Royalty and Aristocracy are intensely—necessarily—and thoroughly selfish: and as for any anxiety on behalf of the toiling and suffering millions, the idea is absurd—the notion is a mere delusion—the assertion that such a feeling exists, is a lie—a monstrous, wicked, atrocious lie!
There is more of the milk of human kindness in a single cottage than in all the palaces of Europe taken together.
There is more true philanthropy in one poor man's hovel, than in a thousand mansions of the great and wealthy in the fashionable quarters of London.
Oh! if the father or the mother can dance and be glad while the children are famishing, the sooner all ties are severed between such worthless parents and such an oppressed and outraged offspring, the better!
Nero danced and sang on the summit of a tower at the spectacle presented to his eyes by burning Rome;—and festivity and rejoicing reign in our English palaces, at a moment when scarcity menaces the land with famine and its invariable attendant—pestilence!
People of England! ye now understand how much sympathy ye may expect on the part of those who derive all their wealth from the sweat of your brow!
People of Ireland! ye now comprehend how much pity your starving condition excites on the part of your rulers!
People of Scotland! ye now perceive how worthy the great ones of the realm are of your adulation!
But it is sickening, as it is sorrowful, to dwell on this subject. Some of our readers may perhaps ask us wherefore we broach it at all? We will reply by means of a few questions. Is not every individual member of a society interested in the welfare of that society? or ought he not at least to be so? Is he not justified in denouncing the errors or the downright turpitude of the magistrates whom that society has chosen to govern it, and who derive their power only from its good will and pleasure? or is it not indeed his duty to proclaim those errors and that turpitude? Should not this duty be performed, even if it be unpleasant? and can we ever hope to ameliorate our condition, unless we expose the abuses which oppress, degrade, and demoralise us?
Oh! let no one rashly and in a random manner say that he cares nothing about politics! Such an assertion denotes a wilful disregard not only of his neighbour's interests, but also of his own. Were all men to entertain such an indifference, the people would be the veriest slaves that an unrestrained despotism and an unwatched tyranny could render them. It is as necessary for the industrious classes to protect their rights and privileges by zealously guarding them, as to adopt precautions to save their houses from fire.