sits the Pope in marble, in full costume, 
 as good as alive, and as large. The figure of the reclining genius, 
 and the sleepiness of the lion, are, beyond doubt, wonderfully fine, 
 and well expressed ; but where is the beauty or grandeur of con- 
 ception in putting a fine naked figure reclining, tout ct son aise, 
 upon a wild beast fast asleep ? The beauty of the execution 
 cannot redeem the poverty of the conception. What is there in^ 
 the idea and combination grand, poetical, agreeable, natural, or 
 comprehensible ? The parts and execution may be ever so ex- 
 quisite, — the idea is common-place, weak, unpoetical, and worth- 
 less. I admire this work, therefore, not as an effort of mind and 
 imagination, but of chisel and mallet. In contrast with this finely 
 executed piece of sculpture, and in that respect worthy of all ad- 
 miration, look at the horses of the Monte Cavallo. These are 
 pieces of ancient sculpture ascribed, but without any sufficient 
 reason, to Phidias and Praxiteles. The horses are like nothing 
 equinine. Their necks are thicker than their bodies. If such 
 shaped horses ever existed, they must have been a cross between 
 a Berkshire pig and a Shetland pony. Yet what fire, what life, 
 what poetry in the attitudes of these uncouth animal bodies in the 
 act, apparently, of dashing over a precipice ! The very unwield- 
 iness itself of the shapes brings out the energy of the attitudes. 
 And the human figures, the Castor and Pollux, top-heavy figures 
 like boatswain's mates, all head and arm and breadth of shoulder 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 391 
 
 above, and no corresponding breadth of loin, or buttock, or thighs 
 and legs, to support such upper works of nien — yet their attitudes, 
 and grouping with those hippopotami-like horses, are poetical, are 
 grand, and give grandeur and effect to the parts. In Canova's 
 work the parts give the value to the conception : here the concep- 
 tion throws its grandeur over the parts. Who thinks here of the 
 finish, and ariistical execution ? If fine forms of men and horses 
 were the things intended by these ancient sculptors, they have, in 
 truth, succeeded marvellously ill. But evidently these poet-artists 
 never intended to give a fac-simile of a horse down to his shoe 
 nails, and of a man down to his epaulets and pigtail. They give 
 an idea, like the poet's, made out in part, and in no more com- 
 pleteness than enables the imagination of the reader or spectator 
 to work out the rest. The heads of the horses, the feet in the air, 
 have the last touch of art ; these parts live, and are in all the 
 energy of action. The rest is in sketch, is purposely blocked out 
 only. The spectator's own mind throws over the whole work 
 the spirit, character, and energetic action of the heads. Canova's 
 work in this tomb proceeds upon a different principle— the very- 
 embroidery on the hem of the pope's garment is carefully made 
 out — the tailor who sewed it might depone to every stitch— and, 
 with what I humbly conceive to be a littleness of taste, a corner 
 of the robe is brought over the ledge of the pedestal, to show the 
 fidelity of the representation of the piece of cloth. Those ancient 
 sculptors have not even put bits or bridles on their magnificent 
 horse-heads. The attitude and fire of what is represented tell that 
 these horse-like \animals are in the act of springing, but are re- 
 strained. The attitudes of the human figures tell that they restrain. 
 Buckles and bridles are purposely left out ; because unnecessary 
 to convey their conceptions in all their force to the spectator's 
 mind. In modern sculpture, these minute details would be la- 
 boriously brought in, and exquisitely finished ; overloading the 
 conception intended to be conveyed, and weakening its impression. 
 This appears to be the great difference between ancient and modern 
 sculptors. The ancients were poets in the art, and philosophers 
 who had analyzed the principles on which e|fect is produced, as 
 well as great practical artists. In practical excellence in the art, 
 in expressing physical beauty and grace of attitude in the female 
 or the male figure, Canova, and the school of Canova, perhaps, 
 equal the ancients. The Venus of Canova is equal, in the esti- 
 
392 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 mation of many, to the Venus de Medici, as a representation of 
 ideal beauty and grace ; but neither of these great works of art 
 represent mind. Physical beauty and grace of attitude in the 
 utmost ideal perfection are all they aim at. The Niobe, the Aris- 
 tides at Naples, the Moses of Michael Angelo, and many busts 
 here, belong to a higher class of composition than the works which 
 merely express the perfections of shape, form, and attitudes of the 
 human body, which are called beauty and grace. They express 
 also mental power, intelligence, working of mind, energy. In 
 this class of works, the modern school of sculpture has productions 
 not sufficiently estimated ; as, for instance, the basso-relievo by 
 Tenerani of two Christians, a brother and sister, exposed to a 
 tiger in the Flavian amphitheatre. The expression of devotion 
 and resignation mingled with fear, in the two principal figures, is 
 great. The tiger, and the slave letting him out of his den, are 
 superfluous in the composition, as the story tells itself in the ex- 
 pression of the two principal figures. The Laocoon is considered 
 one of the finest productions of the art of sculpture ; because it 
 represents not merely physical perfection of the human frame in 
 action, but the physical sufferings. It does so. The countenance 
 and whole attitude and frame of Laocoon express the utmost 
 agony of bodily pain ; but the Niobe cowering over her child in 
 the attitude to hide or cover it, the Aristides speaking with dignity 
 and energy, are works of a higher class, expressing mental suffering 
 or acting. The false object of almost all modern sculptors to at- 
 tain in their statues the highest ideal oi physical beauty and grace 
 has the consequence, that in proportion as they approach the ideal 
 they lose the natural. They lose all individuality. The figures 
 round the tomb of an Indian Begum might do for Minervas, or 
 Hebes, or Venuses, or Madonnas, or whatever the artist may 
 choose to call them, by merely hanging about them the appropriate 
 ornaments and appendages. The heads, figures, attitudes, and 
 expression will do for anything. In modern painting and statuary, 
 what you see, are a few Grecian figures performing a scene. They 
 are actors of all work. Walk on to the next piece of canvas, or 
 piece of marble, you find the same countenances, the same figures, 
 attitudes, costumes, and expression, representing persons, events, 
 or conceptions of a totally different character, age, country, and 
 people. Raphael gives you a touch of reality in his most ideal 
 figures. They are each of them individualized. In the fresco 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 393 
 
 painting, for instance, of a Venus pleading to Jupiter, in the Far- 
 nese palace, there is reverence, mingled with anxiety and grace, 
 in the countenance of the pleading figure — and it is an individual's 
 face and form. It is not the faultless, inexpressive Grecian coun- 
 tenance, belonging to a class rather than an individual, such as 
 represents Venus in the works of other painters. Apollos,Venuses, 
 Apostles, Madonnas have, in fact, become, both in marble and on 
 canvas, conventional figures, wliich the spectator refers not to 
 any natuml type of the beautiful within his own feeling, nor to 
 any indivdualization of nature's excellencies; but to an acquired 
 taste — a taste which a century ago would have represented and 
 have admired an Apollo in a full-bottomed wig, and a Venus in a 
 hoop-petticoat and flounces, and now represents and admires them 
 in costumes, attitudes, and style of countenances, quite as widely 
 apart from the natural in any human beings we recognize, or have 
 fellow-feeling with. Until sculptors and painters emancipate 
 themselves, as our poets have done, from this classical imitation 
 and prestige, and follow natural instead of conventional types, as 
 Michael Angelo and Raphael have done, the sign-painter and 
 gingerbread-baker may claim brotherhood in their arts. 
 
 26 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CHURCH OF ROME.— CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 The power of ancient Rome in the meridian of her glory was 
 not so wonderful as her subsequent and her present dominion 
 over the mind of man. Physical power we can understand. 
 We see its growth. We see its cause along with its effect. We 
 see armies i;i front, and civil authority in rear. But this moral 
 power, this government over the mind extending through regions 
 more vast and distant than ever the Roman arms conquered, is 
 the most extraordinary phenomenon in human ~ history. The 
 Papist claims it as a proof of the Divine origin and truth of his 
 doctrine. The Protestant and the philosopher inquire what 
 principles of human origin give this power over the minds of 
 men such wonderful extension and durability. To compare the 
 machinery of each establishment, the Catholic and Protestant, 
 the means by which each of these churches works upon the 
 human mind — an inquiry altogether distinct from any investiga- 
 tion or comparison of the scriptural foundations of their different 
 doctrines — would be a noble subject for the philosopher and his- 
 torian, and one belonging strictly to metaphysical and political 
 science, not to theology. It would bring out many of the most 
 hidden springs of mental action, would elucidate many of those 
 great moral influences which have agitated nations, and which 
 are sometimes dormant but never extinct in society ; and would 
 explain some of the most important historical events and social 
 arrangements of Europe. A few observations tipon the present 
 state and working of the machinery of each church, as they 
 appear to the traveller in passing through Catholic and Protestant 
 lands, may turn the attention perhaps of the philosophic inquirer 
 to this vast and curious subject. 
 
 Catholicism has certainly a much stronger hold over the human 
 mind than Protestantism. The fact is visible and undeniable, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 395 
 
 and perhaps not iinacconnfable. The fervour of devotion among 
 these Cathohcs, the absence of all worldly feelings in their reli- 
 gions acts, strike every traveller who enters a Roman Catholic 
 church abroad. They seem to have no reserve, no false shame, 
 false pride, or whatever the feeling may be, which, among us 
 Protestants, makes the individual exercise of devotion private, 
 hidden — an affair of the closet. Here, and everywhere in Ca- 
 tholic countries, you see well-dressed people, persons of the higher 
 as well as of the lower orders, on their knees upon the pavement 
 of the church, totally regardless of and unregarded by the crowd 
 of passengers in the aisles moving to and fro. I have Christian 
 charity enough to believe, and I do not envy that man's mind 
 who does not believe, that this is quite sincere devotion, and not 
 hypocrisy, affectation, or attempt at display. It is so common, 
 that none of these motives could derive the slightest gratification 
 from the act — not more than a man's vanity could be gratified 
 by his appearing in shoes, or a hat, where all wear the same. 
 In no Protestant place of worship do we witness the same intense 
 abstraction in prayer, the same unaffected devotion of mind. 
 The beggar-woman comes in here and kneels down by the side 
 of the princess, and evidently no feeling of intrusion suggests itself 
 in the mind of either. To the praise of the Papist be it said, no 
 worldly distinctions, or human rights of property, much less money 
 payment for places in a place of worship, appear to enter into 
 their imaginations. Their churches are God's houses, open alike 
 to all his rational creatures, without distinction of high or low, 
 rich or poor. All who have a soul to be saved come freely to 
 worship. They have no family pews, or seats for genteel souls, 
 and seats for vulgar souls. Their houses of worship are not let 
 out, like theatres, or opera houses, or Edinburgh kirks, for money 
 rents for the sittings. The public mind is evidently more reli- 
 gionized than in Protestant countries. Why should such 'strong 
 devotional feeling be more widely diffused and more conspicuous 
 among people holding erroneous doctrines, than among us Pro- 
 testants holding right doctrines ? This question can only be solved 
 by comparing the machinery of eacii church. 
 
 Although our doctrine be right, our church machinery, that is, 
 our clerical establishment, is not so effective, and, perhaps, from 
 the very reason that our doctrine is right, cannot be so efTbclive as 
 that of the Catholics. In the Popish church the clergyman is 
 
396 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 more of a sacred character than it is possible to invest him with 
 in our Protestant church, and more cut off from all worldly affairs. 
 It is very up-hill work in the Church of England, and still more 
 so in the Church of Scotland, for the clergyman to impress his 
 flock with the persuasion that he is a better man, and more able 
 to instruct them, than any other equally pious and equally well- 
 educated man in the parish, whose worldly circumstances have 
 given him equal opportunity and leisure to cultivate his mind ; 
 and in every parish, owing to the diffusion of knowledge, good 
 education, and religious feeling among our upper and middle 
 classes, there are now such men. The Scotch country clergyman 
 in this generation does not, as in the last, stand in the position of 
 beitig the only regularly educated, enlightened, religious man 
 perhaps in his whole congregation. He has also the cares of a 
 family, of a housekeeping, of a glebe in Scotland, of tithe in Eng- 
 land, and, in short, the business and toils, the motives of action, 
 and objects of interest that other men have. It is difficult, or in 
 truth impossible, in our state of society, to impress on his flock 
 that he is in any way removed from their condition, from their 
 failings or feelings; and it would be but a delusion if he succeeded, 
 for he is a human being in the same position with themselves, 
 under the influences of the same motives and objects with them- 
 selves in his daily life. 
 
 The machinery! of the Roman Catholic church is altogether 
 different, and produces a totally different result. The clergyman 
 is entirely separated from individual interests, or worldly objects 
 of ordinary life, by his celibacy. This separates him from all - 
 other men. Be their knowledge, their education, their piety, 
 what it will, they belong to the rest of mankind in feelings, in- 
 terests, and motives of action, — he to a peculiar class. His ava- 
 rice, his ambition, or whatever evil passions may actuate him, lie 
 all within his own class, and bring him into no comparison or 
 collision with other men. The restriction of celibacy led, no doubt, 
 to monstrous, disorder and depravity in the age preceding the 
 Reformation — an age, however, in which gross licentiousness of 
 conduct and language seems to have pervaded all society — but it 
 is a vulgar prejudice to suppose that the Catholic clergy of the 
 present times are not as pure and chaste in their lives as the mi- 
 married of the female sex among ourselves. Instances may occur 
 of a different character, but quite as rarely as among an equal 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 397 
 
 number of our unmarried females in Britain of the liigher edu- 
 cated classes. The restriction itself of celibacy is unnatural, and 
 in our church is properly done away with ; because we receive 
 the elements of the Lord's Supper as symbolical only, not as being 
 anything else than bread and wine in virtue of the priestly con- 
 secration. The Papists, who receive the elements as transubstan- 
 tiated by the consecration, require very naturally and properly 
 that the priest should be of a sanctified class removed from human 
 impurity, contamination, or sensual lusts, as well as from all worldly 
 affairs, as far as human nature can by human means be. Both 
 churches are right, and consequent in their usage and reasoning, 
 according to their different doctrines. The Puseyites of the Churcli 
 of England alone are inconsequent ; for if they claim apostolic 
 succession, and apostolic reverence and authority for the clerical 
 body, they should lead the apostolic life of celibacy, and repudiate 
 their worldly spouses, interests, and objects. 
 
 But our Scotch clergy, placed by the Reformation in such a 
 totally different religious position as to the nature of their func- 
 tion, are wrong in expecting a peculiar veneration, and in chal- 
 lenging a peculiar sanctity for their order. As a sacred order, or 
 class, they ceased to exist, or to have influence founded upon any 
 sound religious grounds, when the distinction which made them a 
 peculiar class in the eyes and feelings of mankind, the distinction 
 in their sacramental function, and consequent separation in all 
 worldly affairs between their class and other men, ceased and 
 was removed. The veneration and sanctity which each indi- 
 vidual works out for himself by his personal character and con- 
 duct in his clerical functions alone remained. As a member of 
 an order, he could take nothing, and de facto receives nothing. 
 Superior education, and the prestige from Catholic times, kept up 
 a lingering distinction in our Scotch country parishes in the last 
 generation; but it seems a hopeless claim now in an educated 
 age, for members of a profession not better educated than men of 
 other professions not separated by any peculiar exclusive religious 
 function from the ordinary business, interests, motives, and modes 
 of living of other well-conducted men, to obtain a separate status 
 in society analogous to that of the popish clergy. They have an 
 elevated, and, if they will so apply the word, a sacred duty to per- 
 form along with the ordinary duties of life ; but they form no distinct 
 
398 NOTES or a traveller. 
 
 sacred class, or corporation, like the tribe of Levi among the 
 Israelites, or like the Catholic clergy among the papists, having 
 religious duties or functions which none can perform but its 
 members, and to which they are essential. Some of our clergy in 
 Scotland in the present day v/ould insinuate that they are, by 
 virtue of their ordination, or of their duties, a sacred order or class 
 in the community ; but this is a papistical pretension so entirely 
 exploded by our Reformation, that those of the Scotch church 
 who make it are afraid to speak out. The genuine spirit of Cal- 
 vinism, as adopted by the Scotch people, acknowledges no such 
 order of priesthood, admits no such principle. A presbytery has 
 no claim, like the Roman Catholic bishops, to sacred apostolic 
 power of ordination. Their examinations and licenses regard 
 only the education, moral and religious character, and fitness of 
 the individual to become a preacher in the established slate- 
 church, and to serve that particular charge to which he is called; 
 but confer no spiritual gifts, no peculiar sacred powers; and for 
 the good reason, that, in our Presbyterian faith, no such gifts or 
 powers are reserved for one class of men more than another, but 
 scriptural knowledge, piety, sanctity, and all religious gifts, powers, 
 advantages, and abilities, stand equally open to all men to be at- 
 tained through faith, and their Bibles. As an influential machine 
 in society, ou^- clerical establishment cannot, therefore, from its 
 nature, have such power over the mind as the Roman Catholic 
 priesthood. The latter appears also to have taken up a new and 
 more efficient position since the settlement of Europe after the 
 revolutionary war. Catholicism has had its revival — and its 
 priesthood has used it adroitly. 
 
 By the French revolution many of the most glaring and revolt- 
 ing abuses of the Roman Catholic church were abolished. In no 
 Catholic country, for instance," not ^ven in Rome, is the interfer- 
 ence of the church, or the clergy, in the private concerns, or civil 
 affairs, opinions or doings of individuals, at all tolerated. Its 
 establishments, and powers discordant with the civil authority, 
 have everywhere be(!*n abrogated. Monks and nuns are no 
 longer very numerous, except in Rome and Naples, and are no- 
 where a scandal ; and the vast estates of these establishments 
 have generally, over all the Continent, been, in the course of the 
 last war, confiscated and sold to pay the public debt of the state. 
 In Tuscany, for instance, of 203 monastic establishments, viz., 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 399 
 
 133 of monks, and 69 of nuns, only 40 remain with means for 
 their futuue support and continuance, and 162 receive aid from 
 government, until the existing members who survive the confis- 
 cation of their former estates die out. Tiie rich Neapolitan 
 monasteries have, in the same way, been reducedMn wealth and 
 numbers. In France and Germany, the Catholic clergy, in gene- 
 ral, are by no means in brilliant circumstances. The obnoxious 
 and useless growth of the Catholic church establishment has, in 
 almost every country, been closely pruned ; and their clergy are, 
 in reality, worse provided for than the Protestant. The effects of 
 the Revolution have been^to reverse the position of the clergy of 
 the two churches; and to place the Catholic now on the vantage 
 ground in the eye of the vulgar of the continental populations, of 
 being poor and sincere, while the Protestant clergy are, at least, 
 comfortable, and well paid for their sincerity. The sleek, fat, 
 narrow-minded, wealthy drone is now to be sought for on the 
 Episcopal bench, or in the prebendal stall of the Lutheran or An- 
 glican churches; the well-off, comfortable parish minister, yeoman- 
 like in mind, intelligence, and social position, in the manse and 
 glebe of the Calvinistic church. The poverty-stricken, intellectual 
 recluse, never seen abroad but on his way to or from his studies 
 or church duties, living nobody knows how, but all know in the 
 poorest manner, upon a wretched pittance in his obscure abode — 
 and this is the popish priest of the 19th century — has all the 
 advantage of position with the multitude for giving effect to his 
 teaching. 
 
 Our clergy, especially in Scotland, have a very erroneous im- 
 pression of the state of the popish clergy. In our country churches 
 we often hear them prayed for as men wallowing in luxury, and 
 sunk in gross ignorance. This is somewhat injudicious, as well 
 as uncharitable ; for when the youth of their congregations, who, 
 in this travelling age, must often come in contact abroad with the 
 Catholic clergy so described, find them in learning, liberal views, 
 and genuine piety according to their own doctrines, so very diffe- 
 rent from the description and the describers, there will unavoid- 
 ably arise comparisons, in the minds especially of females and 
 young susceptible persons, by no means edifying or flattering to 
 their clerical teachers at home. Catholic priests and monks, at 
 the time of the Reformation, may have been all that onr Scotch 
 clergy fancy them still to be ; but three centuries, a French revo- 
 
400 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 lution, and an incessant advance of intelligence in society, make 
 a difference for the better or worse in the spirit even of clerical 
 corporations. Our churchmen should understand better the 
 strength of a formidable adversary who is evidently gaining 
 ground but too fast upon our Protestant church, and who, in this 
 age, brings into the field zeal and purity of life equal to their 
 own, and learning, a training in theological scholarship, and a 
 general knowledge superior, perhaps, to their own. The educa- 
 tion of the regular clergy of the Catholic church is, perhaps, posi- 
 tively higher, and, beyond doubt, comparatively higher, than the 
 education of the Scotch clergy. By positively higher, is meant 
 that, among a given number of popish and of Scotch clergy, a 
 greater proportion of the former will be found who read with ease, 
 and a perfect mastery, the ancient languages, Greek and Latin, 
 and the Hebrew and the Eastern languages connected with that 
 of the Old Testament — a greater number of profound scholars, a 
 greater number of high mathematicians, and a higher average 
 amount of acquired knowledge. Is it asked of what use to the 
 preacher of the Gospel is such obsolete worldly scholarship } The 
 ready answer is, that if the parish minister of the Scotch church 
 can no more read the works of the Evangelists, Apostles, and 
 early Fathers easily and masterly in the original Greek than any 
 other man in the parish, knows them only from the translations 
 and books in our mother tongue, to which every reading man in 
 the parish has access as well as he, and if he has not had his 
 mental faculties cultivated and improved by a long course of ap- 
 plication to such studies as mathematics, the dead languages, 
 scholastic learning, ancient doctrines in philosophy and morals, 
 the ancient history of mind and men, and the laws of matter and 
 intelligence as far as known to man, on what grounds does he 
 challenge deference and respect for his opinions from lis his parish- 
 ioners ? We are educated up to him. How can he instruct a 
 congregation who know him to be as ignorant as themselves ? 
 Has the ordination of a presbytery conferred on the half-educated 
 lad any miraculous gifts or knowledge ? If he be as ignorant as 
 his hearers of these higher branches of knowledge, which few have 
 his leisure to arrive at, what is it he does know ? What is the 
 education, what the acquirements on which a presbytery not better 
 educated than himself have examined and licensed him?. He is 
 like an apothecary ignorant of chemistry, compounding his medi- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 401 
 
 cities from a book of formuloe left in his shop by his predecessor, 
 and without any knowledge of the nature and properties of the 
 substances he is handUng. It may be said that the standard of 
 clerical education in Scotland at the present day is as high as it 
 ever was — as high as in any generation since the Reformation. 
 It may be so ; but if the public has become educated up to that 
 standard, the clergy of the present day have lost the vantage 
 ground of superior education and learning, and consequently of 
 moral influence as teachers, as much as if the standard of clerical 
 education had itself been lowered. 
 
 In the nature, also, of our Presbyterian church service there is 
 an element of decay of moral influence, produced by the general 
 advance of society in education, intelligence, and religious know- 
 ledge. From the days of the Apostles to the Reformation, all in- 
 struction was oral, all knowledge was conveyed by word of mouth 
 from the teacher to his pupils. But printing and the diff'usion of 
 books have reduced to insignificance this ancient mode of com- 
 municating knowledge, 'especially in abstract science. It is con- 
 fined now to the branches of knowledge connected with natural 
 substances, and the operations on them. Knowledge is imparted 
 to the mind now, through the eye, not through the ear ; and the 
 book read, referred to, considered in the silence of the closet, has 
 in all studies, sciences, public and private affairs, and intellectual 
 acquirement, superseded, even in the universities, the duty and 
 utility of the orator, lecturer, or speaker. Reading has reduced 
 oral instruction to utter insignificance in pure science and in pub- 
 lic affairs ; and the ancient, but imperfect, mode of conveying 
 information by word of mouth is banished to the nursery. Th.e 
 influence of the oral teacher naturally must decay along with the 
 utility and importance of his occupation ; and this principle of 
 decay of the moral influence of oral tuition reaches the Presby- 
 terian pulpit. 
 
 It is unfortunate, also, for the influence of the Scotch Calvinis- 
 tic church, that its service consists exclusively of extemporary 
 effusions or temporary compositions. These composed in haste 
 by men of moderate education, and often of small abilities, have 
 to undergo the comparison in the mind of an educated and read- 
 ing congregation, with similar compositions, prayers, or sermons, 
 prepared carefully for the press by the most able and learned 
 divines. The moral influence resting solely on such a church 
 
402 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 service cannot be permanent. As a machinery, the English church 
 is founded on a more lasting and influential basis ; its established 
 forms of prayer, unobjectionably good in themselves, not placing 
 one minister or his compositions in competition with another, or 
 with other similar compositions, in the public mind— the almost 
 mechanical operation of reading the service well or ill being all the 
 comparison that can be made between two clergymen in the 
 essential part of the church duty. The competition, also, or com- 
 parison of any other compositions of the same kind, however 
 excellent, with the old liturgy, can never occur in the public mind 
 in England ; because the liturgy has use and wont, antiquity, repe- 
 tition from childhood to old age in its favour, and is interwoven 
 with the habits of the people by these threads, in all their religious 
 exercises. 
 
 The comparative education of the Scotch clergy of the present 
 generation, that is to say, their education compared to that of the 
 J-'cotch people, is unquestionably lower than that of the popish 
 clergy compared to the education of their ^oeople. This is usually 
 ascribed to the popish clei'gy seeking to maintain their influence 
 and superiority by keeping the people in gross ignorance. But 
 this opinion of our churchmen seems more orthodox than cha- 
 ritable, or correct. The popish clergy have in reality less to lose 
 by the progress of education than our own Scotch clergy ; be- 
 cause their pastoral influence and their church services being 
 founded on ceremonial ordinances, come into no competition or 
 comparison whatsoever in the public mind with anything similar 
 that literature or education produces ; and are not connected with 
 the imperfect mode of conveying instruction, which, as education 
 advances, becomes obsolete, and falls into disuse, and almost into 
 contempt, although essential in our Scotch church. In Catholic 
 Germany, in France, Italy, and even Spain, the education of the 
 common people in reading, writing, arithmetic, music, manners, 
 and morals, is at least as generally diff'used, and as faithfully 
 promoted by the clerical body, as in Scotland. It is by their own 
 advance, and not by keeping back the advance of the people, 
 that the popish priesthood of the present day seek to keep 
 ahead of the intellectual progress of the community in Catholic 
 lands ; and they might, perhaps, retort on our Presbyterian clergy, 
 and ask if they, too, are in their countries at the head of the 
 intellectual movement of the age ? Education is in reality not 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 403 
 
 only not repressed, but is encouraged by the popisli church, and 
 is a mighty instrument in its hands, and ably used. In every 
 street in Rome, for instance, there are, at short distances, public 
 primary schools for the education of the children of the lower 
 and middle classes in the neighbourhood. Rome, with a popula- 
 tion of 158,678 souls, has 372 public primary schools witli 482 
 teachers, and 14,099 children attending them. Has Edinburgh 
 so many public schools for the instruction of those classes ? I 
 doubt it. Berlin, with a population about double that of Rome, 
 has only 264 schools. Rome has also her university, with an 
 average attendance of 660 students ; and the Papal States, with 
 a population of 2^ millions, contain seven universities. Prussia, 
 with a population of 14 millions, has but seven. These are 
 amusing statistical facts— and instructive as well as amusing — 
 when we remember the boasting and glorying carried on a few 
 years back, and even to this day, about the Prussian educational 
 system for the people, and the establishment of governmental 
 schools, and enforcing by police regulation the school attendance 
 of the children of the lower classes, France sent her philosophers 
 on a pilgrimage to Berlin to study the manifold excellences of the 
 Prussian school machinery, and to engraft them on her own 
 " liberty of the people ;" and not a few of the most enlightened, 
 liberal, and benevolent of our own upper classes, sighing over 
 the supposed ignorance and vice of the multitude, wish that our 
 government, even at the expense of a little demoralizing con- 
 straint and infringement of the natural rights of parents, would 
 take up the trade of teaching, make a monopoly of it as in Prus- 
 sia, with a state-minister of public instruction to manage it, and 
 enforce by law and regulation the consumpt of a certain quantity 
 in every family out of the government shops. Our statesmen 
 were wiser than our philanthropists, or rather the common sense 
 and sense of their civil and moral rights among the people were 
 more powerful than both; and society with us has been wisely 
 left by our legislature to educate itself up to its wants — a point 
 beyond which ho school-mastering can drive it with any useful 
 moral or religious result, and up to which, as in all free action 
 for meeting human wants, the demand will produce the supply. 
 The statistical fact, that Rome lias above a hundred schools 
 more than Berlin, for a population little more than half of that 
 of Berlin, puts to liight a world 
 
404 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 national education carried on by governments, and their moral 
 effects on society. Is it asked, what is taught to the people of 
 Rome by all these schools ? — precisely what is taught at Berlin, 
 — reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, languages, re- 
 ligious doctrine of some sort, and,-«above all, the habit of passive 
 submission in the one city to the clerical, in the other to the 
 government authorities. The priesthood and the state function- 
 aries well know that reading and writing are not thinking ; that 
 these acquirements and all the branches of useful knowledge be- 
 sides, which can enter into the education of the common man in 
 ordinary station, only increase his veneration for, and the social 
 influence of that higher education which the mass of the commu- 
 nity has no leisure to apply to, and which always must be confined 
 to a few — to a professional class. The flocks will follow the more 
 readily for being tamed, if the leaders only keep ahead of the 
 crowd. 
 
 There is an evident reaction in the application of the old maxim, 
 that superstition and despotism must be founded on ignorance. In 
 Austria, in Prussia, in Italy, it is found that useful acquirements 
 and knowledge do not necessarily involve thinking, and still less 
 acting ; that, on the contrary, they furnish distraction and excite- 
 ment to the pubhc mind, and turn it from deeply considering, or 
 deeply feeling, real errors in religion, or practical grievances in 
 civil life. Education is become the art of teaching men not to 
 think. When a governn;ient, a priesthood, a corporate body of 
 any kind gets hold of the education of the people without com- 
 petition, even in the most minute portion, as in a village school, 
 this is invariably the result of their teaching. 
 
 It is not difficult to account for the great number of schools — 
 consequently the great diffusion of those acquirements which are 
 called education— in Rome. The same cause acts in the same way 
 in Edinburgh. There is a great demand for that sort of labour 
 which may be called educated labour to distinguish it from me- 
 chanical labour, but which has as little influence on the moral or 
 mental condition of the individual as shoemaking, or chipping 
 stones on the highway, — and the demand produces the supply. 
 Church servants of all kinds, from the cardinal down to the sing- 
 ing boy, must be able to read ; and the great amount of living to 
 be found at Rome in the church, produces the demand for instruc- 
 tion in the qualifications. In Edinburgh, and generally in Scotland, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 406 
 
 the same demand for educated labour in the colonies, in mercantile, 
 or legal, or medical professions, aiid in the Scotch church, produces 
 a similar supply. Those who raise the supply are, in both cities, 
 generally the young men intended for the priesthood; but in 
 Rome the clergy occupy themselves more systematically, and 
 more authoritatively, more in the Prussian style, with the educa- 
 tion of the people, than they have legal power to do with ns. 
 They hold the reins, and are the superintendents, if not the actual 
 teachers, in all these schools. It is very much owing to the zeal 
 and assiduity of the priesthood in diffusing instruction in the 
 useful branches of knowledge, that the revival and spread of 
 Catholicism have been so considerable among the people of the 
 Continent who were left by the Revolution, and the warfare 
 attending it, in that state that if the Catholic religion had not con- 
 nected itself with something visibly useful, with material inte- 
 rests, would have had nothing to do with it. The Catholic clergy 
 adroitly seized on education, and not, as we suppose in Protestant 
 countries, to keep the people in darkness and ignorance, and to 
 inculcate error and superstition ; but to be at the head of the great 
 social influence of useful knowledge, and with the conviction that 
 this knowledge —reading, writing, arithmetic, and all such acquire- 
 ments — is no more thinking, or an education leading to thinking, 
 and to shaking off the trammels of popish superstition, than play- 
 ing the fiddle, or painting, or any other acquirement to which 
 mind is applied. 
 
 Since the peace of Europe was established in IS 15, very im- 
 portant events in church history have taken place, although 
 scarcely noticed by our clergy, occupied too exclusively in the 
 petty politics of their own establishments. The revival of religious 
 feeling in every country of Europe after the war-feeling, after the 
 moral fever, and excitement of the revolutionary period were ex- 
 tinguished, and the embers of the flame trodden out at Waterloo, 
 is one of the most striking characteristics of the times which have 
 succeeded ; and the diflerent directions this universal revival of 
 religion has taken in the different churches of Europe, one of the 
 most eventful for future generations. The continental people 
 had a religion to choose at the end of the last war. How have 
 the two churches of Europe availed themselves of this peculiar 
 state of the European mind ? The Protestant church is shaken 
 to the foundation in her ancient seats, Germany and Switzerland, 
 
406 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and, as a body politic, has lost, instead of gained, influence. The 
 overthrow of the very name and form of Protestantism in Prussia 
 by the late king, and the defection even of the clergy, from her 
 doctrines in Switzerland, Germany, and other Protestant coun- 
 tries, have thrown great moral weight into the scale of the Roman 
 CatFiolic church. The European people had a religion to choose, 
 'and found the Protestant church in its very centre, Germany, in 
 a state of transition and transformation into the new shaped 
 thing — the Prussian church ; and from the almost total silence of 
 the abject Prussian population, both clergy and flocks, at the 
 .change, it was naturally believed that the change was undeniably 
 necessary ; and people naturally attached themselves to that church 
 which acknowledges no want of change, and carries with it the 
 moral weight of stability and time-hallowed forms. In the con- 
 tinental Protestant church, the revived flame of religion has not 
 taken a church direction, but has shown itself in schisms, discord 
 of rites and opinions, the extinction in Prussia of the doctrines and 
 forms of the two great branches of Protestantism, and the adop- 
 tion, even by the clergy in Germany and Switzerland, of views 
 which would have been considered formerly in their churches as 
 deistical, unitarian, socinian. In Britain, also, the Protestant 
 church has got into a false position. The clergy, both in the 
 Church of England and in the Church of Scotland, have been at- 
 tempting to unite the two opposite poles — power and popularity 
 — and in their struggles for church power, and church influence, 
 liave lost the lead in the religious revival of the age. It is not the 
 church in either country now that sustains, or directs, or even 
 represents the religious sentiments of the people, but the offsets 
 from the clerical body acting independently of the church, and 
 forming an evangelical laity. The scholars have outgrown the 
 teachers; and the teachers, instead of advancing with and leading 
 the progress of the age, are in danger of becoming superannuated 
 appendages on the religion of the people, sustained by it, not sus- 
 taining it ; nor capable of directing it in the vast educational and 
 missionary efforts which the religious sentiments of the people 
 are making by their own agents, while their clergy are battling 
 for church wealth, or church power. 
 
 The Roman Catholic church, with its more effective machinery 
 of a priesthood, has held the bridle, and guided the public mind 
 in this great revival of religious feeling in Europe, more cleverly 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. - 407 
 
 than the Protestant. It has evidently entered more fully info the 
 spirit of the age, has seen more clearly what to give up, and what 
 to retain, in the present intellectual state of the European mind, 
 and has exerted its elasticity to cover with the mantle of Catholic- 
 ism, opinions wide enough apart to have formed irreconcilable 
 schisms and sects in former ages. Monkisli institutions, onerous v 
 calls upon the time or purse of the common man, relic-veneration, 
 vows, pilgrimages, auricular confessions, penances, and proces- 
 sional mummery, appear to be silently relaxed, or relinqaished, 
 wheresoever the public mind is too advanced for them. The old 
 Catholic clergy and their kind of Catholicism appear to have died 
 out, or to be placed in an inactive state, and young men of new 
 education and spirit to have been formed, and set to* work: and 
 these men have taken up their church as they found her, shorn of 
 temporal and political power in almost every country, and of all 
 social influence in a great part of Europe, and even with the 
 means of living reduced to a very scanty pittance in France, and 
 other Catholic lands, and have to set to work from this position, 
 without looking back, with the zeal and fervency which perhaps 
 only flourish in poverty. It is so far from being on the ignorance 
 of the people this new school of the Catholic priesthood founds 
 the Catholic church, that you hear sermons from them which 
 might be preached to any Christian congregation. Tiie general 
 doctrines of Christianity are as ably inculcated as from our own 
 pulpits, and the peculiar or disputable doctrines of the Popish 
 church seem, by some tacit understanding, to be left out of the 
 range of their subjects. They are not only free from the puerili- 
 ties of doctrinal points, but also from the affectation, so common 
 in the Protestant churches abroad, of pjreaching only the moral, 
 and not the religious, doctrines of the Gospel. 
 
 Besides this greater efficiency of the machinery of the Romish 
 clun-ch, the Catholic religion itself has the apparent unity of belief 
 of all its adherents in its favotir. This unity is apparent only, 
 not real ; but it has tlie same moral efiect on the minds of the 
 unreflecting as if it were real. The Catholic religion adapts 
 itself, in fact, to every degree of intelligence, and to every class 
 of intellect. It is a net which adapts its meshes to the minnow, 
 and the whale. The Lazarone on his knees before a child's doll 
 in a glass case, and praying fervently to the bellissima Madonna, 
 ^is a Catholic, as well as Gibbon, Stolberg, or Scblcgel : but his 
 
408 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 Catholicism is little, if at all, removed from an idolatrous faith in 
 the image before him, which may in its time have represented a 
 Diana of Ephesus, or a Venus. Their Catholicism was the result 
 of the investigation of philosophic minds, and which, however 
 erroneous, could have had nothing in common with that of the 
 ignorant Lazarone. I strolled one Sunday evening in Prussia into 
 the Roman Catholic church at Bonn on the Rhine. The priest was 
 catechising, examining, and instructing the children of the parish, in 
 the same way, and upon the same plan, and with the same care to 
 awaken the intellectual powers of each child by appropriate ques- 
 tions and explanations, as in our well conducted Sunday schools 
 that are taught on the system of the Edinburgh Sessional School. 
 And what of all subjects was the subject this Catholic priest was 
 explaining and inculcating to Catholic children ; and by his fami- 
 liar questions, and their answers, bringing most admirably home 
 to their intelligence ? — the total uselessness and inefficacy of mere 
 forms of prayer, or verbal repetitions*of prayers, if not understood 
 and accompanied by mental occupation with the subject, and the 
 preference of silent mental prayer to all forms — and this most 
 beautifully brought out to suit the intelligence of the children. 
 I looked around me, to be satisfied that I was really at the altar 
 steps of a popish church, and not in the school room of Dr. Muir's 
 or any other well-taught Presbyterian parish in Edinburgh. Yet 
 beside me, on her knees before the altar, was an old crone mum- 
 bling her Pater Nosters, and keeping tale of them by her beads, 
 and whose mind was evidently intent on accomplishing so many 
 repetitions, without attaching any meaning to the words. Between 
 her Catholicism, and that of the pastor and of the new generation 
 he was teaching, there was certainly a mighty chasm, a distance 
 that, in the Protestant church, or in a former age, would have 
 given ample room for half a dozen sects and shades of dissent — 
 a difference as great as between the Puseyite branch of the Church 
 of England, and the Roman Catholic church itself. But the mantle 
 of the Catholic faith is elastic, and covers all sorts of differences, 
 and hides all sorts of disunion. Each understands the Catholic 
 religion in his own way, and remains classed as Catholic, without 
 dissent, although, in reality, as widely apart from the old Catholic 
 church, as ever Luther was from the pope. Our Protestant faith 
 sets before all men distinctly one and the same doctrine and 
 belief, the same principles, the same Christian knowledge, ideas, 
 
 I 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 409 
 
 and objects. There is, consequentl}', distinct ground for secta- 
 rianism, and dissent, in the very nature of the Protestant church. 
 These are also abstract ideas which are set before men, to which 
 every mind must raise itself, and which, from the very nature of 
 the human mind, cannot be comprehended so readily, or dwelt 
 upon so long, and so ferventlyjyespecially by those untrained to 
 mental exertion, as the material ideas of crucifixes, images, 
 relics, paintings, and ceremonies, with which Catholicism mixes 
 up the same abstract ideas. These material objects act like Ley- 
 den jars in electricity upon the devotion of Catholics : and every 
 one seems to adjust to his own mental powers and intelligence, 
 the use of this material machinery for quickening his devotion. 
 With some, the invocation of the Virgin Mary, and the Saints, is 
 considered but as a necessary, logical deduction from the great 
 doctrine of mediation. If the mediation of the Son with the 
 Father, be efficacious, the mediation of the Mother, who must 
 have been the most perfect of created beings, as the chosen vessel 
 for our Redeemer's conception, with her Son, who in filial piety 
 and affection as in all other virtue, was perfection, must, accord- 
 ing to their not unspecious deduction, be efficacious alsor The 
 ora pro nobis, the invocations addressed to the Virgin Mary, the 
 Apostles, Saints, and those who were either personal friends and 
 companions of our Saviour when on earth, or are supposed to 
 have been acceptable to him by their lives or suffi3rings, are 
 founded on this deduction from the principle of mediation, and 
 from the excellency of the virtue of our Saviour. The mediatory 
 nature of these invocations is with others, again, almost entirely 
 lost sight of and forgotten, and it becomes a direct idolatrous 
 worship to these secondary mediators equal to what we pay to 
 the great Mediator himself: and as these are at best but human 
 beii'igs little removed from our own condition, the mind is able to 
 dwell without exertion or fatigue upon them, their merits, and 
 their works ; and is excited to a fervency of devotion not attain- 
 able by the human mind from the contemplation of the sublime 
 abstract truths of our religious belief. Our belief is the working 
 of judgment, theirs of imagination; and this fervency of feeling 
 is, in the construction of our mental system, more nearly allied to, 
 and nourished and excited by imagination, than judgment. In 
 this way we must account for the undeniably greater devotional 
 fervour of Catholics than of Protestants. 
 27 
 
410 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 The elasticity of the Catholic church adapting itself to every 
 mind, instead of raising every mind up to it, is the great cause of the 
 advance of Catholicism in the present day, among the enlightened, 
 as well as the ignorant classes; and the great cause of the small in- 
 fluence of Catholicism in raising the moral and intellectual condition 
 of mankind, and advancing the civilization of society. It is a cap 
 that fits every head, for every head can stick it on in some fashion 
 or other. Its most absurd doctrine, as that of the real presence 
 in the elements of the Lord's Supper, is plausibly enough deduced 
 from the plain words of Scripture — " This is my body" — not, this 
 is the symbol of my body— and the natural objection of the evi- 
 dence of our senses contradicting the supposed transubstantia- 
 tion, is met by the argument of the unceasing divine power to 
 operate a miracle even every day and hour upon every altar, the 
 incompatibility with any rational idea of divine power, of the 
 doctrine that the age of miracles is past, that what the divine 
 power worked at one time it cannot or will not work at another, 
 although the same necessity exists, and the insufficiency of our 
 senses as a test of miracle, the disciples themselves having been 
 blind to the miracle of the loaves and fishes, although seeing and 
 assisting in it. This fits some heads. Others find the consub- 
 stantiation of the Lutheran not at all more inteUigible than the 
 transubstantiation of the Catholic, and acquiesce in the older faith 
 of the two. The majority believe that which requires rio think- 
 ing. The French revolution left the minds of men in a rude, 
 uneducated state, more adapted to receive the material impres- 
 sions of the Catholic faith, the ideas suited to a low, neglected, 
 religious, and moral education, than to comprehend and embrace 
 the higher and more abstract truths of Protestantism. The mili- 
 tary spirit of a generation born and bred in wars and revolutions, 
 and accustomed to see all distinction and honour resting not upon 
 moral worth and good principle, but upon success, promotion, 
 and outward decoration, could, when a reaction and revival arose 
 in religious feeling among them, more easily go over into that 
 church in which similar merits and similar emblems are admitted, 
 and supersede mental exertion. 
 
 The period of the French revolutionary war, undoubtedly, 
 lowered the tone of moral and religious sentiment in Europe. 
 In the events and present results of that vast movement, so many 
 enterprises were successful in which all acknowledged moral and 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 411 
 
 religious principles were set aside, and so many agents and 
 participators in iniquitous events attained, and still to this day- 
 retain, all honour and social consideration, although gained in 
 defiance of all moral principles of conduct, that wrong-doing has 
 been kept in countenance, and success has been allowed to legal- 
 ize, and cover from the judgment of posterity, the most flagitious 
 acts of public historical personages. This is the deepest stain 
 upon the literature of our times. Who in all wide Europe, 
 which of the many historians of the French revolution — Scott, 
 Alison, Thiers — who, who has raised his voice in the cause of 
 moral right and integrity ? Who has applied to the test-stone 
 of just moral principle the men and acts he is describing to pos- 
 terity as great and brilliant examples of human conduct? Who 
 has asket;! the French generals, marshals, and princes, the living 
 individuals who now revel in the eye of the world as the highest 
 characters of the age, who has asked them, one by one, how did 
 ye amass your immense wealth ? Is it honestly come by ? Is 
 it the savings of your daily pay and allowances in your profes- 
 sional stations ? or is it money gained by secret participation 
 with your own contractors and commissaries, or wrung by forced 
 gifts, requisitions, unmilitary robbery, in a word, from towns, 
 ancient institutions, and innocent suffering individuals ? Where 
 got ye your services of gold and silver plate? your collections of 
 Flemish, Italian, and Spanish paintings ? Were these not forced, 
 plundered from their lawful owners, without even the show of 
 purchase ? And who has asked the Buonaparte family, who 
 are now vapouring about the world, attempting to set it on fire, 
 how came ye to be great men ? Your brother was a great 
 soldier, but ye have neither inherited nor achieved greatness. 
 Ye have no talents among you, either for civil or military affairs, 
 that would be at all out of place in your original vocations upon 
 three-legged stools, as country procurators, or behind the counter 
 in the honest calling of grocers and drapers, in your native 
 little town of Ajaccio. What, in the name of common sense, 
 entitles you to be crowing upon the top of the world as princes 
 and counts ? And where got ye your immense wealtii ? Was 
 it honestly earned in Ajaccio ? Ye cannot even say it was mili- 
 tary pillage and peculation. It was pilfered out of the taxes of 
 those countries over which ye were sent to reign by your bro- 
 ther, like so many Sancho Panzas— the most impudent mockery 
 
412 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of national rights and public principle ever attempted among 
 European nations. It belongs, every dollar of it, to the people 
 of those countries. Honest Sancho came penniless away from 
 his government of Barataria, but ye left Holland, Westphalia, 
 and Spain with full pockets. His moral feeling told him to leave 
 his subjects without profiting by a farthing of their revenues 
 Ye offered to subscribe millions to the funeral of the emperor, 
 and have expended millions in silly attempts to kindle a flame in 
 Europe for your ambitious projects, while the money you are 
 wasting belongs really, and on just, correct, moral principle, to 
 the people from whom it was squeezed, who earned it by their 
 industry, paid it over most grudgingly to your own or your bro- 
 ther's tax-gatherers for the public service, or civil list, or privy 
 purse of their state, and to whom, individually, or collectively as 
 a state, every shilling you have does in common honesty be- 
 long. When the great men of the earth arranged and restored 
 at the Congress of Vienna the political and territorial interests of 
 kings and states, why did they not follow out the principle, and 
 restore the moral interests of Europe also ? Why did they not 
 make the vultures who were gorged with the pillage of Holland, 
 Germany, Spain, Italy, of every city from Hamburgh to Bern, 
 and from Bern to Cadiz, and to Naples, disgorge individually 
 their unmilitary booty, and restore the property to the countries, 
 towns, institutions, and private persons, from whom it had been 
 extorted contrary to all principles of civilized warfare ? They 
 were not eagles, — these were but the foul birds of prey which 
 follow the eagle to feed upon the carcass he strikes down in his 
 flight. Political or military profligacy in high station and com- 
 mand is more ruinous to public morals than private vice, because 
 it sets principle at defiance openly, and not in a corner, and 
 showing the homage to virtue of attempting to hide itself; but 
 braving, in high and conspicuous social positions, the control of 
 morality and public opinion. The Congress of Vienna, in restor- 
 ing something like a balance of power, and a monarchical shape 
 to the Continent, only skinned over the wound inflicted on so- 
 ciety—made compensation only to kings, and some royal dynas- 
 ties, not to the people; restored nothing of what is of more import- 
 ance than forms of government,— nothing of the moral principle 
 which had been pushed out of its proper place and influence in 
 society, by the impunity, unmerited honours, and impudent as- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 413 
 
 sumption of dignity, permitted to the most shameless rapine that 
 ever disgraced the history of civilized people. M. Thiers, the 
 late minister of France, is now in Germany, writing history, for- 
 tunately for mankind, instead of making history on the banks of 
 the Rhine. He is visiting all the cities and localities of Germany 
 which were the theatres of important events and memorable 
 exploits, to collect, it is said, materials for a great historical work 
 from the commencement of the French revolution. Has M. 
 Thiers the moral courage to write such a history as history in 
 this age ought to be written ? Will he bring to the unerring 
 test-stone of moral principle, every act, every character, every 
 man he is dealing with as an historian ? Will he unmask artd 
 denounce to posterity, the unprincipled adventurers, pillagers, 
 and marauders, whom accident, good fortune, military success, 
 and the bravery of their troops, threw up into high and conspi- 
 cuous stations, and who are figuring to this day in the eye of the 
 world, the first of men? Will he restore the moral tone to 
 society which has been lost in France, by the unmerited success 
 and splendour of such men ? Or will he only give the world a 
 classical work— a fine imitation of the ancient historians, bril- 
 liant descriptions of marches, battles, intrigues, causes and results 
 of events, fine-spun, imaginary, eloquent, modeled upon the 
 manner and style of Thucydides or Tacitus ; a work of talent, 
 but not of historical philosophic truth ; a work which every- 
 body will praise, few will read, and nobody believe, or be the 
 better for ; a work, in short, of leading articles, in which every 
 victory is unparalleled, every successful general a hero, and glory 
 a cloak for the most infamous deeds and characters? The road 
 is open to M. Thiers, and Germany is the country which con- 
 tains much of the materials, to produce the most influential and 
 truly philosophical history of an eventful period, which the mo- 
 ralist, or the historian teaching morality by example, ever had 
 before him. Will M. Thiers have the moral courage to take this 
 road ? 
 
 The results at some future period of the singular moral and 
 religious state of the European mind which has followed the 
 revolutionary paroxysm of the beginning of this century baflle 
 conjecture. The Protestant religion, existing, it may almost be 
 said, only in detached corners of the world, and there torn into a 
 hundred sects and divisions, and the clergy of her two branches 
 
414 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 occupied in unseemly squabbles for power and property, and not 
 leading, nor, in public estimation, capable of leading, the religious 
 revival among Protestant Christians, nor of meeting and refuting 
 the learning and theological scholarship of professed infidel writers 
 — the popish church advancing stealthily, but steadily, step by 
 step, with a well-organized, well-educated, zealous, and wily 
 priesthood at the head of and guiding the religious revival in her 
 domain of Christianity, and adapting herself to the state of the 
 public mind, and the degree of social and intellectual development 
 in every country, from the despotism of Naples, to the democracy 
 of New York — the moral tone of society, the power of moral and 
 religious principle over conduct, the weight and value of right or 
 wrong in public estimation, deranged, the influence of public 
 opinion on the moral conduct of public men lowered, by the 
 countenance given by governments to individuals who should be 
 branded in the history of this age as unprincipled depredators 
 setting all moral and international law. at defiance in their mili- 
 tary and political acts — these are elements in the religious, moral, 
 and political condition of European society, which, together with 
 the change in its social economy by the new distribution of pro- 
 perty, must make every thinking man feel that the French revo- 
 lution, as a vast social movement, is but in its commencement. 
 We are but living in a pause between its acts. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE OLIVE TREE— ITS EFFECTS IN SOCIAL ECONOMY.— MAIZE.— POTA- 
 TOES.— FLORENCE.— DIVISION OF LAND IN TUSCANY.— STATE OF THE 
 PEOPLE.— STATE OF THE CONTINENTAL AND ENGLISH PEOPLE COM- 
 PARED. 
 
 The inhabitants of tiie gloomy little towns in the Papal states, 
 Civita Castellana, Otricoli, Narni, Terni, their squalid nothing-to- 
 do appearance as they saunter in hstless idleness about their doors, 
 a prey to ague and ennui, are sadly in contrast to their bright snnny 
 land, and its glorious vegetation. Their country produces every- 
 thing — everything but industry ; and man flourishes as a moral 
 intelligent being only where industry is forced upon him — and 
 civilization and well-being with industry — by natural circum- 
 stances — by the want, not the abundance of natural products. 
 Truly the plenty of their country is their curse. Suppose every 
 kail-yard in Scotland had a tree growing at the dyke-side, like the 
 old pollard sauglis we usually see there, and requiring as little 
 care or cultivation, and that from this tree the family gathered its 
 butter, suet, tallow, or an oil that answered perfectly all the house- 
 hold uses of these substances, either as a nutritious adjunct to 
 daily food in their cookery, or for soap, or for giving light to their 
 dwellings — all, in short, that our grass-lands and dairies, our 
 Russia trade, our Greenland fisheries, produce to us for household 
 uses — would it be no blessing to have such trees ? Such trees are 
 the gift of nature to the people here in the south, and are bestowed 
 with no niggard hand. The olive-tree flourisiics on the poorest, 
 scarpy soil, on gravelly, rocky land, that would not keep a sheep 
 on ten acres of it, and a single olive-tree will sometimes yield from 
 a single crop nearly fifty gallons of oil. Is this a curse, and not 
 a blessing? Look at the people of all olive-growing countries — and 
 the question is answered. The very productiveness of nature in 
 the objects of industry naturally stifles industry, Tiie countries 
 which produce industry, are in a more civilized and moral condi- 
 
416 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 tion, than the countries which produce the objects of industry. 
 The Italian governments— the Neapohtan, the Papal, the Aus- 
 trian, the Sardinian — are, perhaps unjustly, blamed for the squalor, 
 idleness, and wretchedness of the Italian people. No government 
 can give incitement to industry in commerce, agriculture, or manu- 
 factures, where soil and climate produce, without any great or 
 continuous exertion of man, almost all that industry labours for. 
 The people of Italy, and of all the south of Europe, probably 
 never can be raised to so high a social state as the people of the 
 north of Europe, if the measure of a high social state be the diffu- 
 sion of industry and all its moral influences, and of the useful arts 
 and all their gratifications — nor the people of the north raised to 
 that of the Italian people, if the general taste for, and cultivation 
 of the fine arts, be the measure of the social condition and civil- 
 ization of mankind. 
 
 The olive-tree is but one of the many fruits of the earth which 
 supply the natural wants of man here without any incessant de- 
 mand upon his toil, and which lap him in an indolent contentment 
 with a low social condition. The maize, or Indian corn, is, both 
 physically and morally, the equivalent among the populations of 
 the south to the potatoe among those of the north. It is curious 
 that both these additions to the subsistence of man became gene- 
 rally cultivated about the same period, both being of unknown or 
 unnoticed origin, and the one, as if in compensation, flourishing 
 best where the other succeeds but imperfectly.. Maize is almost 
 limited to the climate of the vine. Potatoes, indeed, succeed, 
 although less perfectly both as to quality and quantity, within the 
 climate of the maize and vine, but practically enter little into the 
 supply of food in those countries in which maize succeeds. The 
 first introduction of both these plants is involved in some obscurity. 
 The potatoe is usually stated to have been brought home by Sir 
 Walter Raleigh from America, in the reign of James ; but we have, 
 in the Merry Wives of Windsor, the weighty evidence of Sir John 
 Falstaff himself against this opinion. " Let the sky rain potatoes." 
 — The potatoe must have been commonly known to pit, boxes, 
 and galleries in Queen Elizabeth's time, to have admitted of such 
 a familiar allusion to it. The maize, from its French name' pro- 
 bably, bled de Turquie, is supposed by some to have come to 
 Europe from the East — to have been the fruit of the crusades, 
 and the principal fruit now remaining of those expeditions. When 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 417 
 
 we consider the vast populations now subsisting principally on 
 maize, the potatoe itself will be found to yield in importance to 
 it. The amount of subsistence from a small space of land is great, 
 and where the vine is cultivated, the maize is often cultivated be- 
 tween the rows of vines as a kind of secondary crop. The culti- 
 vation of maize acts upon the amount and condition of the popula- 
 tion — on their numbers and habits, precisely as that of potatoes. 
 The moral results have been the same from both. Where the land 
 is not the property of the cultivators, but of a nobility, as in the Sar- 
 dinian, Neapolitan, and Papal states, the clieap and inferior, but 
 plentiful food, in proportion to the land and labour bestowed on its 
 production, has brought into existence a great population miserably 
 ill off. The difference of value between their inferior food of 
 maize, and the value of other kinds of food, has only gone into 
 the pockets of their land-owners, and their employers. Their con- 
 dition has been deteriorated by a cheaper food increasing the 
 quantity, and thereby reducing the value of labour to a rate equi- 
 valent to a subsistence upon an inferior and cheaper diet. Where 
 the land, again, is the property of the labourers themselves, as in 
 Switzerland, in Tuscany, in France, the cheaper and inferior food 
 leaves them more of a superior, higher-priced food for market, or 
 more land to produce marketable provisions from ; and what they 
 save in their diet goes into their purse. Thus, the very same 
 cause, this cheap article of diet, produces thrifty, active, industri- 
 ous habits among the Swiss, Tuscan, and French peasants, and 
 lazy, trifling, lazaroni habits among the labourers of the Neapoli- 
 tan, Papal, and Sardinian states. It is the possession of property 
 that regulates the standard of living in a country, as in a single 
 household, and fixes the general ideas and habits, with regard to 
 the necessary or suitable, in diet, lodging and clothing: and this 
 standard regulates the wages of labour. People who hare at 
 home some kind of property to apply their labour to, will not sell 
 their labour for wages that do not afford them a better diet than 
 potatoes or maize, although, in saving for themselves, they may 
 live very much on potatoes and mai2*. We are often surprised, 
 in travelling on the Continent, to hear of a rate of day's wages 
 very high considering the abundance and cheapness of food. It 
 is want of the necessity or inclination to take work that makes 
 day labour scarce, and, considering the price of provisions, dear 
 
418 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 in many parts of the Continent, where property in land is widely 
 diffused among the people. 
 
 Italy is a country of contrasts, of finery and rags tacked together; 
 but none of its contrasts strike the political economist so much as 
 the difference between Florence and Rome. All around Rome, 
 and even within its walls, reigns a funereal silence. The neigh- 
 bourhood is a silent desert, — no stir or sign of men, no bustle at 
 the gates tell of a populous city. But without, within, and around 
 the gates of Florence, you hear on all sides the busy hum of men. 
 The suburbs of small houses, the clusters of good, clean, trades- 
 man-like habitations, extend a giile or two. Shops, wine houses, 
 market carts, country people, sma,rt peasant, girls, gardeners, 
 weavers, wheelwrights, hucksters, in short, all the ordinary sub- 
 urban trades and occupations which usually locate themselves in 
 the outskirts of thriving cities, are in full movement here. The 
 labouring class in Florence are well lodged ; and from the number 
 and contents of the provision stalls in the obscure third-rate streets, 
 the number of butchers' shops, grocers' shops, eating-houses, 
 and coffee-houses for the middle and lower classes, the traveller 
 must conclude that they are generally well fed and at their ease. 
 The labourer is whistling at his work, the weaver singing over 
 his loom. The number of book-stalls, small circulating libraries, 
 and the free access of all classes to the magnificent galleries of 
 paintings and statues, even to the collection in the Pitti palace 
 itself, and the frequent use made by th? lower class of this free 
 access to the highest works of art, show that intellectual enjoy- 
 ments connected with taste in the fine arts — the only intellectual 
 enjoyments open to or generally cultivated by those classes on the 
 Continent who do not belong to the learned professions, and are 
 by the nature of their government, debarred from political or re- 
 ligious investigation and discussion — are widely diffused and gene- 
 rally cultivated. No town on the Continent shows so much of 
 this kind of intellectuality, or so much well-being and good conduct 
 among the people. It happened that the 9th of May was kept 
 here as a great holiday by the lower class, as May day with us, 
 and they assembled in a kind of park about a mile from the city, 
 where booths, tents, and carts with wine and eatables for sale, were 
 in crowds and clusters, as at our village wakes and race courses. 
 The multitude from town and country round could not be less 
 than 20,000 people grouped in small parties, dancing, singing, talk- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 419 
 
 ing, dining on tiie grass, and enjoying themselves. I did not see 
 a single instance of inebriety, ill temper, or unruly boisterous con- 
 duct ; yet the people were gay and joyous. There was no police, 
 except, at the crossings of the alleys in the park, a mounted dra- 
 goon to make the innumerable carts, horses, and carriages of all 
 kinds and classes keep their files, and their own sides of the roads. 
 The scene gave a favourable impression of the state of the lower 
 classes in Tuscany. 
 
 But why should the physical and moral condition of this popu- 
 lation be so superior to that of the Neapolitans, or of the neigh- 
 bouring people in the Papal states? The soil and climate and 
 productions are the same in all these countries. The difference 
 must be accounted for by the happier distribution of the land in 
 Tuscany. In 1836, Tuscany contained 1,436,785 inhabitants, and 
 130,190 landed estates. Deducting 7901 estates belonging to 
 towns, churches, and other corporate bodies, we have 122,289 
 belonging to the people — or, in other words, 48 families in every 
 100 have land of their own to live from. Can the striking differ- 
 ence in the physical and moral condition, and in the standard of 
 living, between the people of Tuscany and those of the Papal 
 states be ascribed to any other cause ? The taxes are as heavy 
 in Tuscany as in the dominions of the Pope ; about 12*. 6d. ster- 
 ling per head of the population in the one, and 12,s, 10^. in. the 
 other. But in the whole Maremma of Rome, of about 30 leagues 
 in length by 10 or 12 in breadth, Mons. Chateauvieux reckons 
 only 24 factors, or tenants of the large estates of the Roman nobles. 
 From the frontier of the Neapolitan to that of the Tuscan state, 
 the whole country is reckoned to be divided in about GOO landed 
 estates. Compare the husbandry of Tuscany, the perfect system 
 of drainage, for instance, in the strath of the Arno by drains be- 
 tween evSry two beds of land, all connected with a main drain — 
 being our own lately introduced furrow tile-draining, but con- 
 nected here with the irrigation as well as the draining of the land, 
 — compare the clean state of the growing crops, the variety and 
 succession of green crops for foddering cattle in the house all the 
 year round, the attention to collecting manure, the garden-like 
 cultivation of the whole face of the country, — compare these with 
 the desert waste of the Roman Maremma, or with the papal 
 country of soil and productiveness as good as that of the vale of 
 the Arno, the country about Foligni and Perugia, — compare the 
 
420 > NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 well-clothed, busy people, the smart country girls at work about 
 their cow's food, or their silkworm leaves, with the ragged, sallow, 
 indolent population lounging about their doors in the papal do- 
 minions, starving, and with nothing to do on the great estates ; 
 nay, compare the agricultural industry and operations in this 
 land of small farms, with the best of our large-farm districts, with 
 Tweedside, or East Lothian — and snap your fingers at the wisdom 
 of our Sir Johns, and all the host of our book-makers on agricul- 
 ture, who bleat after each other that solemn saw of the thriving- 
 tenantry-times of the war — that small farms are incompatible 
 with a high and perfect state of cultivation. Scotland, or Eng- 
 land, can produce no one tract of land to be compared to this 
 strath of the Arno, not to say for productiveness, because that 
 depends upon soil and climate, which we have not of similar 
 quality to compare, but for industry and intelligence applied to 
 husbandry, for perfect drainage, for irrigation, for garden-like 
 culture, for clean state of crops, for absence of all waste of land, 
 labour, or manure, for good cultivation, in short, and the good 
 condition of the labouring cultivator. These are points which 
 admit of being compared between one farm and another, in the 
 most distinct soils and climates. Our system of large farms will 
 gain nothing in such a comparison with the husbandry of Tuscany, 
 Flanders, or Switzerland, under a system of small farms. 
 
 Next to the distribution of property, the comparative well-being 
 of the lower classes in Tuscany must be ascribed to the govern- 
 ment. The ducal family, for some generations, have ruled as a 
 liberal, paternal autocracy. The people have had no represent- 
 ation in the legislature in a constitutional shape ; but they have 
 been ably represented by their grand dukes themselves. The 
 public measures of these wise, good, and truly great sovereigns, 
 have been of a more decidedly liberal character than any repre- 
 sentative legislature in Italy — taking into account the ignorance 
 of the representatives, the influence of the priesthood, and the 
 jealousy of Austria of any shadow of constitutional power'vested 
 in the Italian people— could have ventured upon. The feudal 
 privileges of the nobles, the municipal or corporation privileges 
 which shackle the freedom of industry and trade, the restraints on 
 civil liberty which in other parts of Europe keep the working 
 producing classes in a state of thraldom to the government and 
 its functionaries, have been long mitigated or abolished in Tus- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 421 
 
 cany, by the liberal sovereigns, who, by rare good fortune, have 
 ruled in succession for three generations, on the same enlightened 
 and beneficent principles. But stability of good laws and good 
 government depending upon the personal character of one man 
 is a stake of fearful magnitude, when the well-being of a whole 
 people depends upon it. One ill-educated, ill-advised successor, 
 may undo all the good his predecessors have planned or accom- 
 plished. Capital, commerce, manufacturing industry, the great 
 agencies in the movement of modern society, will not trust them- 
 selves freely upon so unstable a foundation. This will ever be 
 the impediment to any considerable progress of Prussia, Austria, 
 Tuscany, and all the paternally governed but autocratic states, in 
 the development of the industry of their people. The prosperity, 
 national wealth, and public spirit they aim at are inseparable 
 from free institutions and legislative power lodged with the people 
 themselves, and independent of the life or will of an individual. 
 It would be a great misfortune to civilized Europe, if Prussia, 
 with an autocratic government in which the public has no legal 
 influence over the executive and its functionaries, were to attain 
 any considerable manufacturing and commercial prosperity among 
 nations. But this prosperity is so linked with that public confi- 
 dence which can exist only in states in which the people have 
 constitutional checks by their own representatives upon the acts 
 of the government, that such a prosperity is unattainable by such 
 a state as Prussia. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FLORENCE TO BOLOGNA.— NOTES ON VENICE. 
 
 The road from Florence to Bologna, about 25 leagues, crosses 
 the Apennines, and from some points the sea on either side of 
 the peninsula may be descried. The mountain scenery of the 
 Apennine chain is by no means grand, picturesque, or beautiful. 
 The elevation of the hills is so considerable that patches of snow- 
 remain unmelted a great part of the summer ; but they are 
 covered with a thick bed of clay soil in general, and the breaks 
 made by torrents in beds of clay, the ravines, glens, and valleys 
 of a yellow clay country, are seldom picturesque. In Italy alto- 
 gether the tracts of country with fine natural scenery are rare. 
 The towns, the works of art, the association of ideas with ancient 
 history, and the luxuriant vegetation, and delicious climate, are 
 the charms of Italy. The inhabitants near to Bologna do not 
 partake of the wretchedness and indolence of the subjects of the 
 papal states on the other side of the Apennines. They are evi- 
 dently in a better condition. The land is more divided among 
 the people in the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Forli, 
 than in the old original territory of the papal state in which the 
 Roman pontiffs, and the princely families derived from them, are 
 the land-owners. The people, also, had some constitutional rights 
 in former times. 
 
 The city of Bologna is remarkable from having an arched 
 colonnade over the foot pavements on each side of the streets, a 
 feature we are not accustomed to in northern towns. One walks 
 under cover, but the effect is very gloomy. The climate must be 
 rainy on this side of the Apennines, as all the cities have some of 
 the principal of their old streets covered in on each side. Ferrara 
 is a poor, deserted city of some 30,000 inhabitants, dwelling in a 
 town built for 100,000. Side streets vacant, houses out of repair, 
 whether-stained, and a world too large for their present occupants, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 423 
 
 grass-grown courts, ragged old people ; this is the picture of 
 these ancient ItaUan cities. Padua is but a Utile more lively, with 
 its university attended by 400 to 500 students. 
 
 Venice, " the city risen from the sea," is the point to which the 
 traveller hastens. It is perhaps the only city in the world which 
 does not disappoint his expectations. It is, indeed, a dream-like 
 creation upon the waters. Gondolas meet you at Fusina or 
 Mestre, where you teave the carriage, to ferry you across to 
 Venice, a distance of about four miles over a shallow lagune, in 
 which the water-road is marked out by large piles. The gondola 
 is a wherry, not so neatly built as the Thames wherry, with the 
 upper half of a mourning hackney-coach, such as our undertakers 
 send out in the rear of a burial train, stuck midships. In this the 
 passengers sit, or recline on cushions, and may shut themselves 
 up as in a coach with the glass-windows or the blinds. Two 
 fellows at opposite ends and sides of the boat stand shoving the 
 oars from them, and paddle along pretty quickly, avoiding the 
 rimning foul of other gondolas with great dexterity, it is said ; 
 but, in truth, there has been no great danger of running foul ^f 
 others in the most frequented canals of Venice in this nineteenth 
 century. In turning corners they might possibly bump against 
 each other, and they give a short cry, to warn those coming down 
 the water street to keep to the right or left. The gondolier has 
 nothing of the seaman about him, and out of his own ditches, 
 would, I suspect, be found a sorry boatman ; for the boat part of 
 his conveyance is not so neat, nor so well kept as the coach part. 
 Venice is not without her streets. There is access by land to 
 every house in Venice. Thousands of little alleys, like Cran- 
 bourne Alley in London, but not so wide, and bridges imiume- 
 rable, make the landways not even very circuitous, and the great 
 mass of the population go about their daily business as in other 
 towns, through the streets. The gondolas are but the equivalents 
 of the hackney-coaches of other cities. I question if a greater 
 proportion of the 100,000 people living in the Tower Hamlets, 
 Ratcliffe, Poplar, and on either side of the Thames in that district, 
 be not upon the water in any given minute of the day, than of 
 this 100,000 people. The lower classes, and even the gondoliers, 
 have by no means the air of a seafiiring or even of an aquatic 
 population. Our London boatmen, even those who ply above 
 bridge, have all something jack-tarish about them. You would 
 
424 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 never mistake the man who lives by his boat among us for a 
 terrestrial biped. Here, even about the dock-yard, or in the boats 
 of the guardship, a frigate, you do not see a man in gait and ap- 
 pearance like a seaman. But for the anchor in their caps, the 
 men of their ship-of-war might be taken for dismounted dragoons 
 as readily as for seamen. This want of characteristic appearance 
 of any class of men among the populations of the south of Europe 
 is remarkable. In northern countries, the soldier, the sailor, the 
 husbandman, the tailor, the smith, the shoemaker, the mechanic, 
 the gentleman, have, each class, something about them not to be 
 mistaken, dress them as you will, — an appearance, a something 
 peculiar to their craft or class. It is expressed, or expected, even 
 in all paintings of the Dutch or English school. But in Italian hfe 
 or pictures, nothing of this pecuhar characteristic appearance of a 
 class is to be found. It is by his appendages of dress only you 
 distinguish the soldier from the priest. It is probable, therefore, 
 this characteristic something in the appearance does not exist in 
 such intensity among southern populations. What is this some- 
 thing ? I take it to be expression of mind strongly applied to one 
 single object or train of objects, affecting in time the deportment, 
 the language, the way of thinking, the manners, the very gait, 
 face, and air of the individual, and making him brother-like to all 
 others of the same occupation. In the countries in which less 
 industry is required to obtain a living, the mind, the will, and even 
 the muscles and positions of the body, are less constantly and in- 
 tensely applied and exercised in the one way peculiar to the craft 
 or profession by which the individual gains his living, and obtain 
 no such preponderance over the ordinary appearance common to 
 all. 
 
 The canals of Venice are very clean for canals, but still they 
 are canals smelling now and then of bilge water. There is a 
 rise and fall of tide here of about three feet, but no current. It 
 is singular that here, at the head of the Adriatic, there should be 
 a visible ebb and flood, and none on the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean itself. A long island or bar of sand, called the Lido, 
 runs across the head of this narrow sea, about three miles below 
 Venice, leaving a passage between each end of it and the main 
 land. The sea runs in by these passages or mouths, forming a 
 lagoon behind this island, of considerable extent, but very shal- 
 low (not above 18 feet in the deepest of the navigable channels). 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 425 
 
 SO that the difference between ebb and flood, not perceptible on 
 the shores of the wide and deep Mediterranean,^ which in gene- 
 ral is very deep all round, and close to the Italian shores,) is 
 shown here by laying dry, and covering the mud banks in this 
 shallow lagoon. Venice is built upon the little islets in this little 
 sea, covering them so entirely with her buildings, that she may 
 be truly described as a city springing from the waters. No natu- 
 ral land is to be seen — all is water or wall. It is possible that 
 some individuals here may be strangers to the ordinary appear- 
 ances of animal and vegetable life in the country, may never 
 have seen growing corn, nor heard the lark singing, and know 
 not what the country means. 
 
 Whoever regrets the decay of Venice, the extinction of her 
 independence as a state, regrets the advance of society from bar- 
 barism to civilization. The Republic of Venice was a huge com- 
 pound of all the evil principles of a social condition collected 
 together under an oligarchy. Despotism, intolerance, mutual dis- 
 trust among those wielding the power, disregard of the people, 
 cruelty, secrecy, terrorism, all the extreme evils of bad govern- 
 ment, were united here. It has passed away, and even the relics 
 of its former greatness are rapidly decaying — the palaces, quays, 
 bridges. In some future age, the traveller may be inquiring. 
 Where stood Venice ? The port of this queen of the seas has 
 at present in it two foreign brigs, a government guard-ship, and 
 some small craft. The appearance of Venice is probably more 
 novel and impressive now, in her decay, than in her best days. 
 When her port was crowded with vessels, her canals with lighters 
 conveying goods, her quays with merchandise, she may have 
 been very like some parts of Amsterdam, or other great commer- 
 cial cities penetrated by canals. In her present state she is unique, 
 because it is not the movement of a seaport or conmiercial town 
 upon her waters, but the ordinary communications of her own 
 inhabitants with each other. Shipping and trade are not seen 
 in it. The coasting trade of Venice, however, in small craft, is 
 not inconsiderable. The very supply of 115,000 people, a strong 
 garrison, a naval depot, and a host of public functionaries cm- 
 ployed in the civil government of the district, with every article, 
 even to the fresh water they use, must employ many market 
 boats and small craft. Foreign trade at all times has only been 
 forced into this channel ; and its present course, by which con- 
 28 
 
426 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 simiers in this part of Europe receive their supplies through 
 Trieste, a port fearer to them and to the producers, with more 
 convenience and saving of time for shipping, is undoubtedly more 
 natural and advantageous. We see with regret the decay of 
 ancient power and magnificence; but where these were founded 
 on monopoly and oppression, and when we see the supply of the 
 necessaries and comforts of life better, cheaper, and more widely 
 diffused through society by the downfall of this grandeur and 
 power, we may dry our eyes, and be consoled. The extinction 
 of the independence of Venice, and the transfer of her territory 
 to Austria, however iniquitous in principle and execution, has 
 been of advantage to the inhabitants of the old Venetian states. 
 A government strong like the Austrian can afford to be impartial, 
 favours no one class in systematic, uncontrolled oppression ; and 
 where one ruling class had uncontrolled power, as the nobility 
 had in the old Venetian state, raises, in reality, the condition of 
 the other classes, by depressing this formerly dominant class, sub- 
 jecting all to equal and known law, and giving security and pro- 
 tection to every man against petty authority. Abuses from power 
 lodged in the hands of incompetent, arrogant, or stupid, but still 
 responsible functionaries, are more tolerable and curable than 
 those of a powerful irresponsible class of nobility without a king. 
 It strikes the traveller that here, among the insulated popula- 
 tion of a decaying city, he sees no mendicity, and very little 
 extreme poverty ; while Bologna, Ferrara, Padua, and all 4he 
 other towns he passes through (Florence alone excepted), are full 
 of beggars, or beggarly people, ill clothed, apparently ill fed, and 
 idle. What may be the cause of this striking difference in Venice ? 
 Mendicity is less common, because it is less of a trade here, the 
 classes who have anything to give going generally by water, so 
 that there are few street-stations in which a mendicant could place 
 hmiself with a certainty of finding passengers who could relieve 
 him. But poverty and idleness are less prevalent also, because 
 the position of this insulated population creates a check upon their 
 increasing beyond the means of subsistence. There can be no mar- 
 rying here among the lower class upon the vague hope of finding 
 a living somehow. A somehow living is out of all question here, 
 even in hope, because land-work, garden-work, horse-work, and 
 the millions of ramifications of labour connected with these found 
 in other cities, are by nature cut off from Venice. There are no 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 427 
 
 beyond a fixed, well ascertained quantity required by this sea-girt 
 population; and whoever cannot enter into tlie band of gondoliers, 
 tradesmen, artificers, or other labouring men, and succeed to a 
 portion of this labour, can entertain no dehisive liope of finding 
 a living in any unknown, unexpected way. He sees clearly that 
 he is but a supernumerary hand on board the good ship Venice, 
 and must wait until a vacancy falls, and he gets into it, before he 
 can get employment and pay to keep a family upon. The eye 
 of the most ignorant of the working class can take in the whole 
 field of labour in this simple state, with no manufactures, no fo- 
 reign trade, and no agriculture, and can see that there is no room 
 for him to marry. Venice is a striking example of the economical 
 preventive check upon over-population ; and not working from 
 any superior prudence or intelligence of the lower class, but from 
 the greater simplicity of the social relations in which they live 
 enabling the most thoughtless to see and calculate upon his means 
 of subsistence. It proves, too, that the check upon over-popula- 
 tion is to be found in the intelligence and education of the working 
 class, in raising their habits and wants to those gratifications which 
 property only can indulge in, and in raising their mental power 
 to the understanding, and acting upon, those considerations which 
 are the same in the most complicated forms of society as in the 
 simple form in Venice, although not so obvious to the common 
 man of uneducated mind. 
 
 One evening there was a grand illumination in one of the 
 parishes in the centre of Venice in honour of the pastor, who had 
 completed the fiftieth year of his service in the parish church. It 
 was, like everything in Venice, with a touch of the Eastern style. 
 Carpets, or silk cloths of brilliant colours, were hung out from 
 every window, and across the streets. Every shop had its 
 grandest and most costly goods piled up outside, and in the doors 
 and windows. Crystal chandeliers, those used in drawing-rooms, 
 with lighted wax candles, were suspended on gayly painted rods 
 across, between the houses, so as to hang over the centre of the 
 narrow flag-paved alleys of the town ; and in these, the throng of 
 well-dressed people of the middle and lower classes was immense. 
 There was no pushing, or elbowing, or rudeness, in the dense 
 mass, although crowded beyond any fashionable London squeeze. 
 A military band of an Hungarian regiment played opposite the 
 
428 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 parish church. We took a gondola up the grand canal, and landed 
 at the Rialto, from whence our gondolier piloted us through dark 
 lanes, so narrow that two persons could scarcely pass each other, 
 until we reached the centre of the show, where the band was 
 playing dressed in their Hungarian costume. The scene was 
 splendid. The narrow streets lined, and canopied with gay co- 
 loured cloths, and silks, and glittering goods ; the wax lights, the 
 glass chandeliers, and the well-dressed crowd, appeared a scene 
 from the Arabian Night's Entertainments realized. In all this 
 bustle, I did not see, even in the fish market at the Rialto, a single 
 instance of intoxication — people were not drinking, although all 
 were singing, talking, and enjoying themselves — nor a single in- 
 stance even among the boys, of jostling, pushing, running, or 
 rudeness, nor a single person whom I could suppose to be a po- 
 liceman. The ordinary corporal's guard at a public building near 
 the church, was the only authority I saw of any kind. I doubt 
 if the Austrian government be unpopular with the common people 
 here. 
 
 The Venetian taste seems Eastern. The old buildings, like 
 St. Mark's, are not Grecian, not Gothic, but Saracenic, in a style 
 copied probably from Constantinople. The taste in dress is also 
 peculiar. They prefer strongly contrasted, vivid colours. This 
 is also the taste in the Venetian school of painting. The very 
 climate and situation of Venice naturally produce great contrasts, 
 great masses of brilliant light and deep shade. The most im- 
 pressive scenery in Venice is in passing by night, in a gondola, 
 through the silent, narrow canals, where you plunge into the sha- 
 dows, black as midnight, of buildings rising from the water on 
 each side ; and all is pitchy darkness, except a small space of sky 
 overhead, or a light glimmering in an upper-story window, and 
 you emerge suddenly, by a turn of the canal, into a brilliant flood 
 of moonlight glittering and dancing on waters and buildings as 
 far as eye can reach. In general, however, I prefer the land paths 
 in Venice to the solitary dignity of being paddled about in a 
 gondola. I like to rub shoulders with the people — to hear the 
 merry laugh in the market-place. 
 
 The style of building in the old houses on the canals, is pecu- 
 liar. Small, beautifully carved pillars, with windows between, 
 and arches joining them with much open work and ornament, 
 run in belts round the buildings ; and the main story has project- 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 429 
 
 ing balconies and covered colonnades hanging over the canals. 
 These balconies and stone verandas of this Eastern or Saracenic 
 style of architecture, must have been costly, from the fine cutting 
 of pillars and fret-work ; and now, many of these ancient man- 
 sions or palaces are uninhabited, or tenanted in part by the labour- 
 ing people, whose shirts and stockings are hanging out to dry 
 over balustrades which once half concealed the silk-robed ladies 
 of high degree, who sat listening behind them in the twilight to 
 well-known strains of music from the swift passing gondola which 
 dared not linger. Sic transit gloria mundi. Our gondolier 
 pointed out to us his habitation on the grand canal, and at his 
 signal-whistle, his little ones ran out on the balcony of the first- 
 floor to see their father go past on the water ; happier, perhaps, 
 that he was earning eighteen-pence, than ever were the progeny of 
 the Venetian noble who built the palace, in all their magnificence. 
 His rent, he told us, was three dollars a month for five rooms and 
 a cellar; but it was dear, in consequence of the convenience of 
 the situation. In remote canals, a zwanziger, two-thirds of a 
 franc, per week, is the ordinary rent for labouring people. Their 
 fuel for the year will cost sixty zwanziger. The hire of a gon- 
 dola for a day is six zwanziger. There is honour among these 
 gondoliers ; for although needy and clamorous for fares, and we 
 had no fixed engagement with our man, yet if he was out of the 
 way, they would call him to come to his usual customers, and 
 took no advantage of his absence. There are in Venice about 
 200 gondolas plying for hire. The buildings in Venice are not 
 in general so lofty as in Genoa, and other Italian cities. St. 
 Mark's is a low structure, so is the palace of the doge, and the 
 adjoining old prison connected with it by a covered bridge — 
 the bridge of sighs— from the upper story of the one building 
 to that of the other. These are all low structures, that is, the 
 proportion of the height to the extent of front is not greater 
 than in Grecian architecture, and, therefore, they are not to be 
 classed with the Gothic. Venice probably borrowed her style 
 of building from Constantinople, when she was mistress of the 
 East. Some of the old mansions in the secondary canals are 
 very interesting, from the peculiar style of architecture and orna- 
 ment. 
 
 It is the predominating, characteristic, and distinctive principle 
 
430 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 of Gothic architecture to seek its effects by extensions in the height; 
 and that of Grecian architecture, on the contrary, to seek its effects 
 by extensions parallel to the horizon. These two distinct prin- 
 ciples will be found to govern all the details, as well as the gene- 
 ral masses, of each of these two distinct styles of architecture — 
 the arches, gates, windows, fronts, interiors — to run through all 
 their parts, and to govern the whole ideal of the structure in every 
 pure and complete specimen of either style. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE BRENTA.— ITALIAN TOWNS.— WAY OF LIVING OF THE LOWER 
 CLASSES.— DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ITALIAN AND ENGLISH POPU- 
 LATIONS.— CAUSES OF THE DIFFERENCE.— REPRODUCTIVE AND UN- 
 REPRODUCTIVE EXPENDITURE. 
 
 We set off with regret from Venice — a city fascinating even in 
 her decay, and crossed again to Fusina, the nearest custom-house 
 on terra firma, at a very early hour. In this delightful climate 
 the morning air is not damp, raw, and uncomfortable ; but is 
 agreeable to the feelings. The air, even in Venice, is so opposed 
 to dampness, that scarcely any slime or green moss grows on the 
 walls at the surface of the water, on the stone steps of the doors 
 upon the canals, or even upon the wooden piles in the sea. It 
 was ebb tide, and these were uncovered lower than usual ; and 
 we passed even extensive banks of sand or gravel, laid dry at low 
 water — such islands as Venice itself is built on. Venice being 
 a free port, in which goods are landed free of custom-house duty, 
 the traveller's luggage has to undergo the same kind of search at 
 Fusina as if it were landed from a foreign ship. We found the 
 officers not more troublesome than in any of our own custom- 
 houses. From Fusina to Padua you travel in the course of a 
 forenoon along the Brenta, a muddy river inclosed between 
 artificial dykes, and the level of its bed raised considerably above 
 that of the land on each side. This river, and the Po, run upon 
 the country, rather than through it ; for the channel of the waters 
 is raised by the deposit of ages, and the embankments on each 
 side, high above the land. The delightful villas on the banks of 
 the Brenta are like Dutch country houses, adorned with leaden 
 statues of nymphs, satyrs, Ncptunes, shepherdesses, rows of tubs 
 and jars holding orange trees, and shrubs, a parterre gay with 
 ordinary flowers, and hid behind a mud-bank raised on each side 
 of the bed of the yellow, thick river, for retaining it in its channel. 
 Of delightful villas in this taste, the traveller will find a much more 
 
432 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 delightful assortment on the banks of the canal from Amsterdam 
 to Utrecht. Some poet " celebrates the song of the nightingale 
 on the banks of the Brenta ;" but the croaking in the ditch drowns 
 the melody of the bush. 
 
 From Padua, the traveller passes through Vicenza, Verona, 
 Brescia, Bergamo, on his way to Milan. These are all large 
 towns, shrunk, indeed, from their original girth of wall ; but still 
 towns of from 30,000 to 60,000 inhabitants, situated at short dis- 
 tances from each other, and with no particular manufacture or 
 branch of industry established in them. How do these city- 
 masses of population live? The country is fertile. Its products 
 are among the most valuable of the earth — corn, rice, wine, oil, 
 silk, fruits. The rents of the land, whether paid in money or in 
 portions of the products of the soil, are spent in the cities, and also 
 all the public revenues. If we look at the country, we see what 
 supports the towns. The people are in poverty in the country, 
 notwithstanding the fertility of the soil. It is impressive to see 
 those who raise silk — the most costly material of human clothing 
 — going about their work barefoot, and in rags. The inhabitants 
 of Lombardy, and the other Austrian possessions in Italy, are far 
 from being in so good a condition as the people of Tuscany; but 
 are in a much better condition than the people of the Papal and 
 Neapolitan States. The houses are good, although scantily fur- 
 nished, and displaying no such quantity of plenishing as in the 
 dwellings of the Swiss or French peasantry— no stocks of bedding, 
 household linen, earthenware, pewter, copper, and iron utensils. 
 
 The homeless out-of-door way of living of the labouring class 
 all over Italy, is a cause as well as an effect of poverty. It blunts 
 the feeling for domestic comfort, which is a powerful stimulus to 
 steady industry. People of the working class here breakfast out ; 
 that is, take a cup of coffee, or something equivalent, at a stall, or 
 coffee room. It is only in large towns with us, that the workman 
 or labourer does not take his meals at home, or from his home ; 
 and the traveller is surprised to see trattoria and coffee rooms in 
 Italy, not merely in towns, but in lonely country situations where 
 there are only a few houses of the labouring people. This is not 
 an indication, as it would be considered with us, that the people 
 of the neighbourhood are well off, and have something to spend 
 in such gratifications as public places of resort for their class afford; 
 but it is an indication of their poverty. Those who with us would 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. " 433 
 
 have their own little housekeepings and cooking, have not the 
 means, nor perhaps the taste for such domestic comfort, and take 
 their victuals at the trattoria, or cook-shop. The number of such 
 places of entertainment for the lower class in little villages and 
 hamlets which could support no such trade in our country, puzzles 
 the traveller at first, because this apparent surplus of expenditure 
 is inconsistent with the visible poverty of the inhabitants. But it 
 is in reality the economy of poverty, not the expenditure of surplus 
 means of gratification, which supports these places. It is a more 
 economical way of living in this climate, in which firing is little 
 required for comfort, than if each family of the labouring class had 
 a housekeeping for itself But the domestic habits and virtues 
 suffer under this homeless, thoughtless, careless way of living, and 
 the time saved by it is not employed. The women are sauntering 
 about all day on the gossip, with their distaff and spindle, the men, 
 according to the weather, basking in the sun, or slumbering in the 
 shade. 
 
 The effects of climate, soil, fertility, and other natural circum- 
 stances of a country, upon the habits, morals, and civilization of 
 the people, would be a curious subject of speculation, and one 
 which would explain many apparent difficulties in accounting for 
 the very different progress of different nations. The difference, 
 for example, in the condition and civilization of the Italian and 
 British people is very remarkable, and may be traced to natural 
 causes of climate, soil, and situation. The climate and soil of 
 Italy are incomparably more productive than those of Great Bri- 
 tain. The population of the two countries is about equal— the 
 island of Great Britain in 1831, having 16,262,301 inhabitants, 
 and the peninsula of Italy 15,549,393. Both countries are in- 
 habited in much the same way, that is, in a great number of 
 very large cities and towns, as well as in hamlets and single rural 
 habitations. But the Italian population is unquestionably far 
 behind the British in the enjoyments of civilized life, in the useful 
 arts, in civil and political liberty, in wealth, intelligence, industry, 
 and in their moral condition. To what can this difference be 
 ascribed ? Italy was far advanced — as far in many points as she 
 is at this day — before England had started in the course of civil- 
 ization ; and when Scotland* was in a state of gross barbarism. 
 
 * " Quid loquar," says Saint Jerome in his epistles, " de costcris nationibus, 
 
434 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 The Englishman ascribes this to the want of constitutional go- 
 vernment ; the Scotchman to the want of pure religious doctrine. 
 The government and religion of a foreign country are two very- 
 convenient pack-horses for the traveller. They trot along the 
 road with him, carrying all that he cannot otherwise conveniently 
 dispose of, and the prejudices of his readers prevent any doubt of 
 the burden being laid upon the right beast. But, in reality, no go- 
 vernment of the present day, whatever be its form, is so ignorant 
 of sound principle, so blind to its own interests, and so impregnable 
 to public opinion, as wilfully to keep back, discourage, or attempt 
 to put down industry and civilizatiou. It is in the means they 
 use, not in the end they propose, that modern governments, whe- 
 ther despotically or hberally constituted, differ from each other; 
 and for many objects, even the means of the despotically governed 
 states are, in themselves, better — are a more effective machinery 
 than those of the constitutional states. The despotic countries 
 of Europe — Austria, Prussia, Denmark, for instance, are actually 
 in advance of the constitutionally governed — Britain, France, 
 Belgium, in the means or machinery for diffusing education 
 among the people. Where they err, is in doing too much for 
 the promotion of education, manufactures, and commerce, and 
 not leaving the plants to their natural growth, and not leaving 
 the people to themselves — to their own social management — 
 to their own natural tendency to extend the cultivation of them 
 in exact proportion to their wants ; but are incessantly apply- 
 ing the hand of government to foster the crop to a sickly ma- 
 turity. As to religion, the Popish practically interferes less with 
 the time and industry of the people than the Presbyterian. One 
 
 quum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britaiuiicam, 
 humanis vesci carnibus, et quum per silvas porcorum greges pecudumque 
 reperiant, tamen pastorum nates et foeminarum papillas solere abscindere, et 
 has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari." Evidence may sometimes prove too 
 much as well as too little for establishing facts. What St. Jerome says he 
 himself saw, is either entitled to credit, or not entitled to credit. If not, what 
 becomes of the history of the first ages of the church as gathered from such 
 authority as this father's? The addition to what he states he himself saw of 
 those Scotch cannibals ; viz., that when they found herds of swine and cattle 
 in the woods, they preferred a slice of the hips of the keepers, or the breasts 
 of the female attendants on the herds, to the beef and pork, proves too much. 
 People who keep flocks and herds of cattle and swine, and tend them in the 
 woods, are not in the social condition to eat each other for want of food or of 
 civilization. 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 436 
 
 half of Sunday only is kept as a time of rest in Popish lands, 
 and that not very strictly in agricultural labour ; and in seed- 
 time, harvest, vintage, and hay-making, people in Catholic coun- 
 tries generally labour in the fields after mass, that is, after twelve 
 at noon, nor is it considered indecorous to do so. Holyday, or 
 Saints' days, are also practically observed only until the forenoon 
 mass is over. Of these, before the French Revolution, there were 
 sixteen days in Paris yearly ; but twenty-four days, on an ave- 
 rage of all France, observed for half the day, viz., until noon, as 
 church holydays. If we reckon the days at Christmas observed 
 in England, the Good Friday, Easter Monday, Gunpowder Plot, 
 Charles's Martyrdom, King's Birthday, and other idle customary 
 festivals, we would probably find little difference. In Scotland, 
 if we reckon the occasional fast-days, proclaimed by the church ; 
 the preparation-days for the sacrament ; and the many half-days 
 devoted to religious meetings, prayer meetings, church meetings, 
 missionary society meetings, Bible society meetings, and all the 
 other social duties connected with the religious position and senti- 
 ments of the individual, it will be found, as it ought to be found, 
 that out of the 365 days, the pious well-conducted Presbyterian 
 tradesman, workman, or respectable middle-class man in Scot- 
 land, bestows, in the present times, many more working hours in 
 the year upon religious concerns than the Papist in Italy. It is 
 an inconsistency to ascribe to the loss of time by their religious 
 observances, the poverty and idleness of the populations of the 
 south of Europe, when we see the time abstracted among our- 
 selves from the pursuits of industry for religious purposes, al- 
 though little, if at all, less in amount, producing no such impov- 
 erishing or prejudicial effects; but, on the contrary, evidently 
 invigorating the industry of the people, and contributing essen- 
 tially to their morality and civilization. 
 
 It is, in truth, neither the bad government, nor the bad religion 
 of Italy, which keeps her behind the other countries of Europe. 
 The blessings of Italy are her curse. Fine soil and climate, and 
 an almost.equal abundance of production overall the land, render 
 each man too independent of the industry of his fellow-men. 
 Italy has not, like all other countries which have attained to any 
 considerable and permanent state of general civilization and in- 
 dustry, one portion of her population depending, from natural 
 causes, upon another portion for necessary articles — no highland 
 
436 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and lowland, no inland and seacoast populations producing 
 different necessaries of life, and exchanging with each other 
 industry for industry — no wine-growing population, and corn- 
 growing population, as in France, depending upon each other's 
 production — no mining population, sea-faring population, manu- 
 facturing population, distinct from agricultural population and 
 production. She has no natural division of her social body into 
 growers and consumers, because every inhabitable corner of the 
 peninsula grows almost the same kind of products, corn, wine, oil, 
 silk, fruits ; and every consumer is a producer : and there is no 
 natural capability in the country of raising an artificial division 
 in its population by trade or manufacture. The great source of 
 industry and civilization in France is the cultivation of the vine, 
 and its natural exclusion from all the north of France. It is the 
 greatest manufacture in the world. It not only gives within 
 France itself a constant interchange of industry for industry, as 
 the country north of Paris produces no wine ; but all the north of 
 Europe, all America, all the world where Christians dwell, con- 
 sume wines of French production. Italy has not this advantage. 
 With her equal, or nearly equal productiveness of soil and climate 
 over all, both in the kinds and quantities of her products, no con- 
 siderable masses of her population are depending on each other's 
 industry for the supply of their mutual wants, and inseparably 
 bound up with each other by common interests. Italy has no 
 natural capabilities of raising up such a division in the masses of 
 her population by manufacturing or commercial industry. There 
 is little command of water-power, and none of fire-power, in the 
 Italian peninsula for moving machinery. The Po, the Adige, the 
 Tecino, and all the Alpine rivers ; the Tiber, the Arno, and all 
 from the Apennines, owing to the melting of the snow at their 
 main sources, partake of the character of mountain-streams, hav- 
 ing such difference of level at different seasons, that mill-seats on 
 their banks, at which water-power can be always available, are 
 extremely rare. The corn mills on those river are constructed on 
 ratfs or boats anchored in the stream so as to rise and fall with 
 the increase or decrease of the water. Italy also, notwithstanding 
 her vast extent of seacoast, is badly situated for commercial in- 
 dustry or supporting a sea-faring population. She has little 
 coasting trade, because all parts of her territory produce nearly 
 the same articles in sufficient abundance for the inhabitants, and 
 
I 
 
 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 437 
 
 has little trade, for the same reason, with the other countries on 
 the Mediterranean. Her seacoast, also, is in general uninhabit- 
 able from malaria ; so that no great mass of population deriving 
 the means of living from commercial industry, and distinct from 
 the inland population, can ever be formed. Cities and towns are, 
 no doubt, numerous in Italy, and, perhaps, so many masses of 
 population of from fifty or sixty thousand persons, down to two 
 or three thousand, cannot be found anywhere else in Europe, 
 within so small an area as in the plains of this peninsula. But 
 these cities and towns are of a very peculiar character. The 
 country is so fertile, that each of these masses of population draws 
 its subsistence from, and extends its influence over, a very small 
 circle beyond its own town walls. All capital, industry, intelli- 
 gence, civil authority, and business, public or private ; all trade, 
 manufacture, or consumpt of the objects of trade and manufac- 
 ture, and, it may be said, all civilization, are centralized within 
 these cities, and the small circles of country around them from 
 which they draw the articles of their consumpt. Italy is a striking 
 example of the practical working, in social economy, of the sys- 
 tem of centralization in towns or seats of provincial government, 
 of the civil establishments, intelligence, and wealth of a country. 
 Each city or town, within its own circle, suffices for itself, is a 
 metayer family upon a great scale living upon its own farm, and 
 having no dependence upon, or connection with, the industry, 
 interests, prosperity, or business of its neighbours in the land ; 
 and very little communication or traffic with any other masses of 
 population, by carriers, wagons, carts, diligences, or water con- 
 veyances, the objects of interchange being, from the general 
 bounty of nature, but very (ew between them. They are moral 
 oases, beyond which all is desert. Within them people are 
 refined, intelligent, wealthy, imbued with a taste for the fine arts, 
 and inspired with liberal ideas of the constitutional rights of the 
 people, and national independence of their country; and without, 
 the people belong to a different country, age, and state of civiliza- 
 tion ; are ignorant, rude, poor, half-civilized, clothed in sheepskins, 
 or unsecured, brown, woollen cloaks, or are half-clothed, enjoy- 
 ing, in supreme indolence in the sunshine or the shade, a rough 
 bellyful, without a care or wish for other gratifications or other 
 social condition. The town populations and higher classes have 
 sailed out of sight of the main body of the people. Our cities 
 
438 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 and towns are generally the growth of manufacturing or com- 
 mercial industry congregating men in gradually increasing masses 
 of population which depend upon the country around, and, in 
 our less productive soil and climate, upon a much greater circle 
 of country around, for their supplies of food ; but not for the 
 .- means of buying food. Here, the town population draw the 
 means of buying, as well as what they buy, from the country, 
 leaving on the land the cattle and the peasantry to reproduce 
 next year their own food, and the incomes of the town popula- 
 tions. The princes, nobility, or other landholders, where the land 
 is not, as in Tuscany, divided among the peasantry, the higher 
 clergy, the military and civil establishments of government, local 
 and general, with their armies of functionaries, live in the towns 
 and cities with the tradesmen who live by supplying them. The 
 traffic between town and country is small, because there are no 
 consumers in the country ; its produce is consumed in the towns 
 without any return. The interchange of industry between town 
 and town is still less, for each population is a little state within 
 itself, sufficing within its own circle for all its demands, and ham- 
 pered, besides, with all sorts of impediments to communication, 
 with passports, town duties, custom-house examinations, and for- 
 malities at the town gates. Italy is dotted over with these sepa- 
 rate and distinct masses of population, forming no whole of 
 power, wealth, connected industry, common interests, objects, or 
 feelings ; and this state of disunion in the social economy of the 
 Itahan people is, I apprehend, the effect of natural, not of political 
 causes. Nature having bestowed almost equally over all the 
 inhabitable land of Italy all that man requires in a low, but not 
 uncomfortable condition, neutralizes by her very bounty the main 
 element of social union — the dependence of men upon the inter- 
 change with each other of the products of their industry. Man 
 is cemented to man by mutual wants. Social union, national 
 spirit, interests, and industry exist only in masses of people living 
 by each other. Identity of language, religion, laws, government, 
 will not, as we see in Germany, amalgamate into one nation 
 populations having no want of each other in their ordinary 
 modes of existence, no dependence on each other for the neces- 
 saries or enjoyments of life. ^This disunion appears to have been 
 in all ages the state of the groups of populations on the Italian 
 peninsula. The power of the sword in the time of the Romans, 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 439 
 
 the power of commercial capital in the middle ages, the power of 
 the sword again in the days of Napoleon, compressed Italy, or 
 distinct portions of Italy, into national masses in form and govern- 
 ment ; but when the pressure was removed, the parts started 
 asunder again ; the cement was wanting which holds men to- 
 gether in effective national union, viz., their mutual wants, and 
 the exchange of industry against industry to supply mutual 
 wants. They are a people living, each family for itself in a 
 remarkably unconnected social state, even in the same communi- 
 ties, and without need of or confidence in each other ; and, as com- 
 munities unimbued with any common feeling or spirit that can be 
 called national. This has ever been so. The earliest period of 
 Ronian history shows Italy in the same state of social economy 
 as at the present hour. The bounty of nature enables man to live 
 unconnected with man by ties of common interests and necessities, 
 and exchanges of industry. 
 
 Besides this natural cause for the permanently stationary con- 
 dition of the inhabitants of Italy, the means of the country, its 
 time, labour, and capital, have been deplorably wasted. If the 
 influx of riches constitutes national wealth, Italy should be the 
 richest country in Europe, instead of one of the poorest. But 
 the enormous capital which superstition in the middle ages, and 
 down even to modern times, drew to Rome, the vast wealth 
 which the commerce of the East brought, in the same ages, to 
 Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, have all been laid out unrepro- 
 ductively, and have not left a trace behind in the condition, well- 
 being, or industry of the people. The vestiges of all these 
 riches are to be seen only upon the face of the land in palaces, 
 churches, and ornaments ; not in the habits, ideas, or industry of 
 the people. It has been reckoned that the churches of Italy, with 
 their embellishments, their marbles, jewels, gold and silver orna- 
 ments, paintings and statuary, have cost more than the fee-simple 
 of the whole land of the Italian peninsula would amount to, if 
 sold at the present average price of land per acre. This enor- 
 mous outlay of capital has been altogether unreproductive. If we 
 look again at the vast and splendid palaces, with their ornamen- 
 tal architecture, their magnificent galleries of precious paintings, 
 statues, fine marbles, and all the costly glory displayed, oven now 
 in their decay, in every second-rate town in Italy, but particularly 
 in the capital cities, and those which have been independent com- 
 mercial states, such as Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Venice, we can 
 
440 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 scarcely estimate the cost of the civil edifices of Italy with their 
 embellishments, at much less than that of the ecclesiastical. All 
 this outlay of capital has been altogether unreproductive. We 
 see in these expensive structures a sufficient cause to account for 
 the downfall of the commercial prosperity of Genoa, Venice, and 
 the other Italian states which once ruled the money-market, the 
 trade, and industry of the world. 
 
 It may be necessary to explain more fully what is meant by 
 reproductive and unreproductive expenditure in political eco- 
 nomy. It appears, at first sight, a distinction without a difference, 
 as applied to national wealth. The man who builds a church, or 
 a palace, lays out his money in the payment of labour as much 
 as the man who builds a spinning. mill or a ship. It is only a 
 transfer of capital, in both cases, from those who buy labour to 
 those who sell labour ; and the capital, although it may be lost by 
 the one individual, is gained by the other, and cannot be said to 
 be sunk, or lost to the country, in the one application of it more 
 than in the other. This is the view of many political economists: 
 but it is not correct. Suppose two merchants build each a ship 
 at the cost of 15,000/. The sum is paid to wood merchants, rope 
 and sail makers, carpenters, riggers, and others, for labour, or 
 material of which the value consists in the labour of producing 
 and transporting it. At this step there is no loss of capital ; but 
 only an exchange of it between those who buy labour, or its 
 products, and those who sell it. The nation or community gains 
 by the circulation, as new objects, the two vessels, are produced 
 by the labour. But suppose one of these vessels is kept well em- 
 ployed for a dozen years. She reproduces her cost, the 15,000/. 
 This is capital laid out reproductively. It is laid out again and 
 again, and employs and remunerates labour and industry from 
 generation to generation. Suppose the other vessel is made an 
 habitation of, laid up by the side of a canal, and converted into a 
 Venetian palace. Her cost is unreproductive : it is capital sunk 
 and lost, as far as regards national wealth, and well-being, and 
 employment of labour, having acted only once in the labour 
 market, and having then been totally withdrawn from it. This 
 has been precisely the case with an incalculable amount of capital, 
 not only in Italy, but in the Hanse Towns, in Flanders, in Holland, 
 in all the old seats of European commerce and wealth. In 
 visiting those ancient cities, which once were in the trade of the 
 world what London, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, are now, the 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 441 
 
 traveller sees that the besetting error of commercial wealth, in the 
 ages and countries which preceded England and her rise, has been 
 to over-build and over-display itself in unreproductive objects, in- 
 stead of retaining their capitals as working means or capitals in 
 trade or manufactures. Wealth acquired in commerce, properly 
 so called, that is, in the transport of products, natural or artificial, 
 h'om one country to another, seems to have a tendency to expand 
 itself unreprodnctively, to overstep its prudent limits and true in- 
 terests, not only in private dwellings and gratifications, but even in 
 works of undeniable utility, as in cutting and facing harbours and 
 canals, building quays, piers, town walls, citadels, town houses, 
 churches, and in our days in docks, warehouses, and railroads — all 
 very useful works, but not always useful in proportion to their cost, 
 not always saving time and labour to an extent that will ever be 
 reproductive of the capital invested in their construction. Wealth 
 acquired by manufacturing industry seldom falls into this error. 
 The value of convenience, time, and labour, is more exactly appre- 
 ciated, and is rarely overpaid by those who have daily to estimate 
 time, labour, and convenience in the economy of manufacturing 
 operations. Of this unreproductive outlay of capital, the traveller 
 sees less in Great Britain than in the poorest countries of Europe; 
 and to this may be mainly ascribed her vast national wealth, her 
 industrial activity, and her boundless working capital at the pre- 
 sent day. In proportion to the wealth of the country, how few 
 in Great Britain are the buildings of any note, public or private, 
 civil, military, or ecclesiastical ! How little is the absorption of 
 capital in museums, pictures, gems, curiosities, palaces, theatres, 
 or other unreproductive objects ! This, which is the main founda- 
 tion of the greatness of the country, is often stated by foreign 
 travellers, and by some of our own periodical writers, as a proof 
 of our inferiority. Time and money arc not employed in works 
 of the fine arts, either by individuals, or by the state, in the 
 same proportion as in other countries — in France, Prussia, 
 Bavaria, Italy— and are lightly esteemed by our public, when 
 so employed. Music, painting, architecture, sculpture, dancing, 
 cooking, all the arts, fine or not fine, that address themselves 
 only to the senses, or please only through the gratification of 
 the senses, have but little hold of the public mind with us. It 
 is one of the strongest characteristics of the British people, that 
 all the sports and amusements of every rank and ckiss nuist, to be 
 29 
 
442 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 popular, occupy the intellectual powers, the judgment of the 
 individual. He will not sit and listen, or look, and be a mere 
 passive recipient of pleasurable sensations or impressions. Hunt- 
 ing, shooting, horse-racing, boat-sailing, all amusements in which 
 judgment is exercised, and individuality is called into play, should 
 it be only in betting upon the most absurd objects, have so decided 
 a preponderance in the national mind, that it is altogether a hope- 
 less attempt to instil into our lower or middle classes anything 
 like the passive taste for music or painting that prevails in foreign 
 countries. The museum, or concert-room, or opera, would always 
 be deserted for the meeting, or club, or circle, whatever be its 
 objects, religious, poUtical, or convivial, in which the individual's 
 own faculties or powers take a part. I cannot think this any 
 proof of a want of intellectuality in a people. Be it so or not, it 
 is undeniable that in the character of the people of Britain, even 
 of the higher classes, there is no feeling for the fine arts, no foun- 
 dation for them, no esteem for them. A single town in Italy or 
 Germany could produce more show edifices, more costly palaces, 
 museums, picture galleries, and music saloons, than half the island 
 of Great Britain. The wealth of some of the smaller European 
 states, as for instance of Bavaria, Saxony, Denmark, Sweden, and 
 of all the little German principalities, has in modern times been 
 almost entirely absorbed in building royal palaces, museums, thea- 
 tres, and in lodging the nobility proportionably to their sovereigns. 
 Royalty itself is poorly lodged in England in proportion to the 
 wealth of the country, and to the palaces of many a little conti- 
 nental prince ; and the merchant in London or Liverpool, or the 
 manufacturer in Manchester or Glasgow, lives. in a modest, cheap 
 dwelling, compared to the vast magnificent palaces of the same 
 classes in the middle ages, still to be seen in the old commercial 
 cities of Italy and Flanders, and in the old Hanseatic cities all 
 over the Continent, and which are literally the tombs of their 
 commercial prosperity. In them are buried the means which 
 would to this day have commanded the trade of the world, had 
 these vast private capitals been still available by having been laid 
 out reproductively in the industry market, as the same class of 
 capitals has always been in England, instead of being buried in 
 marble and mortar. In this English taste there is nothing to 
 regret, nor is any want of intellectual employment in such a social 
 existence to be justly complained of. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 NOTES ON MILAN.— COMO'.— AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT.— L AGO MAGGI- 
 ORE.— ISOLA BELLA.— THE ALPS.— ON THE SOCIAL STATE OF FRANCE, 
 PRUSSIA, ITALY. 
 
 The traveller tires of the plain of Lombardy in an hour. He 
 has no extensive view of country in this garden of Europe. 
 Every field is beset with rows of pollard-mulberry trees, plucked 
 bare of foliage for feeding the silk-worms. The fields are beauti- 
 fully irrigated with clear water carried in little ducts along them ; 
 and one or two such little fields, rows of pollards surrounding 
 them, and the endless straight avenue from city to city, make very 
 uninteresting scenery. It is flat, tame, and without the character 
 of nationality, which gives an interest to the flat, tame scenery of 
 Holland. The gay bustle of Milan, and the view of its duomo 
 with the forest of white marble pinnacles on the roof— the most 
 beautiful roof-scenery in the world — will scarcely repay the 
 traveller for the dull duty of approaching them through an end- 
 less tedious avenue of stif[ trees, presenting, mile after mile, the 
 same and the same. 
 
 Como is a pretty considerable town at the foot of the pic- 
 turesque lake of the same name, a town of 12,000 or 15,000 in- 
 habitants. The population of the neighbouring country consists 
 almost entirely of the class of travelling pedlers who go out into 
 the world to sell stucco figures, barometers, bird-cages, and such 
 small wares. They are often absent ten or twelve years from 
 their families, and return with their little savings to buy a cottage, 
 and bit of land, at ten times what we would consider the value, 
 on the side of their native lake. About 3000 of these travelling 
 dealers from this district are reckoned to be in or about London ; 
 and they often attain what in this country at least is very con- 
 siderable wealth. They are a very interesting class. As pedlers 
 they have experience of the condition of the lower classes, and 
 even of the middle class, in many different countries, and are often 
 
444 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 shrewd, observing men, well worth getting acquainted with. The 
 traveller gathers from their conversation the practical difference 
 between the well-intentioned, paternal government of the mildest 
 of autocratic states — Austria — and a government in which public 
 opinion has its due influence through a constitutional means of 
 e;?ipressing it. It cannot be doubted that it is with the best inten- 
 tions, and from a supreme care for what is considered the public 
 good, that the^ Austrian government holds the people in a state 
 of moral vassalage, treats them as beings in a state of pupilage, 
 not as free agents, and governs all things by the will and wisdom 
 of a ruling few. The ruling few, however, cannot be wise in all 
 things, are often duped by those below them in executive or ad- 
 ministrative function, on whom they must depend for sound in- 
 formation, and are duped, too, by their own social position, by 
 the esprit of functionarism., the esprit des bureaux, which is so 
 apt to mistake the perfection of the means for the perfection of 
 the end in public affairs. They have no wish to legislate wrong; 
 but they legislate on guess, not upon knowledge. The ruling 
 class are too far removed from the ordinary business and interest 
 of the multitude working below them, to understand personally 
 the business of that multitude ; and are bred in a circle of ideas 
 widely different from that of the classes for whom they legislate. 
 They necessarily depend for their ideas and opinions upon the 
 army of civil functionaries with whom alone they can communi- 
 cate. These must appear to have something to do for their bread, 
 and their bread perhaps depends in part on fees, fines, and dou- 
 ceurs. Hence the miserable policy of the Austrian, and all the 
 other despotic states, of interfering in, managing, and watching 
 over all private industry or enterprise, and all trade or individual 
 action. The shop, the dwelling, the bed even of the trader, here 
 in Austrian Italy, are exposed to vexatious examinations at the 
 will of the local douanier — a half military German animal. The 
 market cart going into a town with hay is probed with an iron 
 rod at the town gate, in case it should be conveying goods subject 
 to duty. The gig, or country vehicle with market people, is 
 stopped and searched. The simple undertaking of running a 
 diligence daily from Milan to Como, and back, a distance of twenty 
 miles, was considered too important a concern to be left to indi- 
 vidual enterprise, and was taken possession of as a branch of 
 public business which it belonged to government functionaries 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 445 
 
 only to carry on. It is with extreme difficulty the petty trader can 
 get passports from the Austrian authorities, to travel on his need- 
 ful affairs. Securities must be given, and the causes of his going 
 explained, even when his military or other public duties are ac- 
 complished, or fully provided for, and his station in life too low 
 to make him an object of political suspicion. One of the travelling 
 pedlers of this country, who had been for many years in America 
 and was returning from a visit to his friends at Como, travelled 
 with me by the voiturin to Switzerland. He made the emphatic 
 observation, when we had got beyond the Austrian frontier, in 
 speaking of the trammels on all industry and individual freedom, 
 " That it was better to be dead in America than alive in Italy." 
 The lake of Como, skirted all round by steep hills, with scarcely 
 room for a carriage road and a villa-parterre between the hill and 
 the water, has not the variety of scenery, nor perhaps the gran- 
 deur, of the Swiss lakes. The scenery of the Lago Maggiore is 
 more open and diversified. Pebbly beaches here and there be- 
 tween the rocky headlands relieve the monotony of rock and 
 water. The shores of this lake are watched and patroled day 
 and night by the sentinels and guards of the douane, as vigilantly 
 as if an invading enemy were in force on the other shore. At 
 Arona, a huge enormity in copper, the colossal statue of Saint 
 Charles of Borromeo, is the wonder— not, I presume, the admira- 
 tion — of all travellers. It is said to be SO feet high, and the head, 
 in size, and merit as a work of art, is about equal to the wooden 
 house of a small windmill. In the same taste, and a monument 
 of the same senseless expenditure of the same family, is the Bor- 
 romean Isle in the Lago Maggiore — the Isola Bella. It is as bella 
 as a little rocky islet in a lake can be, covered entirely with par- 
 terres, and flower pots, and grotto work, shell work, moss work, 
 statuary work, and such gewgaws, with a French chateau to cor- 
 respond. The isle so decked out, amidst scenery of a totally 
 different character, looks like an old court lady arrayed in silks, 
 lace, and diamonds, a hooped petticoat, and white satin shoes, left 
 by some mischance, scpialting down all alone upon a rock in the 
 midst of a Highland loch. The thing is neither pretty nor in 
 place ; but it has its value, too, in contrast. It is but a day's 
 journey from this wretched monument of bad taste to some of the 
 grandest scenes in Europe. The traveller, however, in crossing 
 the Simplon, misses almost all the sublime impressions he expects. 
 
446 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 The highest elevation of the road across it, from Domo d'Ossolo 
 on the Italian side to Brigg in the Valois, is about 4500 feet ; and 
 although at this elevation there are avalanches, snows, glaciers, 
 winding roads, with cataracts and precipices below, and clouds 
 and blue sky above, and all the other romance furniture of Alpine 
 scenery, yet, if truth may be told, the hills of two or three thou- 
 sand feet of elevation in our northern latitude and climate are far 
 more imposing on the human mind, far more sublime. The 
 positive elevation to which you have been climbing up perhaps 
 from the pier of Boulogne, or the quay of Naples, or the Lido of 
 Venice, enters not into the mind through the senses, but only on 
 consideration, and as a cold mathematical truth. What strikes 
 the mind on great mountain elevations is the sublime, almost 
 terrific silence, suspension, death of nature, the lonely sterility, the 
 absence of all animal or vegetable life, the reduction of all created 
 objects to rock and cloud. This is felt in our northern latitude on 
 hills of 2000 feet, more impressively than in this climate at 4000 
 feet of elevation. The tree grows, the bird sings at the very edge 
 of the perpetual snow here, more vigorously than on many a 
 northern sea-side plain. 
 
 In passing through France, Prussia, Italy, the traveller returns 
 daily to the question, How do the political institutions, the laws, 
 mode of government, and national education of those countries 
 act upon the social condition of the people? To ascertain, or at 
 least to approximate to a just estimate of these influences in difler- 
 ent parts of Europe, is the object of the preceding Notes. Will 
 the reader concur in the following inferences from them ? 
 
 The object of the governments of these countries must be the 
 same as that of our own government — the advantage and well- 
 being of the governed. The difference must be in the means 
 used, not in the end proposed. 
 
 But good legislation, which is the means used both by the des- 
 potic and liberal government for advancing the well-being of the 
 people, is not confined to or a necessary consequence of legislative 
 power being vested in the representatives of the people. We 
 have in Britain, both in our civil and criminal code, laws more 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 447 
 
 absurd, unjust, and prejudicial to the interests and well-being of 
 the governed, than the modern laws of any country in Europe : 
 for instance, our game laws, our excise laws, our poor laws, our 
 corn laws, and other laws and classes of laws of even recent en- 
 actment, or recently revived. In the autocratic states, Prussia 
 and Austria, in which the legislative power is solely in the execu- 
 tive, there are few subjects of legislation in which the executive 
 has any interest at variance with or different from that of the 
 people, or any favourable feeling towards impolitic, oppressive, 
 or unequal laws. On all that concerns private property, on all 
 questions between man and man, on all acts injurious to the pub- 
 lic, on all civil, criminal, and police affairs, it is the interest of the 
 despotic as much as of the free state to legislate aright. It is also, 
 theoretically considered, more in the power of the despotic state 
 to do so — unpleasant as this truth may sound in ears radical— than 
 of the liberally constituted or free state ; because the persons ap- 
 pointed by the executive to consult together, consider, frame, and 
 draw out the law, are theoretically men bred to legislative science, 
 who endeavour to become acquainted with the wants and busi- 
 ness of the country, have no personal interests in faulty legislation, 
 and although liable to be misinformed by the functionaries around 
 them, are unimpeded by ignorant, incompetent fellow-legislators 
 as in a popularly elected parliament or legislative assembly. 
 There is, theoretically, no reason, in shorty in the nature of des- 
 potism or autocratic government itself, as existing in modern en- 
 lightened times, why it should not legislate as beneficially for the 
 social condition of a people as a freely chosen representative 
 legislature ; and there can be no doubt that the Austrian and 
 Prussian autocrats, in the beneficent paternal government which 
 they affect, do sincerely endeavour to exercise their legislative 
 power, before God and man, for the well-being of their people. 
 
 The administration of law, also, as well as the enactment, may 
 be, and practically is, more effective and perfect, both in the civil 
 and criminal courts, in the despotic than in the free states. The 
 nature of despotic government admits of, and produces a chain 
 of precise, almost military arrangements for inspection, reference, 
 check, and responsibility, running through the whole exercise 
 of judicial function, from the lowest court to the highest. These 
 autocratically ruled countries are generally divided into small 
 circles, each with its court, its judge, its public prosecutor, its 
 
448 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 licensed procurators or advocates; and their proceedings are 
 regularly reported to and watched over by higher judicial colleges 
 who have superintendence over a group of these lower primary 
 courts, and in some countries, as in Denmark, take cognizance 
 of every case and decision of the inferior court, whether appealed 
 from by the parties or not, revise their whole protocols, and 
 even check undue delay in giving judgment, or undue charges 
 of the procurators, and are themselves subject to similar regular 
 inspection and surveillance in the discharge of these duties by still 
 higher judicial colleges in the state. In the despotic states of 
 modern Europe, the judicial power is thus more immediately, and 
 for the people more readily and cheaply applied, and by a machin- 
 ery more perfect, more divested of personal causes of error in 
 judgment from political party feehngs, prejudices, or interests, 
 and more carefully watched over and checked, than in our own 
 social economy in Britian. England and Scotland are, perhaps, 
 the only two countries in Europe which have not, in the course 
 of the present half-century, reconstructed their old imperfect or 
 feudal arrangements for the administration of law to the people,and 
 have not remodeled their law courts to suit the business of the age. 
 
 In what, then, in modern times, if it be neither in the enact- 
 ment nor in the administration of law, in what consists the differ- 
 ence between free and despotic, liberal and anti-liberal govern- 
 ment, as far as regards practically the social condition, and the 
 moral and physical well-being of a people ? The difference lies 
 in this : 
 
 Man, in his social state, is not intended by his Creator to be 
 only a passive subject of wise and good government, be it ever 
 so wise and good, but to attain the higher moral condition of 
 wisely and well governing himself, not only in his private moral 
 capacity as an individual, but in his social political capacity as 
 one of the members of a community. Morality and religion 
 direct him in his private capacity ; but if he is debarred by the 
 arbitrary institutions of his government from exercising the other 
 half of his social duties, he is, morally considered, but half a man, 
 is answering but half the end for which man is sent into this 
 world as a social being ; is fulfilling but half the duties given 
 him to be fulfilled by his Creator ; for man is created a political 
 as well as a moral being — has a political as well as a moral ex- 
 istence. A people governed by laws, in the enactment of which 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 449 
 
 they have no voice, and by functionaries independent of public 
 opinion, are in a low social and political, and consequently in a 
 low moral condition, however suitable and excellent the law itself 
 and its administration may be. They are morally slaves. The 
 Prussian, the Austrian, the Neapolitan, the Papal subjects stand 
 equally upon this low moral level. The Prussian, the Austrian, 
 and Tuscan do, no doubt, enjoy the advantage of many good 
 laws, and good institutions, but they do not enjoy the advantage 
 of having made them — a moral advantage as great as the material 
 advantage of having the benefit of them. If the public mind is 
 not exercised and nourished in the considering, enacting, and 
 executing for itself the good legislation the public enjoys, public 
 spirit, patriotism, and, in private life, as individuals, the spirit of 
 free agency in moral conduct, and the sense of moral responsi- 
 bility are quenched under the all-doing, paternal management of 
 the autocrat for his people, as much as under a harder despot- 
 ism. His mildness and beneficence reach only their physical, 
 not their moral good. They are in a state of mental vassalage 
 as moral and social beings, in a state of pupilage, not of free 
 agency, whatever be their education, or their physical condition 
 as to food and the comforts of life. The enjoyments and charac- 
 ter of an animal-people are all that men attain to under these 
 paternal autocratic governments, with perhaps the development, 
 in the town populations, of taste and feeling for the fine arts, 
 and a certain polish and amenity of manners. These are not to 
 be under-valued, but are very agreeable accomplishments to live 
 with, and are closely connected with many social virtues. But 
 however delightful to live with, and however important in reality 
 to the comfort and happiness of social Ufe, and to the formation 
 of civilized habits and character among a people, these are not 
 the highest acquirements for man in a social state to attain. We 
 attach too great importance to these superficial, although intellec- 
 tual and moral acquirements, in estimating the education of an 
 individual, or of a nation. National education, as it is called, 
 turns, in all these paternal autocratic governments which will 
 not leave the people to the education of their own free agency 
 as moral beings united in society, principally upon the develop- 
 ment of these tastes, manners, and feelings. If eating, drinking, 
 lodging, and living well, for very little outlay of industry, exer- 
 tion, or bodily labour, and still less of mental, and along with 
 
450 NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 these the enjoyment, tHrough the eye and ear, of all the pleasures 
 'that a cultivated, educated taste in the fine arts affords, — if phy- 
 sical good with this kind of intellectual culture or development 
 be the great end to be attained by man in society, these autocra- 
 tic governments are i:-apidly carrying their people to a higher social 
 condition than that of the people of Britain. 
 
 But if the moral and social duties of man, as a member of the 
 human family, demand something more than his own animal 
 enjoyment, physical well-being, and personal gratification even 
 in the intellectual exercise of his taste and feeling — if his true 
 position in life be that in which his moral and intellectual nature 
 can be fully and freely developed in the exercise of his capabili- 
 ties, duties, and rights, as a thinking, responsible free agent — and 
 his true education, that which fits him for this position,— then are 
 these autocratic governments and their subjects in a low social 
 position — one far beneath that of the British, — and their systems 
 of national education are not adapted to the great moral end of' 
 human existence, but merely to support their governments. If 
 we fairly consider the social condition of the continental man of 
 whatever class, whatever position, or whatever country, Neapo- 
 litan, or Austrian, or Prussian, we find him, body and soul, a slave. 
 His going out and coming in, his personal bodily and mental 
 action in the use of his property, in the exercise of his industry 
 and talents, in his education, his religion, his laws, his doings, 
 thinkings, readings, talkings, in public or private afiairs, are fitted 
 on to him by his master, the state", like clothing on a convict, and 
 in these alone can he move, or execute any act of social existence. 
 He has no individual existence socially or morally, for he has no 
 individual free agency. His education fits , him for this state of 
 pupilage, but not for independent action as a reflecting, self-guid- 
 ing being, sensible of and daily exercising his social, political, 
 moral, and rehgious rights and duties, as a free agent. In his 
 position relatively to these rights and duties, the continental man 
 stands on, a level very far below that of the individual of our 
 country in a corresponding class of society. With all the igno- 
 rance and vice imputed to our lower classes, they are, in true and 
 efficient education, as members of society acting for themselves in 
 their rights and duties, and under guidance of their own judgment, 
 moral sense, and conscience, in a far higher intellectual, moral;, 
 
 J^N 1 9 m9 
 
NOTES OF A TRAVELLER. 451 
 
 and religious condition, than the educated slaves of the Continent. 
 This is the conclusion, in social economy, which the author of the 
 preceding Notes has come to, and which the reader is requested 
 to consider. 
 
 THE END. 
 
(y ^ 
 
 : (^"i" 
 
 ".% 
 
 
 
 '"oo^Si-.<.:'--oo'^ 
 
 ^^0^ 
 
 A Q, 
 
 V ^ ^ * A -U 
 
 
 » <? 
 
 ' *"-..*" /i5!»V'^>'.v 
 
 3 ^. 
 
 '^^.K^ 
 
 ^ . 
 
 . ,r.V 
 
 
 "it^d* .* 
 
 
 ^ .^^ 
 
 ^^ ^^ 
 
 
 o<^r;',% 
 
 rO' » ■> * » 
 
 '^^0^ .* 
 
 
 
 V ^ 
 
 ^,^. / % %'^P..- ^«5> -^ -. 
 
 %.A^ : 
 
 
 ^ .^0^ 
 
 
 .^.<.N 
 
 
 
 
 '^-.^^" : 
 
 
 
 -r.c^' 
 
 .^^ % 
 # ^ 
 
 .^ ,^ 
 
 'Vr;'.>;--^^<--;',%''--^ot.^.;,; 
 
 
 -^^0^ 
 
 .^J^ 
 
 6 o^ 
 
 .^""^ 
 
 .^ ^- 
 
 
 
 ■^^<<^' 
 
 ^^\^ 
 
 
 0^ 
 
 ^^0^ 
 
 
 v/^^ 
 
 ^^0^ 
 
 ^^>^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^.^^ :iMM' \.,^^ :] 
 
 
 ^.^s-^- -<^ •,,'^^.^,#^ -^ %ym^^'^<,v -^ -^.-^ipr..,,,^. 
 
 
 
 . ■ -^,0^ 
 
 cP^,»r;'/-%. ^.^I'l'S^^ c^^^i':'.%. ^^.-v:^."^. 
 
 .r^c^^^^^ v^^.-y..%.'^^^^^ v\'';-o/%''^-'v\''\.-°.^%. -- V 
 
 
 
 
 SJ-> ^ 
 
 .V 
 
 '. V*^ :-«|^:^"'-^*^ * 
 
 
 rO' *- ^ "0^ ^<i 
 
 Sj.^' 
 
 ^ -^ %■ 
 
 rO^ *- 
 
 
 .f ^^ 
 
 o- ^^^^A, 
 

 ,^'' 
 
 ■f 
 
 
 .v' ^^ 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 020 678 791