Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/45

Rh can more distinctly get at the facts. In tho war with disease which mankind is waging, the poor stand in front of the fire, and are mowed down without pity!

Of late years, in Boston, there has been a gradual increase in the mortality of children. I think we shall find the increase only among the children of the poor. Of course it depends on causes which may be removed, at least modified, for tho average life of mankind is on the increase. I am told, I know not if the authority be good, that mortality among the poor is greater in Boston than in any city of Europe.

Of old times the rich man rode into battle, shirted with mail, covered and shielded with iron from head to foot. Arrows glanced from him as from a stone. He came home unhurt and covered with "glory." But the poor, in his leathern jerkin or his linen frock, confronted the war, where every weapon tore his unprotected flesh. In the modern, perennial battle with disease, the same thing takes place; the poor fall and die.

The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They are ignorant, not from choice but necessity. They cannot, therefore, look round and see the best way of doing things, of saving their strength, and sparing their means. They can have little of what we call thrift, the brain in the hand for which our people are so remarkable. Some of them are also little by nature, ill-born ; others well born enough, were abandoned in childhood, and have not since been able to make up the arrears of a neglected youths. They are to fight the great battle of life, for battle it is to them, with feeble arms. Look at the houses they live in, without comfort or convenience, without sun, or air, or water; damp, cold, filthy, and crowded to excess. In one section of the city there are thirty-seven persons on an average in each house.

Consider the rents paid by this class of our brothers. It is they who pay the highest rate for their dwellings. The worth of the house is often little more than nothing, the ground it covers making the only value. I am told that twelve or fifteen per cent, a year on a large valuation is quite commonly paid, and over thirty per cent, on the