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Article THE GENERAL ASSUEANCE ADVOCATE. ← Page 2 of 6 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The General Assueance Advocate.
There is a growing idea , great and noble in itself , whether it be technically false or true , that the duty of a government is to the full as great to direct and lead a people as to rule and coerce them ; that it is as onerous an obligation to prevent the seeds of crime from being sown by unfavourable outward conditions—by causes which produce both moral and physical degradationby dirtfoul airover work , idlenessand
, , , , ignorance—as to repress its practice , or to punish its commission . It is this idea which—as yet dimly and feebly expressed , large and powerful , but misty and undefined , scarcely knowing its own strength , or understanding its more ultimate tendencies—is working darkly in the public
mind , and has produced our recent social measures ; which is crying out for the schoolmaster rather than the gaoler—the schoolhouse rather than prisons or convict ships or penal settlements—for books rather than bayonets . It is this feeling which demands that the putrid and infected air of courts and alleys which produces physical decay , and , as a consequence , moral disorganization , which breeds at once disease and crime ,
shall be made pure at the public expense . It is this feeling which declares against the employment of children in factories or mines , and which says that civilization should not suffer men to' toil themselves into an indifference of all that is not material—into a forgetfulness of the finer feelings of humanity—into a state of body and mind which drives
them to debauchery to drown the remembrance of their hopelessness and their sufferings , and drags them miserably into premature graves . It is this feeling which has the effect of endeavouring to make law a system of social religion rather than a mere political code ; and from it we may expect greater and more searching effects than any we have yet experienced . The interference in the drainage , and the construction of our
streets , lanes , and alleys , may grow into a system of legislation having reference to the interior arrangements of our dwellings , and the regulation of the labour of the factory workers , may extend itself to other classes of operatives , as the opinion strengthens that the business of a government is to secure , not only the material prosperity , but the
physical well-being and the mental happiness of a community . Nay , if plagues , as of old , and the recurrence of which at certain intervals is too certainly suspected , should visit us ; and if , as is too probable , the difficulties which the concentration of masses , under our present system of civilization , impose upon us with regard to the means of providing labour , and the necessary supplies of food should increase , laws relating
to social and private matters will extend and ramify themselves in our statute-hooks in a manner yet unexpected , and will assume forms of interference with our daily habits and domestic arrangements , which the public mind is not prepared to anticipate , and which will be justified by principles not new but forgotten , which heralded the first advances of
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The General Assueance Advocate.
There is a growing idea , great and noble in itself , whether it be technically false or true , that the duty of a government is to the full as great to direct and lead a people as to rule and coerce them ; that it is as onerous an obligation to prevent the seeds of crime from being sown by unfavourable outward conditions—by causes which produce both moral and physical degradationby dirtfoul airover work , idlenessand
, , , , ignorance—as to repress its practice , or to punish its commission . It is this idea which—as yet dimly and feebly expressed , large and powerful , but misty and undefined , scarcely knowing its own strength , or understanding its more ultimate tendencies—is working darkly in the public
mind , and has produced our recent social measures ; which is crying out for the schoolmaster rather than the gaoler—the schoolhouse rather than prisons or convict ships or penal settlements—for books rather than bayonets . It is this feeling which demands that the putrid and infected air of courts and alleys which produces physical decay , and , as a consequence , moral disorganization , which breeds at once disease and crime ,
shall be made pure at the public expense . It is this feeling which declares against the employment of children in factories or mines , and which says that civilization should not suffer men to' toil themselves into an indifference of all that is not material—into a forgetfulness of the finer feelings of humanity—into a state of body and mind which drives
them to debauchery to drown the remembrance of their hopelessness and their sufferings , and drags them miserably into premature graves . It is this feeling which has the effect of endeavouring to make law a system of social religion rather than a mere political code ; and from it we may expect greater and more searching effects than any we have yet experienced . The interference in the drainage , and the construction of our
streets , lanes , and alleys , may grow into a system of legislation having reference to the interior arrangements of our dwellings , and the regulation of the labour of the factory workers , may extend itself to other classes of operatives , as the opinion strengthens that the business of a government is to secure , not only the material prosperity , but the
physical well-being and the mental happiness of a community . Nay , if plagues , as of old , and the recurrence of which at certain intervals is too certainly suspected , should visit us ; and if , as is too probable , the difficulties which the concentration of masses , under our present system of civilization , impose upon us with regard to the means of providing labour , and the necessary supplies of food should increase , laws relating
to social and private matters will extend and ramify themselves in our statute-hooks in a manner yet unexpected , and will assume forms of interference with our daily habits and domestic arrangements , which the public mind is not prepared to anticipate , and which will be justified by principles not new but forgotten , which heralded the first advances of