SECOND BOOK.

COMPARATIVE SOCIAL ARCHITECTURE,

OR,

REMARKABLE ACCORDANCE AND STRIKING SIMILARITY OF THE OPINIONS OF CELEBRATED SOCIAL THEORISTS WITH THE COMMUNISTIC IDEAS ENTERTAINED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE SUBJECTS TREATED IN THE FIRST BOOK, AND TO BE RECONSIDERED IN THE SECOND.

PART I.

Social Criticism.

OF

CHAPTER I.-OF POVERTY.

F all the authors of the socialistic and communistic schools, none has been more logical, eloquent, and even sarcastic in treating of this subject of social criticism than Louis Blanc. In saying, "Properly speaking, there is but one cause of evils, and that is misery," he points out the way which all social reformers must follow, if they wish to succeed in the eradication of evil from society,-which, according to Louis Blanc's maxim, can only be done by the extinction of pauperism.*

Another of Louis Blanc's celebrated maxims on pauperism is that "whenever the certainty of living by labour does not follow from the very essence of social institutions, there iniquity reigns." The importance of this truth is of immeasurable influence on all those social reforms which tend to arrive at the extinction of poverty by the practical application of the biblical text that "he who does not work, neither shall he eat," or, what amounts to the same, that he who wishes to work shall find work, and live by it. In this latter sense Louis Blanc's maxim is an important emendation to Saint Paul's, and establishes the right of labour, which the state is in duty bound to render a reality.

The evil influences of poverty are thus described by Louis Blanc :-"Who knows not that poverty is night to the human mind, and confines education within the most disgraceful limits? Poverty incessantly counsels the sacrifice of personal

*Louis Napoleon was, in 1848, elected President of the French Republic, because his treatise "De l'extinction du pauperisme" had procured him the votes of millions of poor proletarians. But how cruelly did he betray them in 1852 !

dignity, nay, almost enforces it. Poverty renders dependent those characters which are independent by nature; thus converting a virtue into a new source of torment, and turning the native generosity of blood to bitterest gall. If poverty engenders suffering, it also engenders crime. If poverty leads to the hospital, it leads to the hulks also. Poverty makes slaves, and for the most part, thieves, assassins, and prostitutes.”

The kindred connection between poverty and crime was not even unknown to the ancients; for Plato speaks thus of it:— "In a state where you observe poor people, there are doubtless concealed thieves, cutpurses, sacrilegious persons, and workers of all such evils."

That the work of private and Christian charity is of so little avail against an overwhelming amount of pauperism is lamented by Louis Blanc in these words:" Private charity may prevent much suffering among the poor, but there will still remain thousands of persons who are in constant anxiety as to their food, clothes, and lodgings. How should this be? How in the midst of a boasted civilization does half the human race suffer this frightful humiliation, this protracted agony?"

Public charity and the support of the poor by the state, especially as practised in this country, Louis Blanc stigmatises in these sarcastic words :-" As there is no medium between feeding the paupers and killing them, the English legislators have chosen the former."

The righteous indignation which this great writer felt at the sight of so much misery arising from the existence of poverty, was still more increased when he contemplated the sad spectacle of mothers, through want of food, starving the fruit of their womb and the babes on their breasts. This induced him to say:-"No mother should be armed against the fruit of her bowels by the necessity of living."

The author of this book can bear witness to a sad fact of this kind; for he was once told by a Lancashire factory woman that as soon as she was able to get up after her confinement she was, through necessity, compelled to resume her work in the factory, and had to put her child out to another woman, who gave it suck by means of a bottle, whilst she (the mother herself) had such an abundance of milk that several times during the day she had to go aside in the factory, press

the milk from her breasts, and let it pour down the watercloset.

In the face of such and similar facts, it is no wonder that Louis Blanc passes the following severe condemnation on an apparent state of civilization, when polluted with these revolting evils, saying:-" Paris, the city of science and art, the radiant capital of the civilized world, exhibits faithfully all the hideous contrast of a boasted civilization. Superb prome

:

nades and muddy roads, glittering warehouses and gloomy workshops, theatres for singing and obscene places for weeping. In it are to be found the most horrible abominations and miseries of persons prepared for vice by ignorance, and driven into it by want; of the professional thieves, swindlers, prostitutes, and bullies; of an army of upwards of 60,000 ill-doers; of the lepers of the moral world, with fierce and bestial countenances, speaking a pestilent language unknown to decency; of orgies where in brutal quarrels blood is often mingled with wine."

In Fors Clavigera Mr. Ruskin gives a similar description of the vile and poverty-stricken aspect of London.

In condemning pauperism and advocating its extinction, social reformers have often to encounter the stubborn opposition of the Christian fanatics who regard poverty to be a more favourable state for the life of a true Christian than riches. This belief in the great advantage and merits of poverty is chiefly founded on two sayings of Christ-" Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;" and, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." On these words Roman Catholics founded their doctrine of voluntary poverty, disdaining the material welfare of mankind, even to the endurance of hunger, hair cloth and sandals, bad food, hard beds, and shorn heads.

Louis Blanc argues very successfully and effectively against this absurd doctrine, saying:-" Is it needful to declare that suffering (through poverty) is for ever sacred? Suffering was sacred in the apostle, who for the propagation of new ideas devoted himself to severe privations and nameless fatigues; it was sacred in the martyr, the enthusiastic and invinsible soldier of Christ: it could not be sacred either in the