And statistics prove that
those who are poor through cowardice and negligence outnumber ten
times those who are poor through accident or mischance.
Far be it from me to challenge this observation, the truth of
which is demonstrated by too many facts, and which, moreover, has
received the sanction of the people. The people are the first to
accuse the poor of laziness; and there is nothing more common
than to meet in the lower classes men who boast, as if it were a
title of nobility, that they have never been in the hospital and
in their greatest distress have never been recipients of public
charity. Thus, just as opulence avows its robberies, misery
confesses its shame. Man is a tyrant or a slave by will before
becoming so by fortune; the heart of the proletaire is like that
of the rich man,--a sewer of boiling sensuality, the home of
crapulence and imposture.
Upon this unexpected revelation I ask how it happens, if man is
good and charitable, that the rich calumniate charity while the
poor defile it? It is perversion of judgment on the part of the
rich, say some; it is degradation of faculties on the part of the
poor, say others.
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