We say, think of these things--not as if they were the doings in England, and therefore legalised matters of course--but think of them as the arts of some despot in a far-off colony, and oh, how all hearts would burn--all tongues curse and call for vengeance on the abetors of such atrocities!
The supporters of the rights of man would indeed pour forth their eloquent denunciations against the oppressors of the absent. The poetry of passion would be exhausted to depict the frightful state of the crimeless and venerable victim of tyranny, bowing his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; while the wailing of the helpless innocents _different indeed in colour_, but in heart and spirit like ourselves, being sprung from the one great source, would echo throughout the land, and find responses in every bosom not lost to the kindly feelings of good-will towards its fellows! Had the would-be esteemed philanthropists but these "_foreign cues_ for passion," they would indeed
"Drown the stage with tears, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; Make mad the guilty, and appal the free; Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed, The very faculties of eyes and ears."
But, alas! there is no such motive; these most destitute of Destitution's children are simply fellow-countrymen and fellow-Christians. Sons of the same soil, and worshippers of the same God, they need no good works in the way of proselyzation to save them from eternal perdition; consequently they receive no help to keep them from temporal torture.
To convince themselves that these remarks are neither unwarrantably severe, nor in the slightest degree overcharged, let our readers not only refer to the revolting doings chronicled in the _Times_, but let them find the further illustration of this _foreign penchant_ in the recent doings at the magnificently-attended ball given in behalf of the _Polish Refugees_, and consequently commanding the support of the humane, enlightened, and charitable English; and then let them cast their eyes over the cold shoulder turned towards a proposition for the _same_ act of charity being consummated for the relief of the poverty-stricken and starving families of the destitute and deserving artisans now literally starving under their very eyes, located no farther off than in the wretched locality of Spitalfields! An opinion--and doubtless an honest one--is given by the Lord Mayor, that any attempt to relieve _their wants_, in the way found so efficacious for _the Polish Refugees_, would be madness, inasmuch as it would, _as heretofore_, prove an absolute failure. Reader, is there anything of the cuckoo and the sparrow in the above assertion? Is it not true? And if it is so, is it not a more than crying evil? Is it not a most vile blot upon our laws--a most beastly libel upon our creed and our country? Is no relief ever to be given to the immediate objects who should be the persons benefited by our bounty? Are those who, in the prosperity proceeding from their unceasing and ill-paid toil, added their quota to the succour of others, now that poverty has fallen on them, to be left the sport of fortune and the slaves of suffering? Do good, we say, in God's name, to all, if good can be done to all. But do not rob the lamb of its natural due--its mother's nourishment--to waste it on an alien. There is no spirit of illiberality in these remarks; they are put forward to advocate the rights of our own destitute countrymen--to claim for them a share of the lavish commiseration bestowed on others--to call attention to the desolation of _their_ hearths--the wreck of their comforts--the awful condition of their starving and dependent families--and to give the really charitable an opportunity of reserving some of their kindnesses for home consumption. Let this be their _just_ object, and not one among the relieved would withhold his mite from their suffering fellows in other climes. But in Heaven's name, let the adage root itself once more in every Englishman's "heart of hearts," and once more let "Charity begin at home!"