Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 5

vicissitudes of life, or the
profligacy of their parents, into a situation of want, wretchedness, and
despair.
Consider how, during the last half century, the people have been
brought together in the great manufacturing districts of England and
Scotland. So rapid has been the progress of manufacturing industry
during that period, that it has altogether out-stripped the powers of
population in the districts where it was going forward, and occasioned a
prodigious influx of persons from different and distant quarters, who
have migrated from their paternal homes, and settled in the

manufacturing districts, never to return.[5] Authentic evidence proves,
that not less than two millions of persons have, in this way, been
transferred to the manufacturing counties of the north of England
within the last forty years, chiefly from the agricultural counties of the
south of that kingdom, or from Ireland. Not less than three hundred and
fifty thousand persons have, during the same period, migrated into the
two manufacturing counties of Lanark and Renfrew alone, in Scotland,
chiefly from the Scotch Highlands, or north of Ireland. No such
astonishing migration of the human species in so short a time, and to
settle on so small a space, is on record in the whole annals of the world.
It is unnecessary to say that the increase is to be ascribed chiefly, if not
entirely, to immigration; for it is well known that such is the
unhealthiness of manufacturing towns, especially to young children,
that, so far from being able to add to their numbers, they are hardly
ever able, without extraneous addition, to maintain them.
[Footnote 5: Table showing the Population in 1801, 1891, and 1841, in
the under-mentioned counties of Great Britain.
Increase in 1801 1821 1841 forty years.
Lancashire, 672,731 1,052,859 1,667,054 994,323 Yorkshire, W.R.,
565,282 801,274 1,154,101 588,819 Staffordshire, 233,153 343,895
510,504 277,351 Nottingham, 140,350 186,873 249,910 109,560
Warwick, 208,190 274,322 401,715 193,155 Gloucester, 250,809
335,843 431,383 180,574
2,070,515 2,995,066 4,412,667 2,343,782
Lanark, 146,699 244,387 434,972 288,273 Renfrew, 78,056 112,175
155,072 77,016
224,755 356,562 590,044 365,289
--Census of 1841. Preface, p. 8 and 9.]
Various causes have combined to produce demoralization among the
vast crowd, thus suddenly attracted, by the alluring prospect of high
wages and steady employment, from the rural to the manufacturing
districts. In the first place, they acquired wealth before they had learned
how to use it, and that is, perhaps, the most general cause of the rapid
degeneracy of mankind. High wages flowed in upon them before they
had acquired the artificial wants in the gratification of which they could
be innocently spent. Thence the general recourse to the grosser and
sensual enjoyments, which are powerful alike on the savage and the

sage. Men who, in the wilds of Ireland or the mountains of Scotland,
were making three or four shillings a-week, or in Sussex ten, suddenly
found themselves, as cotton-spinners, iron-moulders, colliers, or
mechanics, in possession of from twenty to thirty shillings. Meanwhile,
their habits and inclinations had undergone scarce any alteration; they
had no taste for comfort in dress, lodging, or furniture; and as to laying
by money, the thing, of course, was not for a moment thought of. Thus,
this vast addition to their incomes was spent almost exclusively on
eating and drinking. The extent to which gross sensual enjoyment was
thus spread among these first settlers in the regions of commercial
opulence, is incredible. It is an ascertained fact, that above a million
a-year is annually spent in Glasgow on ardent spirits;[6] and it has
recently been asserted by a respectable and intelligent operative in
Manchester, that, in that city, 750,000 more is annually spent on beer
and spirits, than on the purchase of provisions. Is it surprising that a
large part of the progeny of a generation which has embraced such
habits, should be sunk in sensuality and profligacy, and afford a
never-failing supply for the prisons and transport ships? It is the
counterpart of the sudden corruption which invariably overtakes
northern conquerors, when they settle in the regions of southern
opulence.
[Footnote 6: ALISON _on Population_, ii. Appendix A.]
Another powerful cause which promotes the corruption of men, when
thus suddenly congregated together from different quarters in the
manufacturing districts, is, that the restraints of character, relationship,
and vicinity are, in a great measure, lost in the crowd. Every body
knows what powerful influence public opinion, or the opinion of their
relations, friends, and acquaintances, exercises on all men in their
native seats, or when living for any length of time in one situation. It
forms, in fact, next to religion, the most powerful restraint on vice, and
excitement to virtue, that exists in the world. But when several hundred
thousand of the working classes are suddenly huddled together in
densely peopled localities, this invaluable check is wholly lost.