One cannot travel far without seeing that the British are a people most mindful of the unfortunate. These pretty homes of refuge and of rest we see scattered everywhere over the land, nor are they the least glorious of the many monuments of England's true worth.
A Mr. Ripley, of Lancaster, left his fortune for an orphanage, open to all orphan children born within fifteen miles of Lancaster. Three hundred are now provided for, but so rapidly has the fund grown that it has been found practicable to extend the boundaries of its beneficence, and children from distant Liverpool are now admitted. Bravo! Mr. Ripley. What is an earldom for your eldest son to this! His father's name will carry him farther with the best, and he should be prouder of it. Show me the earl who has done as much for his neighborhood!
Lancaster Castle is a noble one. Here John o' Gaunt hundreds of years ago put his finger upon the dire root of England's woes, as far as the land goes:
"This dear, dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now _leas'd_ out."
There you have it--this England is leased out. The soil is not worked by its owners, and never, till England changes its practice and can boast a peasant proprietary working its own acres in small farms, untrammelled by vicious laws, will she know what miracles can be wrought by those who call each little spot their own--their home. Englishmen are slow to change, but the day is not far distant when ownership of land will depend upon residence on it and its proper cultivation. Denmark's example will be followed. Cumulative taxes will be levied upon each number of acres beyond a minimum number, and large proprietors taxed out of existence as they have been in Denmark, to the country's good and nobody's injury. We tax a man who keeps racing-horses or who sports armorial bearings. It is the same principle: we can tax a man who keeps a larger amount of land than he can work to the State's advantage. The rights of property are all very well in their place, but the rights of man and the good of the commonwealth are far beyond them. I wish England would just let me arrange that little land matter for her. It would save her a generation of agitation.