SOCIAL DELUSIONS

CONCERNING

WEALTH AND WANT.

LONDON:

Printed by SPOTTISWOODE and Co.,

New-street-Square.

SOCIAL DELUSIONS

CONCERNING

WEALTH AND WANT.

BY

RICHARD JENNINGS, M.A.

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ;

AUTHOR OF "NATURAL ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.'

must
.

"He who loses himself in the details of the social mechanism, while he over-
looks those moral powers which give motion to the whole,
remain in total ignorance of those primary causes on which depend the pres
perity and the safety of nations."-DUGALD STEWART'S Lectures on Pic
Economy, vol. i. p. 17.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
1856.

232. c. 81.

PREFACE.

THERE is, perhaps, no more striking feature in the character of "England during the nineteenth century" than the marked regard which is everywhere evinced by the more prosperous, for the less advanced ranks of society. It is now generally conceded, that the condition of our working classes requires improvement, and it is agreed that the only question for consideration is, how this object can be best accomplished. Publications, sufficient in number to constitute a branch of literature, are devoted to the elucidation of "the condition of England;" schools, dispensaries, philanthropic societies of all kinds, are the theme of perpetual