Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/367

Rh profit from the very life of the children. How hollow and untrue the whole thing was! As if there would have been a single worshiper of Moloch, whether he was parent or manufacturer, the less on the morrow; as if, by the mere idle method of holding some meetings, getting some votes together, and passing an act of Parliament, one fiber in the nature of the Moloch-worshipers would have undergone change! I say deliberately the idle method, because here is the root of the whole matter. All these official reforms are essentially idle. Is the nation to be sober? Pass an act of Parliament out of hand, and shut up the public-houses. Is it to be provident? Pass an act of Parliament and compel men to make provision for themselves. Is it to be intelligent? Pass an act of Parliament and harry the homes till every child is at school. Is it to consist of unselfish and devoted parents? Pass a factory act, and tie the hands of the parent so that he can no longer sell his child's labor. Nothing is required of us but to hold some enthusiastic meetings, make some speeches, write some letters to the "Times", and scrape votes enough together, and then all these great things shall be done. Happy world! How easily it is to be cured of its faults! We may now sink back contentedly into our arm-chairs for the rest of our life, enjoy the testimonials we received in the moment of enthusiasm, admire the statues that were gratefully raised to us, and reperuse our own speeches, as there remains nothing else for us to do in presence of the regeneration in human nature that our last batch of regulations has effected. In view of this modern plan of growing good in ten minutes, we disquieted ourselves very uselessly in past days about the amount of original sin in human nature and the ills and infirmities to which human flesh was heir. What fools men are not to enjoy perfect health, when Holloway's pills, Clarke's blood-mixture, and Eno's fruit-salts are to be had for the ordering; and what fools they are not to become sober, provident, intelligent, and unselfish, when all that is wanted is only to pass two or three acts of Parliament to provide them with the qualities wanted!

The word idle seems to me to suit the case with great nicety. Taking care of the people by acts of Parliament seems to me very like the care of the mother for her child who rings the bell at the Foundling Institution, places her child on the door-step, and then contentedly goes on her own way. Let us suppose that she is doing the best for her child, still the trouble on her part is short and soon over. The long, slow years of anxiety and labor that fall to other mothers will not be for her.

It all ended for her, fortunate woman, when she rang the institution-bell. In the same way the political philanthropist has learned to lay his burden with but short delay on other shoulders than his own. The world's troubles are but an easy nut to crack according to his creed. A new law, a new office in some public department, a new batch of officials, will cure all human perversities from the parent that