James Haughton

“ All the authorities of learning, of science, and of experience are against the use of alcohol in any quantity, by men in health. It is appetite alone—treacherous appetite—that leads us astray. All who indulge in its use are injured both in body and in mind. The elevation of the working classes is hopeless until they are taught to overcome this fatal propensity, or until the legislature steps in and banishes the temptation. ”

“ One hundred and thirty thousand licensed houses in Great Britain, and probably twenty thousand in Ireland, in which the appetite for alcoholic poisons which madden and degrade, is kept alive by legislative sanction, are found too strong a counteractive force against the good influences of education and other benevolent labours of every kind. We must "take the bull by the horns," and banish the evil thing, and thus prove that we are in earnest, or the elevation of our working classes will be the work of future generations. If we lack the virtue, the honour will not be ours. ”

“ It in my conviction that ignorance is the chief cause of the many social and moral evils which interrupt human happiness, and retard the civilization of man. It seems to me that men act pretty generally up to their own ideas of duty. I do not apprehend that there is any very large amount of diabolical wickedness in the world. Men do wrong because their moral nature is neglected. ”

“ There is but one elevation for the labourer, and for all other men. The only elevation of a human being consists in the exercise, growth, energy, of the higher principles and powers of the soul. Whoever seeks truth with an earnest mind, no matter when or how, belongs to the school of intellectual men. The more of mind we can carry into toil the better. I am asked, whether I expect the labourer to traverse the whole circle of physical sciences? ”

“ Man's guide is a much higher and nobler faculty, which we call reason. But this faculty needs to be carefully educated; and because this necessary education is neglected, we are continually going astray and wandering out of the road to true happiness. Education of a high order is therefore the first matter to be attended to, if we would elevate ourselves and our working classes. Leave them in ignorance of the laws which govern their being, and they must ever remain at a low point in the social and moral scale. ”

“ It will be perceived, as far as I have now proceeded, that I think highly of education even in the common acceptation of the term, as a means of elevating the social and moral condition of our people.
I have shown that our criminals are drawn from among the least instructed of our population; which fact tells us plainly that, in contemplating the means of social and moral elevation, we should ever keep steadily in view the necessity of attending to the intellectual improvement of the people. ”

“ And again, "The liberal, the public-spirited, those who see in our public school system the great upholding principle of all our institutions, and the means of advancing the civilization of the race—who see in it both the conservative and the progressive principle of society—will advocate a generous appropriation." ”

“ A good deal of attention has, of late years, been given to an improvement in the habitations of the poor. This is a matter of vital importance; without it, their social and moral elevation is hopeless. Model lodging houses have been erected, and attention thus called to so desirable an object. I entertain a high respect for their projectors, but I doubt that they will ever prove extensively advantageous. The regulations by which they must be governed interfere too much with the freedom of action which is a great charm of life ”

“ Much has been attempted, and much has been done during the last fifty years, to improve the condition of our working classes. A deeper interest in their welfare has been manifested by those classes of society whom fortune and other circumstances surrounded with more of the comforts and luxuries of life. A better, a truer education of the wealthy, has taught them to acknowledge a closer tie of consanguinity with the poor ”

“ Our desire is, first to create a strong public opinion in favour of our views, and then to call on Parliament to embody and enforce the general sentiment, as it does under all similar circumstances, by prohibitory enactments, such as have been applied to lotteries, and other kinds of gambling, and to the removal of various other nuisances inimical to the well-being of society. In a word, to carry into effect this just principle of human action, all practices more injurious than beneficial to society should be given up, or, if need be, prohibited by law. ”

“ As our prison population alone affords us the measure of education, in the popular sense of the term, arrived at by our people, and as it is fair to assume from those data that improved intellectual powers do guard men against the tendency to commit crime, and thus prevent their social and moral depression, let us now contrast what we are doing to eradicate ignorance with the efforts made in other lands to guard against this evil. ”

“ It is a habit destructive of comfort and virtue; its injurious effects are patent to all men; and yet all, as if by common consent, avoid all allusion to it, even when they seem most earnest to improve the condition and elevate the character of their fellow men. This habit is the use of alcohol, which alike endangers the peer and peasant, the monarch and her subjects through all grades, down to the poorest wretch who ekes out a miserable existence from the most sordid occupations of humanity. ”

“ As a large proportion of our criminals are drawn from among our labourers and artizans, and from their children, who constitute a great proportion of the whole, these figures indicate to a great extent, the course we must pursue, if we would socially and morally elevate our working classes. We must educate them, or rather, we must strive to awaken such feelings in their souls, as would induce them to seek for the blessings of education for themselves and their children. ”

“ I wish some member of our Society, competent to do it full justice, would take up the subject, and enforce upon the consciences of all the social and moral wrong they are guilty of by their neglect of their duties in these respects. ”

“ These evils do not arise from want of means; for the well paid tradesman is little more attentive to these decencies of life, than the labourer who only earns one half or one third the wages. We must endeavour to implant the desire for comforts; to persuade the people that their health and their happiness would be largely encreased by such alterations in their mode of living. In order to effect this change in the habits of the poor, those in higher position must show a better example than they now do. ”

“ It seems to me that the true course to pursue is to instruct the people by writing and lectures, and in all our schools, on their real interests in this respect; and by legislative enactments to prevent the nuisance of overcrowded houses by a population regardless of pure air and cleanliness, who spread disease around them, and in other ways bring many evils on the community at large. ”

“ These are duties which I hold every man is bound, in honesty to his family and in moral responsibility to society, to perform, unless he have, by some other means, laid up a provision to supply the wants of those who in his lifetime look to him for their support. ”

“ In drawing attention to social and moral evils, with a view to their extirpation, it often seems to me that preachers and writers speak too much in general terms, and omit to point out particular evils, and to enforce the necessity of their abandonment by all. ”

“ The wealthy and intelligent are called on, in an especial manner, to relinquish their drinking habits, as the poor and uneducated look up to them for advice, and are guided in their moral habits by their example. ”

“ The moral advantages are largely in favour of those counties in which there are fewer facilities for obtaining strong drink, and in which school education is much less extended. Thus proving that, where the appetite for alcohol is most indulged, it counteracts the advantages of secular education, and even of religious instruction, which is imparted most freely where schools most abound. ”

“ When I say all, it is of course understood that I except that zealous band of teetotalers who are continually pointing out to men their folly with the voice of unanswerable truth, by the warnings of hoary experience, and from the unerring lights of science. ”

“ I have, in some of the previous essays which I have offered to our Society, pointed out from our Metropolitan Police returns, and from the Reports of our Inspectors General of Prisons, the intimate connexion which exists between ignorance and crime, and I now beg to draw your attention to some later statistics which exhibit like results. Crime, and social and moral degradation are in intimate relationship. ”

“ Our prisons are simply the barometers which indicate the upward or downward tendency of our population; for there is but a small minority of our people brought under the lash of the law. The millions are toiling industriously and honestly to obtain a living ”

“ Cleanliness, and sufficient accommodation in their houses for the purposes of decency and the needs of a higher civilization, are not yet felt as wants of their nature. It may be alleged, and alleged no doubt with much force, that some effort to create a feeling in their minds in favour of these aids to a higher civilization should be made, and that "model lodging houses" are a good move in that direction. ”

“ I doubt not that any influence they may exercise will be useful; but what extended beneficial results can we hope for from a few such establishments, erected at considerable cost, and not paying a sufficient rate of interest for the money expended to induce capitalists who deal with the working classes to embark in such speculations, in competition with benevolent parties who are careless of much profit on their investments? ”

“ I refer to the condition of the wives and daughters of our working classes. A great change in their habits and occupations must be effected, before the great purpose I have brought under your notice can be in any degree realized. Females should not be employed in sordid out-of-doors labour. In cities and towns their duties should consist in household affairs; the men should provide for the pecuniary wants of their families ”

“ Man, in one respect, is placed in a worse position, so far as regards his conduct in life, than the brute creation. These are guided by an unerring instinct, which seems to need little education to enable them rightly to perform the purposes of their creation. ”

“ Fire insurance is a means of guarding against distress and misery, which they seldom, I may almost say never, resort to; and life insurance is a provision which but few of them make for their families. ”

“ But when we compare our efforts with the efforts of the citizens of Massachusetts in a like direction, we shall see how far short, indeed, we fall, in our anxiety to provide for the intellectual culture of our people. ”

“ I have not before me, or very accessible at present, any documents showing the state of education in other European countries, but I apprehend it is a generally admitted fact, that education is much more diffused among the populations of many of them than it is with us, and I believe crime is also less prevalent. ”

“ Many of our labourers, and even of our tradesmen, who are in the receipt of tolerable wages, are quite content to live with their families in a single apartment, which suffices for meals and sleep, and for all their purposes of domestic economy. ”

“ No actual deficiency of food for support of our population has ever occurred; more grain being destroyed in our distilleries and breweries than would amply suffice for the supply of all our wants in our least productive seasons. ”

“ As eminent distiller once said to me, when I pressed on him these opinions, "We will place the folly of mankind against the wisdom of mankind, and we'll beat your teetotalers ten times over." Herein lies a great truth. ”

“ In these respects, however, they deserve but little censure from their more intelligent brethren, who are likewise very inattentive to the duty of thus guarding against calamity and making some provision for those who are dependent on them. ”