And yet the business men of Boston complain that they have made no money for three years, and that they can't make any. How absurd that is, when they can pay such taxes as these! And then think what they do in Boston for the intellect (as it is called). While they stupidly complain that they can't make any money, they spend on their common schools every year--over two millions of good dollars (2,015,380)--and they teach what--what don't they teach? I counted, I think, _thirty-six branches_ as being taught in the Boston schools last year. "Art" and "culture," you know! And in those brutal old times of fifty years ago, they taught only the three R's. Unhappy and despicable! Did they not deserve it?
And then the generosity of these Boston merchants who can't, as they pretend, make anything. Look for a moment at that!
They paid in 1865 for the teaching of each one of those children those thirty-six branches, so necessary to salvation, the sum of $21.16; in 1875 the sum of $35.23. That is, they voluntarily and gladly paid somebody sixty-six per cent. more for their work in 1875 than in 1865, and all the while those merchants pretend they are making no money. Do they expect us to believe that?
If they want to make money, why not at once bring in more cheap labor? The Chinese are ready to come, and the negroes, even if Ireland can spare no more of her enlightened people. And then what a boon this class of people would be to our aspiring statesman. For the sum of two dollars they are entitled to vote, and then any man who feels a desire to be a governor or an M.C. can, by paying this paltry pittance, secure the votes of a grateful constituency. Is it not, therefore, our supreme duty to bring in this class of voters as rapidly as possible? We need _population_ and we need _voters_. England has a population of 389 to the square mile and we in Massachusetts have only 211! Should we not hide our faces with shame while such an inferiority lasts?
There are people now who are getting up a scare about the wonderful growth of the Holy Catholic Church, claiming that that church demands of all its members (as it does) allegiance _first_ to the Church, and then _second_ to the government where its subjects happen to be. I do not think much of this now that Antonelli is dead; but there may be something in it. I question whether Massachusetts can any longer put forth pretensions to being a Puritan or a Unitarian or religious State of any sort unless it be a Catholic one. Go with me to the U.S. census report of 1870: