This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 Excerpt: ... upon the parochial-minded disciples of the Birmingham school, who pretend that a nation can be very great abroad and yet very small at home!" Survey our Empire" is a noble line, and there is another about the Queen's morning drum which has a magnificent ring about it, and crops up in patriotic leading articles about ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 Excerpt: ... upon the parochial-minded disciples of the Birmingham school, who pretend that a nation can be very great abroad and yet very small at home!" Survey our Empire" is a noble line, and there is another about the Queen's morning drum which has a magnificent ring about it, and crops up in patriotic leading articles about twice a week all the year round. It is, however, just possible that the vast extent of British rule does not come home so pleasurably to my friend on the bridge as it does to the well-fed, prosperous citizen of Jingo proclivities who believes that Heaven's first command to an Englishman was, "Thou shalt remove thy neighbour's landmark." The poor wretch may "survey" his "empire" with a feeling of anything but contentment, and he may be tempted to wish that we had a little less empire to look after abroad in order that a little attention might be bestowed upon the place where charity begins. Even at the risk of being pronounced unpatriotic, I shall, therefore, maintain my contention that the greatest blessing of the poor is the hospital--that noble institution of which Englishmen of all classes and all creeds may reasonably be proud. Sickness, disease, and accident enter very largely into the annals of the poor. Overcrowding, and unsanitary dwellings--all the ghastly surroundings of poor life in a great city, which I have attempted feebly to describe in these papers--render the masses peculiarly susceptible to illness in every shape and form. Epidemics of some sort or other are rarely absent from the poorer districts, and many painful diseases and deformities are transmitted regularly from parent to child. To be sound of limb and well in health in these dens is bad enough, but the existence of an invalid un...
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