The Native American

EFFECT OF THE POOR LAWS IN ENGLAND UPON THE DOMESTIC VIRTUES.

To us in the United States, it will seem incomprehensible how any laws, intended to relieve the sufferings of humanity, can operate so as to multiply the number of cases, even at the expense of all that modesty holds dear.

In this land of morals, where if the aggregate are not so devout as the few, there is a general system of ethics which sets a high value upon the proprieties of life, that makes all men esteem virtue and strive more or less to encourage its growth, we hear with surprise of a nation that feeds its paupers and corrupts its matrons.

The following is an extract from the official report of Mr. Cowell, the Poor Law Commissioner, published by authority of Parliament in 1833. From this it will be seen what sort of mothers and daughters are sent us from the overgrown population of Great Britain to mingle and take rank with the pure, delicate females of our own land.

Little do those daughters of our countrymen, in whom delicacy and purity have been inculcated for generations, until it has become part of their very natures, think or know how much of the lees and dregs of life are thrown among them when these foreign daughters of Eve are permitted to mingle in their society or take part or lot in their doings. If for no other reason than to keep our own women unfamiliar with the forms of vice, we ought to raise our hands and our voices to repel this tide of degradation that pours in every ship upon our land.

"It may safely be affirmed" (says Mr. Cowell) "that the virtue of female chastity does not exist among the lower orders of England, except to a certain extent among domestic female servants, who know that they hold their situations by that tenure, and are more prudent in consequence. Among the residue, all evidence goes to prove that it is a nonentity.

"A daughter grows up—she learns what her mother was, sees what her sisters and neighbors are: finds that nobody thinks the worse of them, and that nothing is expected of herself, and that there is a short road to marriage or a maintenance.

"The English law has abolished female chastity, self-respect, proper pride, and all the charities of domestic life derived from and connected with its existence. It has destroyed, likewise, the beneficial influence which this virtue in women reflects on the character of men."

That this picture cannot be overdrawn, is clear from its having received the sanction of all the overseers of the poor, and having been alluded to by legislators of England as showing the actual condition of one class of their community.

It would not be our desire to find such a blot upon the escutcheon of any nation; but as it exists, and is portrayed by themselves, on themselves be the blame and with themselves remain the vice.