1819 June 1

Disfranchising

Disfranchising

§.5. Evil 4. Multiplying Country Gentlemen

11

7

3

Minds

cased

in bodies

Yes: Natural it is that among the higher orders – that is among those orders, in which {by the joint powers of overflowing opulence indolence, mental vanity[?], and overflowing opulence,} by the {by the overfulness of the purse operating on the emptiness of the head, and the rapacity of the appetite for money and the absence of social sympathy of sympathy for the sufferings of others} /keeness of the appetite for money operating in the midst of repletion on unfurnished heads and heads void of sensibility to the sufferings of others/ - men are in a particular /preeminent/ degree exposed to the assaults /temptations/ of vice in this shape, natural indeed it then that a law to this effect, established by a sort of inert compact, should have place. Natural as it is, by what circumstance /cause/ is it rendered so? In this there is no mystery. In this case the debtor can not continue his habits – can not preserve a place in the society which he has formed for himself, without encountering the reproaching visage of his creditor. in all other cases, a closed door has place between them: a door which of course the creditor finds always closed, and which by the force of factitious delay, vexation and expence, the man of law, in league with the high stationed swindler in whose sinister interest he has given himself a share has most elaborately and efficiently fortified against the hand of justice: and here we see one of the roots of the system of law-taxes and law-fees

Gaming it is true is a vice not in an exclusive degree peculiar to opulence in the shape of landed property: it is to a certain degree common to opulence in that particular shape, and opulence in any other shape in so far as it is conjoined with idleness. But of the whole mass of that opulence which is conjoined with idleness, the greatest portion by far is in the shape of landed property: the whole of that portion which occupies the summit of the scale: and it is only in so far as the opulence has place /wears/ in that permanent and domineering shape that the propensity to gaming finds itself in alliance with the propensity to those other vices which have their root, as above, in the abuse made of the faculties, which nature has bestowed upon dogs and horses.